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A Mouthful of Peas
Teaching the Bad Manners Game
By Lisa Cohn
According to the laws of the Bad Manners Game, each diner takes a turn displaying bad manners, and then the whole family participates in a scholarly discussion about which rules were abrogated.
Here's how it went the first time we participated with Allison:
My stepdaughter, Emily, now age 14, spouted out a few nouns and verbs while munching on a forkful of spaghetti.
"It's bad manners to talk with your mouth full," said Chris, now age 11.
"That's right," said Bill, assuming the attitude and tone of Mike Brady, the all-knowing dad of the old Brady Bunch TV series. "If you talk with your mouth full, people will see what's inside your mouth. And it won't look very appealing."
"You mean like this?" offered Travis, extending his pea-laced tongue.
Allison roared with laughter.
Bill embraced the opportunity to remind Travis that he was breaking two rules: talking with his mouth full and speaking out of turn.
I asked Allison what Travis did wrong.
"He was too funny," she said. "That's bad manners."
"Hmmm," I said. "Let's try again. Chris, it's your turn."
Chris smiled mischievously, then murmured the words to "Johnny Appleseed."
"Oh the lord is good to me..." he began.
"You can do better than that!" shouted Travis. He jumped onto his chair and launched into the unedited version of a hip-gyrating, shoulder-shirking rap song that Bill had banned from our household.
"That's Eminem's song!" shouted Allison. "I know the words!"
"Travis..." warned Bill, offering him a Mike Brady expression Travis knew only too well.
