IF YOU do not want the world to discipline your child the way it finds fit, then please discipline your child before you release the monster to the world, because, honestly, we do not care if your child will be bruised and torn for being the uncouth person he/she grows up to be.
They are not our children, all we care is that he/she is well-mannered when he/she crosses our lives. She or he can be rude at home, with your own tight family, just make sure the kid doesn't cross our paths because rudeness has no place in our own world, unless provoked.
At the Dumaguete airport, as I was arising to join my companions when boarding for our Manila flight was called, a young boy, maybe around 10, brushed past despite that I was holding my trolley bag and was about to roll it toward the back. It was a tight walking space between those steel airport seats, but he just squeezed past me and my trolley without saying, “Excuse me.”
One thing I never let pass, bad manners among the young, and so I told him: “Excuse me!”
“Next time, learn to say excuse me,” I said.
“Sorry,” he said.
I thought that was the end of it. A lesson was imparted and accepted, but guess what? The mother, who apparently never taught her son to excuse himself shouted from across the pre-departure area, saying, “Huwag mong pagagalitan ang anak ng iba ha (Never scold a child who is not yours)!”
“I was just teaching him manners,” I replied in a voice just as loud. She went on shouting. I closed my ears as my companions told me she's not worth the bother.
Indeed, I have said my piece across a jampacked room. “I am teaching your son some manners,” and that message has been heard by all.
As I was rushing to the transfer desk, a woman who was rushing with me glanced and said, “Ikaw man yung sinigawan nung babae kanina 'no?”
I smiled and said yes, and it was apparent that she was siding with me.
I rest my case.
Dear parents,
Good manners and right conduct is still the criteria that the world will judge you and your children. Please do not pass on the burden and aggravation to us.