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Dear Miss Manners: We have three kids ages 4, 9 and 12. The oldest and youngest have no problem writing thank you notes for gifts. They actually get excited and try to pick out exactly the card or paper they think the gift giver would like best. Our middle child used to enjoy it the same way, but now she refuses.
We have talked about why we write thank you notes, but she consistently argues that no one else in her class does this. Some of our peers (we are in our 30s) think we are being too hard on her and echo the “no one does that anymore” thought process. Are we wrong? Is this really something kids are not expected to do anymore? I feel that writing a simple three-sentence letter is a reasonable expectation for her age.
One of the side effects of everyone pretending to be a child well into their dotage is we forget some arguments are, frankly, childish. That your 9-year-old’s classmates are badly behaved, assuming it is true, should carry as much weight as the argument that Ethan’s mom lets him have candy for dinner and stay up all night.
Dear Miss Manners: We were guests at a gathering when the host, during a story, stated, “I knew I was headed east because my brother told me the full moon rises in the east.” I commented that all phases of the moon rise in the east. She was irate and told me her sibling knew what he was talking about as he was in the Navy.
She was so aggressive, I did not reply. Should I have explained I was a science teacher and the moon and the stars, including the sun, appear to rise in the east because of the Earth’s rotation? Should I have explained any of this later in private? Or should I have simply let it go?
Although Miss Manners understands your professional instinct to provide answers, her response to your question is: none of the above. You should have let the host tell her story. Irrespective of your being right about celestial mechanics, correcting her, in the context in which you did, called attention to her ignorance.
It could be justified if the mistake were likely to bring its owner to immediate grief. But the worst that would happen in this case is that your host will one day repeat her story in front of her naval sibling, who will laugh at her for having misunderstood him.
Dear Miss Manners: Is it rude not to push a chair back to the table when you exit it? My husband drives me to distraction by leaving chairs pulled out at odd angles away from the table.
Etiquette is only interested in the final disposition of the chairs in that they not be left where they can cause accidents. This means not leaving them in a position to block others from coming or going, and not pushing them back to the table if they still contain other diners.
New Miss Manners columns are posted Monday through Saturday on washingtonpost.com/advice. You can send questions to Miss Manners at missmanners.com. You can also follow her @RealMissManners.
Source link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2023/08/10/miss-manners-children-thank-you-notes/