DEAR MISS MANNERS: My spouse and I disagree on applicable dinner dialog matters.
I really feel it’s inappropriate to debate somebody’s sickness or medical procedures at dinner. Whether or not eating in or out, I don’t suppose discussing somebody’s bodily well being or medical historical past is conducive to having fun with a advantageous meal.
GENTLE READER: Chances are you’ll inform your spouse that Miss Manners agrees with you — however that she’s going to make an exception in your spouse, and presumably her fellow surgeons, to debate their sufferers to their hearts’ content material over lunch within the hospital cafeteria.
DEAR MISS MANNERS: I’ve been married to my husband for eight years. Whereas I’m sort and conversational together with his mom, he fully ignores mine.
He has by no means known as her by her first title, or any acquainted nickname like “Mom.” After we go to my mom, he walks previous her with out a phrase. He typically cooks for me and the kids throughout a go to, however refuses to cook dinner for my mother. If he goes to the shop, he gained’t ask if she would really like him to convey one thing again.
His rudeness is rubbing off on the kids. My 7-year-old daughter even informed my mom, “Dad doesn’t like you.”
I do know why that assertion is true, however I personally really feel like there may be nonetheless no good cause to be socially impolite.
I really feel caught within the center, making excuses like “He’s tired,” or one thing like that. I believe he mustn’t go to my mom with the kids and me anymore. I can’t consider one other answer.
GENTLE READER: One can not assist noticing that when you know why your husband so dislikes your mom, you don’t share his causes — nor, it appears, do you take into account his emotions unjustified.
She did one thing dangerous sufficient that you just perceive his habits; you merely search a modus vivendi. Miss Manners agrees that maintaining your husband and mom aside is, unhappy to say, the right reply.
[The Asking Eric column fielded the same question recently. Here’s what Eric said.]
DEAR MISS MANNERS: I used to be watching a cleaning soap opera and one of many characters, a really correct girl, answered her granddaughter’s query with meals in her mouth.
She did tuck the meals into her cheek, and stored her mouth as closed as potential.
I really discover that acceptable — extra so than making her granddaughter anticipate a response whereas she chewed and swallowed. However I’m curious as to Miss Manners’ opinion.
GENTLE READER: In Miss Manners’ opinion, Frederick Winslow Taylor, the effectivity theorist, was extra entertaining as a topic of derision in “The Pajama Game” than he’s these days — when nobody remembers his title, but everybody believes with non secular certainty that effectivity is extra essential than manners or morals.
No, Miss Manners would like that Grandmama take the handful of seconds to swallow what’s in her mouth earlier than answering. And that the granddaughter would have the respect and endurance to attend.
She herself would have used these seconds within the entertaining pastime of questioning why tv (and movie and theater) actors and administrators spend a lot time studying about lighting and costuming, and so little studying about manners, which she believes are much more central to portraying a convincing character.
