I had taken my children to a fast-food restaurant for lunch. My daughter was 8 and my son was 4. An incident occurred that disturbed my daughter deeply. My son was absorbed in the coloring of his kids-meal menu and didn’t notice.

There was one other family in the restaurant, a father and mother with two young children probably 3 and 5 years of age. A middle-aged man wearing dark sunglasses came in, placed his order at the counter and sat down at a table next to the other family while he waited for his order. The only air entering into his lungs passed through the cigarette between his fingers. Every exhalation was directed towards the young family sitting barely four feet from him.

The parents waved their hands in front of the children’s faces in an attempt to clear the smoke away. Both gave the man looks of disgust, but said nothing. His eyes couldn’t be seen through those dark sunglasses. It was a cloudy October day so the glasses weren’t needed to protect his eyes from the sun.

Before getting up to get his order he uses his lit cigarette to light another and then sets the almost finished cigarette onto the table. He walks away leaving it burning with the smoke wafting towards the young family.

Halfway to the exit he stops, loudly clears his throat, spits onto the floor and walks out the door. I look at the staff behind the counter who had also watched him. They looked at me, shrugged their shoulders and returned to their conversation.

My daughter is upset about his behavior and asked me why he did that. The obvious answer is because he has little respect for other people. The less conspicuous answer is he has little regard or respect for himself. I told her that’s why we pay so much attention to her behavior. That’s why we want her and her brother to learn to treat each other with courtesy.

My children are adults now. It seems they’ve learned. We tried to set a good example. Maybe some of those bad examples really helped them to understand our intention. We might get some credit for trying to teach it, but they deserve the real credit for learning how to live with courtesy and respect.