Expose Children To New Ideas, Attitudes

Dear Miss Manners: From what I see happening in my community, the refusal to do favors without compensation is only going to increase.

The public schools and many of the private schools require that community service hours be completed before a student may be graduated. I am involved in one of the community organizations certified by the school system to grant the time. We have not been overwhelmed with volunteers, and once the hours have been completed, the students are not seen again unless we offer a salary.

In the surrounding areas without this “volunteer” requirement they are able to staff a similar program with a full volunteer staff.

Interestingly, our community also has an active community service program in place for juvenile offenders in lieu of jail time.

A related development is that service hours are also required for a variety of religious advancements. I was pleased when my child decided to volunteer for an activity involving 80 hours during the summer. Because he will be marking a religious milestone next school year, we checked on the documentation requirements for the service component.

I was shocked and saddened to find that they would only let him use a small fraction of this time to meet the “volunteer” service requirements. The activities which are “mandated” for service are, to my eye no, more worthy or soul enhancing than those which have been freely selected.

Now a child who was looking forward to cheerful volunteerism is dreading the enforced hours which will be needed to meet the requirements. Is it any wonder that people do not freely serve?

Gentle Reader: Like you, Miss Manners remembers when voluntary service was something for which people volunteered, rather than were sentenced to do.

But a lot has happened since then, notably the attitude that it is foolish to work for free. It is not only modern greed that created this, but a long-term general dismissal of the value of volunteer work because it was done by unsalaried women.

Surely the function of a mandatory educational system is to expose the young to ideas, fields, attitudes and information they might not otherwise encounter, or might even take pains to avoid. No doubt many of them do as little as possible for the service requirement and resolve never to return - but isn’t that true of much else they are supposed to be learning?

The implementation of this may seem rigid, although Miss Manners can easily imagine why it might be unfeasible for young people to choose their own places of service - the problem of checking out the organization, for example, or the problem in checking out the child’s idea of charity. But Miss Manners suggests you regard this practice charitably because of the worthiness of the idea.

She assures you that in the etiquette business, we believe it is better for people to do the right thing because they feel coerced into doing it than to allow them to act only as they sincerely wish, and hope for the best.

Dear Miss Manners: I have noticed couples in church where the male puts his arm around the female. Some even slouch back and cross their legs.

Why does this bother me? It makes me feel as though we were at a sporting event or theater.

I thought that protocol is to focus our attention on the altar and the celebration of the Mass. I find their conduct distracting. Why this display of affection in church? What do you think?

Gentle Reader: Miss Manners thinks you have mistaken very minor posture problems for displays of affection. The solution, she believes, would be to understand that a church is not a theater or sporting event and to focus your attention on the altar and the celebration of the Mass.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Judith Martin United Features Syndicate