Yes Ma’am

As a mother of two very young kids, I was always trying to teach my children good habits. One of these was to say “yes ma’am, no ma’am, yes sir, and no sir”—to show respect to adults. I don’t know if addressing adults this way is mostly a southern custom or if it is common to most people. But to me it was important, and for some reason, I was having trouble making it stick.  

I tried the usual methods of training. I instructed. I corrected. I sat kids in time out to give them time to think about it. And I also tried having them repeat “Yes ma’am” to me if they had failed to do so before. 

One day, we were about to go to a neighborhood Christmas party and I suddenly felt the weight of my failure to instill this habit in my kids. I sat them down and gave them a talk. I told them what I expected to hear at the Christmas party. If I heard an adult asking them a question, I expected to hear yes or no ma’am and yes or no sir and I expected to hear it a lot! They could tell I was dead serious. They both looked at me and said, “Yes ma’am.”

I felt pretty confident walking into that Christmas party—pretty certain my kids were going to demonstrate excellent manners. As I was serving myself a little plate of Christmas cookies, I saw an elderly man come up to my oldest daughter and begin a conversation. It went something like this: “So, are you excited about Christmas coming up, young lady?” asked the man. “Yes, sir. I am, sir. Thank you for asking, sir,” my daughter answered, as I began to feel my face heating up slightly. “What a well-mannered little girl you are,” the man remarked. “Thank you, sir,” said my daughter. “Are you hoping for anything special from Santa this year?” asked the man. “Well, sir,” said my daughter. “There are a few things, sir. I’d love a new nutcracker, sir and I’m also hoping for some books, sir. Yes, sir, those are some of the things I’m hoping for, sir.” 

And that’s how the Christmas party went. So, apparently the habit had been established at last. More thoroughly than I had ever dared to hope.

~Amy