DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am the mother of two young children: a 2-year-old girl and a 5-month-old boy. How should I respond when people ask me if I am breastfeeding them?
I recognize that this is 2024, and many people have put forth a huge amount of effort to promote breastfeeding as a best practice for babies and young toddlers. I’m also glad that we live in a society where mothers can feel free to breastfeed in public without feeling shame or embarrassment.
But people I barely know, women and men alike, will ask me if I am breastfeeding my children. I am a fairly private person, and I don’t really like to talk about my private body parts around people other than my husband or a medical professional.
While breastfeeding is now celebrated, breasts themselves remain a private part of a woman’s body, do they not? To what extent is it good manners to ask a mother about how she is feeding her children?
GENTLE READER: It’s not just because this involves your bosom (as Miss Manners delicately puts it) that this is an outrageously intrusive question. It is designed to lead to lectures on the subject -- chastising you if you are not breastfeeding, or probing further if you are.
Therefore, it deserves a none-of-your-business reply, such as, “Why? Do they look hungry?”
Oh, dear, another snarky comeback. Miss Manners sometimes hears from Gentle Readers who prefer that even casual rudeness be hashed out with frank expressions of everyone’s feelings, preferably with the help of therapists.
But if we analyzed and sought to punish every bit of thoughtlessness, we would hardly have time for anything else. It is easier to dismiss such things with a flip remark or, if you prefer, just a shocked stare.
DEAR MISS MANNERS: My spouse and I received a substantial cash gift from my parents to celebrate our elopement. They delivered the gift while visiting our home about a month ago (we live in different states).
Typically, when I receive a gift or stay in someone’s home, I mail a thank-you note the next day so I don’t forget.
In this case, I truly cannot recall if I sent one or not. These are my parents, not mere acquaintances. Is it acceptable to ask them if they already received a note from us? Or is it better just to send one now, possibly acknowledging that it might be a duplicate?
GENTLE READER: The problem is your checklist. Not that you forgot to mark it, but that you think of it as a set exchange: one present, one letter of thanks.
“In case I didn’t thank you -- thanks” is not a sentiment that can be charmingly worded.
What Miss Manners suggests instead is some version of, “Liam and I know how lucky we are to have your support -- not only for your very generous present, but also for your emotional support and your fine example.”
And so on. They are not going to read such a letter and then say, “But she already thanked us.”