I always use cloth napkins.
Well, I put them on the table.
Not that the boys ever used them. So they didn't need washing often.
The hardest training we did was table manners. There is some genetic resistance to it in boys. A kid who can memorize a script in one hour can't remember after 18 years of training to put a napkin in his lap.
He ignores it and when it's brought to his attention ("Loook, Honey, what's that piece of cloth under your fork?"), he appears puzzled and dismayed, as if I had carelessly left a dustcloth on the table and should be embarrassed.
He still holds his fork the way he did when he was two, in his fist. And you can count on hearing Dan say at least once every meal, "Chew with your mouth shut."
They are strangely incapable of finding the sink from the table, a distance of 10 feet.
Yet I hear glowing reports from other mothers that when my boys eat at THEIR homes, they hold the chair for their hostess, clear the table, eat everything they're served, and thank them profusely. Ammo once told my best friend, Jan, that the meal she served was the best meal he'd ever had. I said, "Wow, what did you make?"
"Macaroni and cheese from a box," she said.
Last year before the prom banquet, Ammo proudly announced that a bunch of guys came to him and asked him to go over table manners with them.
Three hundred large teenage boys eating like Ammo is a sight I am delighted I didn't have to witness. |
