Sorry!

It’s a funny old word isn’t it. Sorry. I know that I am one of those people that says it too much, often apologising for things that really aren’t my fault. You know those conversations where someone tells you to stop apologising and you respond with an apology? That’s me. I can’t help it, It’s a habit and one that I am trying to get out of.

Some people never say it. Those people that pull out on you in the car and force you to make a screeching emergency stop or the ones that bump into you in the street so hard that you nearly fall to the floor. They don’t apologise. Some people seem to be preconditioned to never apologise and if I’m honest, I would rather be the person who apologises too much rather than not at all.

Then there are the children. As soon as they start to make their first attempt at language,we start to teach them the language of manners and I can remember teaching mine to say ‘ta’ for thank you even though it is a word I dislike intensely. As they grow, ‘please’ soon follows and as then as  soon as they’re old enough we add ‘sorry’ to the group.

Now these children are wiley little creatures and they quickly grasp the power that can be wielded by uttering that single word. If you say sorry, it doesn’t matter. If you say sorry, that awful thing you have done is magically eradicated with a sorry and a smile. Well, let me tell you kiddywinks it is not.

‘Sorry seems to be the hardest word’? Not in this house, it is the easiest. I hear it too much. A is four and does a very good impression of being cute. Like many children her age, she can be quite naughty and now when I tell her off, she says “I sorry” in this very cute, butter wouldn’t melt kind of way. It is hard to resist but I have become wise now; the cute voice, the missing ‘m, the little scrunched up face, they are all a ruse to play me like a fool. So now in response to my usual retort of ‘no you’re not’ or ‘you’re only sorry if you don’t do it again’ she now kisses whichever part of me is nearest to her and says ‘but I love you’ in this very over-dramatic way . It is hard to stay firm in the face of such adversity.

The boys of course are much older and wise enough to know better but they are under the false impression at the moment that ‘sorry’ absolves them from everything. Smashing my favourite photo frames with a football? Sorry should cover that. Trying to throttle each other to death? A sullen sorry to me and each other is fine. No it is not. If they have time to think about it, they might even add a ‘really’ or ‘very’ and that will make it all the more sincere. Still not okay. If I am really cross,I will get a hug or even a little note of apology with kisses. I may thaw slightly but that is not the point.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am a huge advocate of manners and I have always tried to convince my offspring that good manners are essential in life but to me if you say sorry, you have to mean it. Yes, it is better to say sorry rather than being ignorant and rude. But by saying sorry, it shouldn’t just be a word that you utter without thinking, you should reflect on what you have done to someone to make an apology necessary in the first place and ensure that it doesn’t happen again. It seems to me that in this house and elsewhere,as long as we utter the ‘s’ word,everything will be fine. Well I’m sorry but I disagree.