To Auntie Mac:

We recently reunited for a family holiday dinner at one of our relatives, and apparently cell phones are now permitted at the table – is this acceptable now? It never was in our family. Is this another repercussion of Covid? That video conversations are fine during dinner, or maybe even in vogue? Are we wrong to insist that our teenagers refrain from this?

Sign us,

Old Fashioned

My Dear Neighbor:

The other evening Auntie Mac was fortunate enough to be escorted to the opera by an old acquaintance from Princeton Day School. We decided to dine at Elements, since they serve a marvelous 5-course chef’s tasting menu and the persimmon biscuit with tahitensis vanilla is to die for. We were seated near the hearth, chatting about the mezzo soprano, who was not at all on par with the material, but I digress, when I realized that the room was full of insects. I feared they must have come round the hearth to avoid the cold. There was such a cacophony of chirping, buzzing, and, and on occasion, quacking, that I feared I had ended up not at a quiet and exclusive boite but at the Trenton Zoo. I then saw with horror that diners throughout the room were looking not at each other but studiously downward to the table on which all manner of devices were sitting, from cellphones to iPads to tablets. I sent a steely stare to my companion, who was in the process of removing something from his own jacket pocket, and which he sheepishly put back.

The experience was so distracting that the dessert biscuit held no joy. I was assaulted by the unimportant and constant external communication from people I did not even know. The low, evening hum of dinnertime conversation was completely replaced with dinging, buzzing, and ringing. No one ever looked up to converse with their companions; it was as though the entire real experience of being in a beautiful public place with other people was eclipsed by a collective dive into the electronic abyss—the present moment held no meaning or pleasure.

If you have not already guessed, dear, Auntie Mac considers rude behavior the eighth deadly sin. Ignoring one’s fellow persons, when they are right in front of you speaking, or eating, or trying to engage you in some way, is not only the height of rudeness, it demonstrates a profound disrespect and a great deal of arrogance. It speaks to a severely damaged attention span, a poor upbringing (or amnesia of any upbringing at all), and frankly a lack of self-evaluation. Why ever should a cell phone and what it contains take precedence over a current activity? Is the Almighty on the other end? Will the world cease to spin if one does not immediately forge an empire or crush candy?

One may think that the journey from Auntie Mac’s Alma Mater to Ram Dass is long and convoluted, but one would be mistaken. She has always abided by that wise maxim: Be Here Now. My advice to you is: impress upon your children that it is appropriate and courteous to be fully present during family gatherings—their own, or other people’s. The actual, tangible present may not at times be as exciting as the virtual present, but it is real, and it is fleeting, and it is to be honored.

Your Auntie Mac