Respond to my invitation? That's SO 20th-century

We've all played the waiting game.

Your fourth-grader wants to have his birthday party at the local sports center. After all, that's where his friend Sam had his party, and it was a riproaring success. So, after months of cajoling, aware of how one expense can pile on another, you give in. Make the reservations, order the cake, tell the owner that you don't want those frilly extras that add up to $10.00 more per child.

After having negotiated with your son a guest list that includes ten of his closest friends instead of everyone on his Little League team, you snailmail or email the invitations.

Or maybe it's not your son's party, but a dinner you and your husband are planning for his side of the family. Or a baby shower for a pregnant colleague. A baptism. A Bat Mitzvah.

It doesn't really matter what the event. It seems that more and more of us regard a response to your reach-out as, well, optional.

As this recent and widely emailed commentary from the New York Times detailed, letting a host or hostess know whether you are coming to a party or even a religious function is a practicality that can  be reserved for the last minute -- or not at all. If  you don't reply, you have the freedom to show up if it suits your schedule, or go home and do the laundry if the pile has gotten particularly bad.

Call me a troglodyte, but I find these breaches of etiquette just another sign of the social chaos that seems to have overtaken American culture in the past few decades.

Social courtesies, like thank-you notes, or even emails, serve a purpose -- they remind the receiver that someone cared enough about his or her emotional, social and possible financial investment to make the effort to respond.

Relationships have fractured on less rocky ground than this.

What kind of lessons do mothers or fathers teach their children when they can't decide whether it's convenient for Sue or Sam to attend Larry's party until the day arrives? Do you think your best girlfriend is really cool with knowing that you are weighing whether to show up at her home or go out with a few other buddies on a Friday night?

Sure, we're all busy. As one friend wrote me, most of her pals are double and triple-booked.

And of course, sometimes you are faced with conflicting obligations.

But perhaps it's time we stopped viewing this piling of event upon event as opportunities and begin to see them as wake-up calls.

With every slight, we risk not only stretching the bonds of friendship, but losing a little bit of our humanity.

The old social rules that guided our parents and grandparents existed for a reason -- they remind us of the values most of us share.

I'm beginning to think that maybe they wiser than they knew.

So will ya respond, please? Before I have to ask you.

Just because the barbarians are at the gate doesn't mean we have to let them in.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

This is an original Philly Moms Blog post.