People No Longer Respect Each Other

This morning as I left my house to go to class, I realized that people are just not friendly anymore. I am not sure when this began to take place, but I have just recently began to pay attention to the habits of those around me. When you open your eyes and ears to the actions of other people, you begin to notice that, even though there are still nice people out there, most people are selfish and rude.

Here are some examples:
This morning I stopped into a store to get a cup of coffee on my way to school. I was kind of in a hurry, but I still waited patiently as the cashier completely ignored me and chatted on her cell phone. After a couple of minutes, I made a noise to let her know that I was waiting. She responded with a dirty look and a finger in the air telling me to wait. Finally, three minutes later, she began to ring up my coffee. she didn't bother to offer an apology or anything. Still, I smiled and asked "How are you?" I got no answer. Her only response was "That will be $1.55." I handed her the money, got my change, and told her to have a nice day. As I walked out of the store I tried to tell myself that perhaps she was just having a bad morning, but I knew that this was not the case because this same scenario occurs every morning. Sometimes she is on her cell phone, other times, she will talk to other employees and not even acknowledge the customer. I often wonder how she is able to hold on to her job.

In school, there is another student who acts as if common courtesy does not apply to her. She is rude to other students, teachers, and anyone else who crosses her path. She curses as if she is not in a classroom, talks back to authority figures, and she is extremely loud and obnoxious all the time. One time there was another student using the computer that she is normally using. One of the teachers instructed her to do this because her computer was being scanned at the time. So the "rude" student comes into the room and has a fit because her computer was occupied by the other student. She threatened to harm her physically if she did not get out of the seat immediately. When she explained that she was instructed to sit there by the teacher, the response she got was "I don't care who told you to sit there, you better get out NOW!"

It amazes me how adults can act in such a way.

So why is it that these people lack the manners that are necessary in order to show others respect? My theory is that people are products of their environment. You can usually tell the people who have had little or no childhood discipline by the way that they present themselves in their adult lives. Parents need to instill proper manners and respect toward others while they are children so that it will carry on with them forever.
It is a parent's responsibility to correct rude behavior. If they allow bad behavior to continue without discipline, then how will the child ever learn right from wrong?

Why is it that rudeness tends to occur more these days than it did decades ago? I feel that it is because certain disciplines have been deemed as child abuse. When our grandparents were little, it was perfectly normal for them to receive a spanking, even a beating, for misbehaving. Back then, children wouldn't dare interrupt an adult while they were speaking, disrespect their teacher, or act rude in public. Even when I was a child back in the 80's, if we acted badly in school, the principal would paddle us. Now that I am an adult, I think back to those days and I realize that those paddlings did not destroy me. In fact, they have made me a better person.

Now, no physical punishment is allowed in school. It is against the law for a teacher to put their hands on a child, no matter how bad they act. This leaves the teacher with her hands tied and the child knows that he/she can act in any way and the worst that will happen is suspension from school. (Which is a vacation to the child, actually.)

If the teacher calls the parent for a conference, more than likely the parent is annoyed from having to miss a day of work, and acts rude towards the teacher for singling out her kid. How are children supposed to learn right from wrong in this type of environment?

These days, there are more single parent households, leaving the parent to have to work more hours to make ends meet, and children are unsupervised more often. It makes it hard for parents to instill values in their children, and when they do finally show discipline, the child just rebels because he knows that all he has to do is call 911 and the parent will go to jail for child abuse.

Then, when the child acts up in public, it is the parent's fault.

I am not an advocate for child abuse and I am in no way stating that it is okay to beat a child. However, a smack on the butt never hurt anyone. I believe that if the laws were more relaxed on discipline at home, as well as in schools, but strengthened to those who actually do abuse them, then children would grow up with more respect and we wouldn't see the rudeness that occurs daily in the world today.