Dear Miss Manners-I have been married for a year and a half to a wonderful man. Several years before our courtship, he dated a young woman and fathered her child. Although they broke up, she has gone to extremes to woo him back.
I am generous to his 9-year-old daughter, who is very fond of me. The child’s mother never has thanked me for gifts from me and my family. Maybe once she thanked me for doing the child’s hair, but she did the hair over. This woman’s mother, who is equally tacky, once stood on our front porch and rebraided the child’s hair while my husband and I stood there and watched.
When they enter my home (which is maybe once a month), should I ignore them and their nasty ways and be gracious, or should I let them know in a subtle way that they are tacky?
Gentle reader-If you don’t care for tackiness, why would you throw over your own graciousness to imitate it?
You really don’t want to upset this child more. She is your stepdaughter, and you seem to be her only hope for learning manners.
Take private satisfaction in the thought that the contrast between your behavior and her mother’s probably will not be lost upon her.
Concentrate on helping to bring up the child, and forget about retraining your husband’s former flame and her mother. They are not, by any stretch of the imagination, related to you.
Dear Miss Manners-Twice my husband and I have been called a day or two in advance to substitute in couples’ bridge groups. We accepted and made plans accordingly.
In both instances, we were called back only a few hours before the scheduled game and told that the couples for whom we were substituting would, after all, be able to play. So we were “disinvited.”
What should the host’s response be in this circumstance?
Gentle reader-People who agree to fill in at engagements are providing a favor. Care should be taken to see that having accepted one inconvenience, they are spared any others.
It was the couples who canceled who should have been told, “Sorry, we’ve already found substitutes.”
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Address your etiquette questions to Miss Manners, in care of the Chicago Tribune, 435 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, Ill. 60611.
