A cultural divide

Geography does make a difference. At least in one respect. I have noticed over the months I have lived in New York that children here in the North have shocking manners, compared with their Southern counterparts. And I am not speaking of impoverished, disadvantaged children -- I haven't encountered too many of those kind, so I can't really speak of them. These are children of educated, affluent parents, children with advantages, who can confidently expect to go to the best colleges and get good jobs without a terribly heroic effort. They speak to their parents without respect, mumble, reject food served to them, ignore the minimum social graces. (The only exceptions to this I have observed are children of foreigners.)

You might say, they are just children (or teenagers) -- what else can you expect? The parents seem to be saying this, with a certain roll of their eyes. Just kids.

Perhaps I would have thought the same, had I not lived so long in the South, where parents still drill certain habits into their children with a persistance that is relentless and that seems almost brutal, when you are are watching the process under way, for example in toddlers. The quaint, charming custom (or so it seemed to me at the time) of insisting that unrelated adults be addressed with a courtesy title plus their first name, for instance. The ignoring children who break into adult conversations unless they ask for permission to interrupt. Now I am seeing the results of not doing all this, and it is rather distressing. And I wonder, is this a Northeastern thing? Are the children of Colorado raised any better?