What It’s Like to Send Your Kid to Main Line Etiquette Class

Etiquette Class / Photograph by Dan Saelinger

It was a gorgeous fall day in Philadelphia — crisp and clear, the sort of day that puts you in a great mood. Only I wasn’t in a great mood, because we were running late for our first etiquette class, and we were stuck with the rest of humanity in the least civilized place in the world — the Schuylkill Expressway on a Friday afternoon.

Where we needed to be was in Wayne, at the Saturday Club — the headquarters of the eponymous 137-year-old women’s organization that was going to teach my nine-year-old son some social graces, like how to introduce himself properly, accept a compliment gracefully, and eat spaghetti without leaving the table looking like a Jackson Pollock painting. Instead, there we were, crawling around the Conshohocken Curve, my kid chomping noisily on a stick of turkey jerky while I swore under my breath at all of these effing clueless Jersey drivers, can you just get out of the way you stupid bleeping piece of …

It’s not the most auspicious beginning to a story about manners, but then, this is Philly — the rudest city in America, according to a much-publicized survey from e-learning company Preply that made the rounds last fall. Like many Philadelphians, I take issue with this distinction. (Clearly, Preply hasn’t spent enough time in Boston, yo.) But I couldn’t stop thinking that in this era of post-COVID resocialization, maybe we could use a brush-up on our manners. I’m not talking about the boobirds or any of the usual tired old Philly takedowns. But have you flown lately? (I have! The man next to me spent the flight spitting liquefied chewing tobacco into an empty Pepsi bottle.) Been to a grocery store? (Grocery employees, the Inky reported last year, were facing mental-health challenges en masse thanks to swarms of increasingly rude shoppers.) Dined out? (Remember the lady who pulled a gun because someone cut the line at the Five Guys at the King of Prussia mall?)

Obviously, it’s not just us. Last year, I read in Time magazine about a Cleveland clinic that saw a 1,200 percent spike in “behavioral contracts” handed out to churlish patients. (The headline of that story? “Why Everyone Is So Rude Right Now.”) It also noted a restaurant in Massachusetts that “felt obliged to close for a day to give its employees time to recover from the impoliteness of the guests,” a tidbit that brought to mind a call I made to British Airways’ customer-service line (for a matter unrelated to the chewing tobacco). Instead of a person, I got a recording informing me that to “protect the well-being” of its employees, the airline required all communication to take place via an online form. Humanity simply got to be too much to take.

Why is everyone so rude right now? The Time journalist pointed to COVID and its effects — the anxiety, the fear, the ever-evolving rules of a changing world and so forth. I’m sure these have all played a role, but truth is, we were on the decline as far as civility goes long before the pandemic. At least, that’s what most of us (74 percent!) believe, according to a 2016 study from the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center. We curse more, the poll showed; our phone etiquette sucks; we vote for barbarians, even as a majority of us think incivility in politics is a problem. And surely you’ve seen the myriad think pieces decrying communication skills (devolving), debates (abusive), dress (sloppier). Just look at Philly: We used to be Grace Kelly. Now, we’re Gritty. (Sorry, Gritty! Love ya, guy!)

But however widely acknowledged the deterioration of decorum may be, it’s not top of mind for most of us. When I mention to friends that I’ve enrolled Luke in etiquette class, I hear the surprise in their voices: Wow, really! Huh. It’s possible they don’t realize that, like potty-training and nightly meal prep, you can pay to outsource this tedious parenting chore. But could that also be a bit of judgment I detect? I get it, if so. I have reservations, too. At a moment when we as a people agree on virtually nothing, what can of worms does one open by talking about good manners? You know: “good” according to whom? Who gets to decide? Is this classist? Elitist? Problematic in some way I haven’t even considered? Probably.

More than that, though, is the practicality of it all, and the vast number of other, more vital lessons I might be pouring into my son to better ready him for the future — like how to avoid cryptocurrency, maybe, or desalinate water. What I’m saying is that outside of meeting royalty or your future in-laws, it can be pretty hard to pin down the role that etiquette plays in 2023. Do nice manners still matter in this world of ours, or is teaching your kid to contemplate handshakes and salad forks akin to breaking out the violins on the Titanic?

Sword-fighting with your butter knife is still generally frowned on in a formal setting, but since the diners (duelers) are a bunch of antsy third- and fourth-­graders waiting for bread to butter, the adults at etiquette class go easy on them. “Let’s just put down our knives for now,” one of the volunteer teacher aides suggests cheerfully.

Moments later, the sunny, high-­ceilinged ballroom inside the Saturday Club is abuzz as 38 children between the ages of eight and 10 begin tearing off small bits of dinner roll, as instructed by the teacher of the course, a 30-something woman named Emily Krawzyk. They swipe each bite gently — well, some more gently than others — with butter from their bread plates, then chew (“Mouths closed, everyone!” Krawzyk chimes) and swallow before repeating the process.

This is their third in a series of four classes. The first two covered social ­etiquette — how to accept compliments, how to graciously receive a gift, how to shake hands correctly. (“It should be webbing to webbing,” my child explains to me after class, a description I would find grotesque if I weren’t so impressed by his grip, which has suddenly morphed from third-grader to third-year law student.) Now they’re delving into the world of proper, civilized dining etiquette.

Disclaimer: This isn’t as fancy as it sounds. The kids are seated around seven tables decked out in green vinyl cloths; the plates are paper; the knives are the kind that look like silverware but are really plastic. In the bright light of the afternoon, even the Saturday Club ballroom — a popular wedding venue when etiquette class isn’t happening — feels more friendly than formal, with a vaulted wood-beamed ceiling, a few brass chandeliers, a stage with a baby grand and an American flag, and hardwoods that look original to the 124-year-old building.

The women’s organization behind this class, established in 1886, is even older than its headquarters. (And the headquarters — a quaint-looking Tudor modeled on, of all things, Shakespeare’s house in Stratford-upon-Avon — is on the National Register of Historic Places.) Over its nearly 14 decades, the club has become something of a Main Line institution. Members twice turned their headquarters into a hospital when ­needed — once for 1918 flu victims and once during World War II. They campaigned for child labor laws at the turn of the century; they raised money for French orphans in World War I; they founded the town’s first kindergarten.

The Saturday Club today is a bit of a throwback — like the Junior League, it’s a women’s club whose raison d’être is community service. And while, as president Anne Pratt says, many of the 100 or so members will tell you they joined in part to make friends, these women really do get out and serve, volunteering at various nonprofits throughout the year, raising money and giving out significant grants to ­women- and family-focused organizations, running a popular program for young people who are into community service.

They don’t consider etiquette class one of their services to the community at large, shockingly. (Have you ever watched a nine-year-old boy eat?) Instead, the club uses the series as one of a handful of regular fund-raisers that subsidize their charitable endeavors. They’ve been doing this since the 1960s, although until this year, etiquette training was part of a six-week cotillion program, complete with white gloves, waltzing and the foxtrot — an old-fashioned Main Line tradition. Its popularity has ebbed and flowed over time, Pratt says, and after a two-year COVID-driven hiatus, the club decided to bring the class back last fall — although this time, it would look different. A bit more modern. “Less men holding doors, more not answering your cell phone at the table,” as Pratt puts it. Also: no dancing. (These updates feel apt. While the club might be a throwback, its members are not.)

Now, Etiquette 2.0 spans four sessions and runs $250 per student. (Some scholarships are offered through the club’s ways and means committee.) Classes are a child-friendly one hour in length except for the fourth, which is a three-course dinner held at the tony St. David’s Golf Club. Part lesson, part celebration, the final dinner also includes parents, who can bask in the glow of their progeny’s politesse. Or at least, that’s the goal.

Now, as the children break bread for practice in the Saturday Club ballroom, Krawzyk is walking among them, voice raised slightly to be heard above the chatter and chewing. Tall and slender, with long sandy-brown hair, she has the bearing of a dancer and the brisk efficiency of a CEO who happens to know a lot about American- vs. Continental-style dining.

Manners maven Emily Krawzyk at the Saturday Club / Photograph by Nell Hoving

“Remember, we always swallow our food before we take the next bite,” she says to the class. “And why do we take small bites?” There’s an indistinct murmur of responses from the diners, many of whom appear eager to answer, but also, you’re not supposed to talk with your mouth full. Krawzyk helpfully articulates for them: “Yes, that’s right, to be safe and not choke. But also to make it easier to keep the conversation going.” You don’t want to be caught with a giant hunk of food in your mouth when it’s your turn to speak.

I steal a glance at my son — a child who just this morning licked a glob of yogurt off the shoulder of his shirt on his way out the door — and see him place a delicate bit of bread in his mouth with the careful consideration of a Great British Baking Show judge.

For Krawzyk, this is an unpaid gig. She’s a volunteer, a newish member of the Saturday Club who just happens to have graduated from the Harvard of finishing schools — the Institut Villa Pierrefeu in Switzerland. Even on the Main Line, Swiss finishing school is an unusual bullet on a résumé in 2023. But Krawzyk tells me she’s been interested in etiquette her whole life. Her family moved around quite a bit before finally settling in Wayne when she was in fifth grade: “I had to learn to make friends, and I picked up a lot by watching and reading people’s body language.” Etiquette books were a sort of guide — she could study how other people behaved and how she herself should.

After she graduated from Penn State with a degree in art history, Krawzyk read about the Institut and was enamored. “It looked like the most beautiful place ever,” she says — and it is, in a chalet that once belonged to a Dutch baroness in a village called Glion, overlooking Lake Geneva. She decided to enroll in the school’s seven-week intensive course (tuition in 2023: between 20K and 30K), where, along with students from all over the world, she learned everything from business communication etiquette to oenology to floral arranging to the most detailed specifics of both American and European table manners and dining service. (And no, she says, the movies get it wrong: Students didn’t walk around with books on their heads.)

Most of this stuff only very rarely comes in handy in her day job — she’s director of marketing for the Malvern-based Center for Professional Innovation and ­Education — or in her other day job, as a mom. Just as the shoemaker’s children are never shod, so it goes with her own ­seven-year-old: “My daughter has atrocious manners, ha!” Krawzyk has, however, had a lot of opportunities to teach etiquette classes to people who aren’t her flesh and blood — to businesspeople, to women affiliated with her college sorority, even to other families, who hire her for private lessons. For $100 an hour, Krawzyk customizes a course based on specific needs, whether that’s a single lesson in table manners for a family, a little help with social etiquette for a tween or teen who’s maybe “a little uncomfortable, socially,” or a primer on the same stuff she’s teaching the kids at the Saturday Club, geared toward the families who didn’t get into the class.

Or didn’t I mention? The Saturday Club’s course for third- and fourth-­graders this past fall sold out. In under nine minutes.

We could attribute this burst of interest to Krawzyk’s new, updated curriculum, maybe — “Lots of real-life skills,” as Pratt says. But even before that, parents had been calling to ask Pratt when, oh God, when would the club’s etiquette class come back? Pratt thinks the clamor is largely due to COVID, and its creation of feral children. Okay, “feral” is my word, but as she says, “Children definitely grew up with a different experience for those 24 months.” There were masks. And for so long, no play dates, no close contact. No restaurants. No parties. No movie theaters, no museums, and few normal rites of passage in these formative years. Much disorder, followed by looser standards once everything finally started to ease back toward normalcy. Ask any schoolteacher you know: It shows.

“There were changes in family dynamics and social situations,” Pratt says, “and I think people were just like, ‘My gosh, my child could use a refresher from someone who isn’t me.’”

To meet the demand, the club added another session for third- and fourth-graders along with its class geared to fifth- and sixth-graders. (The bigger kids’ curriculum covers age-appropriate skills like how to consume party foods, proper cell-phone manners, understanding guest/host responsibilities, and a deeper dive into Continental-style utensil use.) This means Krawzyk is teaching three separate ­classes — 107 students total. And the kids are doing great, she says — ­interactive, funny, enthused about the lollipops and fidget toys they get as rewards. My son rates his class as less fun than kickball but more fun than math.

The biggest fans, though, might be the moms. Pratt tells me so many women have expressed interest in the specifics of what the children are learning — particularly when it comes to table settings and dining etiquette — that the club is looking to add yet another Krawzyk etiquette class this winter. For the grown-ups.

If you’re writing about modern civility and happen to look up the word “mannered” in your online thesaurus, here’s what you find offered as acceptable alternatives: Pretentious. Self-conscious. Stilted. Gone ­Hollywood.

This isn’t very good PR for manners. But then, consider the origin story: Many of our social codes of conduct did begin as class signifiers, says Cristina Bicchieri, a professor of philosophy and psychology at Penn who runs the school’s Center for Social Norms and Behavioral Dynamics. We can talk all we want about the importance of self-restraint and concern for our fellow man (and we will, momentarily!), but the truth, she says? “How to dress on certain occasions, how to use a fork, spoon and knife when we eat — these things were very important for the upper classes historically because they were a sign of refinement and education.” So you were either mannered, or you aspired to be. Stilted and pretentious was the goal; etiquette was born, she says, as “a sign of belonging. End of story.”

In the charming little book Why Manners Matter, Australian author Lucinda Holdforth weaves her way around the long history of humans creating guidebooks for gentility as a way to maintain social order. One favorite she notes is that of Dutch philosopher Erasmus of Rotterdam, whose 1530 instructional for children was that era’s equivalent of an international best-seller. In it, he urged readers not to belch after every third word (“This is disgusting”) and also — I’m sorry to be so gauche as to bring this up — to consider a well-timed cough to cover the audible emission of gas. Before that, Confucius had some thoughts about public conduct. Aristotle did, too, and the ancient Egyptian Ptahhotep was way ahead of his time as a manners influencer, with advice on avoiding conflict whenever possible and how to behave in front of a superior. (“Laugh when he laughs.”)

Our founding fathers appreciated good manners. A young George Washington wrote a detailed guide to civility; so did Ben Franklin. Thomas Jefferson intentionally went in a less formal direction with presidential etiquette as a way of sending a message about our national character; for example, he favored shaking hands over bowing, which felt too hierarchical, too regal, for a democracy. Dressing informally for official receptions signaled the “man of the people” image he liked to cultivate. In fact, he once wistfully observed, it might have been better “in a new country to have excluded etiquette altogether.”

That was not to be, of course: By the time the Victorians showed up, there was a rule for everything, including arriving at a dinner party (always be 15 minutes late), greeting friends (preferably not “Hello, old fellow”), walking (gentlemen on the street side), and smiling (not for too long). Eventually, in the 1920s, Emily Post — a debutante who turned herself into America’s foremost etiquette expert — helped everyone unclench a little by openly critiquing pretense itself as vulgar and providing a more democratic understanding of how good manners might serve us. Etiquette, Post told everyone, was an equalizer for anybody who decided to pay a little attention to “good form in speech, charm of manner, knowledge of the social amenities, and instinctive consideration for the feelings of others.”

Alas, it seems evident — particularly during and since COVID — that consideration of others often isn’t the instinct we’re going with. This concerns Professor Bicchieri. Knowing your forks isn’t terribly important in society anymore, she says. But no matter how informal we get, the rules of ­civility — essentially, how we talk to and treat one another, the behavioral guides and limits we all abide by — are crucial. If they break down? “That is a problem.”

Accepted rules of behavior help us curb our base instincts — rage, greed, lust and so forth — so we can actually live together. Emphasis on live. As Bicchieri says, “I don’t kill the person who took my parking place.” Except … some of us are doing that, and brandishing our weapons, and behaving abusively in our interactions, or threatening one another with violence with such regularity that there are entire social media protocols for it. And, she adds, the more we see both big and small erosions in behavioral codes and civility to one ­another — the more we read about them, shake our heads over them, see them online — the more they chip away at the social rules we feel we need to follow. First, bad behavior becomes common; then it becomes normalized. “We’re in that place now,” she says. “People are really breaking these rules very often. I’m not talking about everyone, but on average, this is happening.”

The question, I say to Bicchieri, is: What’s next? Do we self-correct? Eventually just devolve into anarchy? Or maybe the world just blows up before we have to worry about this? She laughs warmly and says: “I have no crystal ball.”

True confession: I was always predisposed to like the idea of an etiquette class. I grew up in the South, where, like watching college football and eating grits, showing your manners was a cultural imperative. I had friends who got the stink-eye if they forgot to tack on a “ma’am” when addressing their mothers; my best girlfriend once got grounded for neglecting to ask me if I’d like my leftover pizza from the previous night’s sleepover microwaved before we ate it for breakfast. (Southern hospitality!) My parents, who were Midwesterners by birth, were less fanatical about such formalities, though they did have very strong feelings about handwritten thank-you notes and respect for elders. (For instance: never first names for adults when you’re a child, unless preceded by a Miss or Mr.) These days, whether it’s old-fashioned indoctrination, homesickness, or the fact that I’m raising children in the rudest city in America, I feel that keeping some semblance of this tradition alive is both parental obligation and civic duty.

On our interminable drives home from Wayne after each lesson, I quiz my son on Krawzyk’s curriculum:

Hey, Luke, what’s a social filter?

“Oh, that’s where you think something but don’t say it. Like, if someone asks you to a sleepover but you’re already going to another sleepover, you don’t say that.”

What do you say?

“‘Oh, thank you, but I have plans that night.’ You don’t want to make a friend feel jealous.”

Hey, Luke, how should you introduce yourself?

“‘Hi, nice to meet you. My name is Luke.’ And you shake your hand so the webbings meet” — gag — “and bend your elbow like this.” He demonstrates in my rearview mirror.

Hey, Luke, what did you learn about writing thank-you notes?

“Um, we didn’t talk about that.” (Reader, they did. Ah well. Two out of three ain’t bad.)

I’m struck by how broadly practical Krawzyk’s social etiquette is. I know these things, of course, but had I ever specifically articulated them to my child? I’m likewise struck by how detailed the dining etiquette session is and also by how many faux pas I’ve unwittingly committed over the years. The napkin lesson alone is a revelation. Did you know that before you place your napkin in your lap, you’re meant to fold it twice, so it makes a square, with the fold facing toward your body? That way, the loose corners face tidily outward, which makes it easy for you to discreetly grab a corner and dab your mouth. Did you also know that you should routinely dab before you take a sip from a glass? That way, your tablemates aren’t forced to look at your greasy lip prints for the rest of the meal.

Here I was thinking I knew my manners.

Still, if I’ve been doing anything (everything?) wrong, Krawzyk would never tell me so. This is her golden rule: Good manners will allow you to graciously tolerate bad manners. (She’s borrowed this from the poet Kahlil Gibran: “The real test of good manners is to be able to put up with bad manners pleasantly.”) Correcting people is very bad form; modern etiquette exists not so you can be supercilious, but so people can feel comfortable, she says.

And there is real comfort in abiding by some standardized rules, even if society no longer insists on them. Forks to the left, spoons to the right — no second-guessing or debating required. There now, isn’t that nice?

But it goes deeper than that, and I’m not just saying so because I’m sensitive to the optics of all of this being nothing but privileged, antiquated, irrelevant hoo-ha. You sit up straight in your chair at the table not to impress people with your posture, Krawzyk says, but because slouching and leaning signals that you’re bored. Same with looking at your phone at the table, obviously. Everyone passes counterclockwise because then nobody has to think about it and it doesn’t interrupt the flow of conversation, which is the point of having dinner with other people. You twirl your spaghetti so you don’t fling marinara everywhere. The napkin, the glass, the fork, the rules themselves: None of that is actually the point. The point, as Emilys Krawzyk and Post would both say, is other people — ­considering their comfort, their sensibilities. I read a story once in the New York Times about a man with fastidious table manners who would welcome his dinner guests wearing his oldest, most patched-up pants; that way, none of his guests would ever feel underdressed.

Likewise, in Why Manners Matter, Holdforth references Ralph Waldo Emerson, who once wrote that “good manners are made up of petty sacrifices.” Isn’t this a profound and great thing to teach our ­children — sacrificing a bit for the benefit of someone else? Consideration for our fellow humans’ comfort? All that rugged individualism has gotten us lately is a prolonged pandemic, some renegade billionaires run amok, and loneliness so widespread and intense that it’s literally shortening our life spans. How about instilling some habits that center other people? That’s what this class is about to me, and what I hope it’s about for my son. I know, obviously, that a napkin-fold isn’t going to save civilization. But also … isn’t it an easy place to start?

The first thing Luke does when we walk into the ballroom at St. David’s Golf Club — a bit more sleek and formal and, well, country-clubbish than the Saturday Club’s — is announce to me flatly that he won’t be dancing. It’s the final etiquette class/celebration evening, and he just spotted the dance floor and DJ setup in the front of the room. Between that, the fact that we don’t know a soul at our table, and the much-hated loafers on his feet, he’s showing some nerves. It’s going to be a long night.

There’s not much to do until dinner is served; we visit the bar to get chocolate milk and then sit at our table, waiting. While he sits and sips sullenly, I’m chatting with a few other moms who have likewise accompanied their third-grade sons here. While I’m talking, I hear my son say to one of the boys, “Hi, I’m Luke. What’s your name?” And they start talking. There’s no handshake, but friendly conversation ensues, and they’re talking animatedly about Pokémon, and now they’re asking can they please go outside to see the back patio, and everything is suddenly cheerful and — oh my God, is this working? This is something else good manners can do for us, Krawzyk would tell you — instill self-confidence and a bit of ease in otherwise uncomfortable situations.

Speaking of uncomfortable: One point frequently made about manners by everyone from etiquette experts to cultural historians is that they smooth social interactions between people who otherwise might not have anything in common — which is basically everyone, everywhere in this country right now. Holdforth writes about this, too: “Manners,” she says, “are a way to render diverse people acceptable to each other.” This strikes me as more important than ever if, as Bicchieri warns, we want to continue to function as a civilized society. Or even just … a society. We need to demonstrate a modicum of the self-­control and self-restraint it takes to disagree without being disagreeable, as Barack Obama once put it. Because the disagreeing doesn’t seem like it’s going anywhere anytime soon. And moreover, as historian Sir Keith Thomas noted in a BBC podcast I listened to not long ago, when “we live in a multi-racial society, multi-ethnic society, different religions, all sorts of values, conflicting in many ways” — well, he says, then “civility becomes the essential form of social cement for keeping the show on the road.”

Back in 2008 — a more polite time, to my recollection, though it’s possible that’s recency bias from the Trump years ­talking — Reuters reported on a survey showing that Britons were quite worried about the deterioration of manners in their country, with a third of respondents believing it was the catalyst for much of the country’s “antisocial” behavior. Three-quarters of them wanted to see manners taught in school. I think this isn’t the worst idea. First, if manners can be an equalizer, as Emily Post believed, let’s let them be. Handshakes, napkin dabs and communications etiquette for all! Who knows when a nicely written thank-you note might win you a job? It actually happened once to Krawzyk.

Secondly, schools already teach social-emotional intelligence, and good on them: Multiple studies have shown that social and behavioral skills learned early in one’s education impact future success and well-being into adulthood. Here’s what else research shows: Rudeness is contagious. It triggers the same parts of our brain that pain does, and it makes us more stubborn. But when people are nice to us? That triggers production of the hormone oxytocin, which encourages still more pro-social behaviors, like trust and kindness and empathy. This is where Krawzyk says young people taking her classes really shine, by the way: “I think every kid I’ve met has a foundation of empathy. That’s what we build on, the reason we’re doing all this.” It’s about making other people feel good. About being nice. Kids get that. “We always tie it back to that.”

I watch these children at their fancy dinner, which is lovely, but which also turns out to be pretty much what you think a dinner with 107 eight-to-12-year-olds is like. My darling son spills his ice water all over the table, lumps entire pats of butter on every single bite of carefully torn bread, and leaves crumbs scattered like confetti around his plate, my plate and his wet lap. He orders the steak, but some kids have spaghetti, and the tablecloth does end up a bit Pollock-like by the end. (As one mom says with a laugh, her boys might need a few more sessions.) All the while, Krawzyk circulates, gently offering pointers to her students, who gamely refold their napkins and straighten up when they see her — some even without prompting.

The modern world feels to me, ­temperament-wise, like we’re running too hot and also too cold, oscillating between a future that holds either civil war or a Matrix-like virtual reality in which handshakes don’t matter because we don’t interact. Then again, I have some faith in our kids, the whole lot of them, these young people who know a little bit about sacrifice. Didn’t they give up their birthday parties and field trips and more for the greater good for two years?

They’re not thinking about any of this tonight, of course. Especially now as, between courses, the DJ starts playing music. The kids rush to the dance floor — my son included. There’s no waltzing or fox-trotting, but — hilariously, ­amazingly — a spontaneous conga line materializes, and everyone dances. This isn’t how I expected etiquette class to end. It’s better. Relying on manners to help change the way the world spins is a little … optimistic. I know this. We all know this. But it still feels like the right thing to do.

Published as “Fork You, Mom” in the January 2023 issue of Philadelphia magazine.