Many of the benefits of manners are easy to see: it demonstrates good upbringing; it burnishes a family’s reputation; it provides a set of rules that, when followed, helps individuals “fit in” to society; it may even make the difference between getting promoted and passed over. Yet, there is a deeper payoff to good manners that is often overlooked—the development of empathy.
Being a parent, you constantly re-examine everything you ever thought about everything. Some notions fade, some remain and become better understood, and others become redefined altogether. And, just as the idea of what makes a gentlemen bears reconsidering, so too, does the notion of what makes a lady. The lady is the counterpart to the gentleman and the standards and expectations should be the same with one notable exception: a lady should be taught to own who she is, not hide it.