Good Table Manners?

[l_h_kings]

Do the traditional table manners which dictate what order food is offered/served to people, ie by sex and by age cause offense to anyone else - or am I just being petty?

Sexism and Ageism have serious consequenses in our workplaces and in society in general, so why is it OK to enforce it in a domestic environment?

When at my Mother's, being the youngest of 3 daughters, I'm fed up of my husband always being last in line. He is very polite but not used to formality and I feel uncomfortable when he is always asked last, as if my mother respects him less than her other Sons-in-Law.

Being the youngest of the family, I think years of always being asked last and considered last, in attempt to promote good manners left me feeling inadequate and less important, and therefore as an adult I am shy and lacking confidence. When I have said this to my Mum she has just laughed at me and said 'that's what happens when you are the youngest.'

[don1]

Good table manners is when everyone is treated equally, being the youngest doesn't make you a third class citizen, but that is in my culture, you dont say where you are from, perhaps where you are from that is how it is.

[rojash]

No offence IHK, but your mum sounds a bit strange to me - I wonder where she got this idea that a person gets respected according his/her spouse's age relative to that of their siblings?

She's not a member of the Royal Family, is she?

[littlemissx]

to be fair my mum used to do the same she'd serve my dad first then work her way through us it was just her way of being organised.... i dont think its strange though. now as adults it tends to be men first

[woofgang]

How strange, No I_h_kings, this isn't a common form of good manners in English families....at least not since the days of Jane Austen!

[joko]

my dad once said to me that my brother gets special treatment because he is the eldest and my sister gets special treatment because she is the youngest, the baby, of the family - there are only 3 of us!!!

I told him that may work with your family (there were 10 of them) but in this case all it actually means is the middle child gets left out!! he hadn't even thought of it! I have always been treated differently and its wrong - balls to nonsense etiquette - its outdated and just plain rude

[gw1]

It was traditional to serve men first at the table, as the idea was to get them back out into the fields to thrash corn or harvest barley (or whatever country working men worked at)!!! You don't want them hanging around waiting for women to be served!

[sense4all]

Whatever happened to guests first? Unless you still live at home, shouldn't she be one of the last? I have to say that we eat according to strict Darwinian principles, the survival of the fittest. Is that not why forks have prongs: to disable the opposition?