How do I tell my mother she has terrible table manners?

1 week ago 17

Danny Katz

Q: My mother, now in her 80s, taught us good table manners. However, she now talks with her mouth full. What do I say? S.A., Hunters Hill, NSW

Photo: Illustration by Simon Letch

A: Parents are such hypocrites. When we were kids, they banned us from watching mindless TV shows because it was killing our brains – but then they got older and now they spend every night of the week watching mindless TV shows about crime-solving vicars in quaint English villages where old ladies keep showing up dead with their bunions stuffed into their own earholes.

When we were kids, they forced us to walk around with our backs straight – but then they got older and now they walk around with their torsos folded in half and their shoulders bumping against their kneecaps. When we were kids, they taught us not to waste water – but then they got older and now they empty a dam a day, mostly from running the bathroom tap at full blast as a “noise-masker” every time they use the toilet. And when we were kids, they were fanatical about good table manners – but like your mum, they got older and now they eat open-mouthed, talking at the same time, so it’s like staring into the goopy, gaping gullet of that flap-faced monster on Stranger Things.

So what do you do? Maybe it’s time for the kid to become the parent. Tell your mum to sit up, elbows off the table, take smaller bites, chew with her mouth closed, swallow before speaking – and if she does this every meal for a month, you’ll buy her an annual BritBox subscription so she can watch unlimited, crime-solving capers in small, rural villages where groundskeepers are being found clubbed to death with a cuckoo clock.

Danny Katz is a columnist for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. He writes the Modern Guru column in the Good Weekend magazine. He is also the author of the books Spit the Dummy, Dork Geek Jew and the Little Lunch series for kids.