This week’s question comes from a reader named Jill, who is getting increasingly exasperated by the rude behavior of one of the children in her carpool. “Everyone always says ‘it takes a village,’ yet what do you do as a parent when someone else’s child is perpetually rude to you?” Jill wrote. By rude, Jill means: “rude at your house […]
more about: family
Give Me That Babysitter, I Saw Her First!
“Dear Michelle: I complete disagree with your column saying a friend is wrong for not sharing a babysitter. NO WAY! It’s hard enough to find a reliable available sitter,” wrote a reader named JACM1234. “Add to that friends homing in on the same sitter, and we’ve found ourselves hosed when we really needed a sitter,” JACM1234 wrote. “True friends understand […]
Oversharing: When Couples Tweet Too Much
Singer Rosanne Cash got in trouble recently for tweeting that her husband was napping. “Don’t’ tell people I’m taking a nap!” he said, really annoyed. That story and others, reported today in the New York Times, describes a modern etiquette problem that can derail romance: oversharing. Before the days of Facebook and Twitter and Tumblr, it wasn’t so easy to blithely […]
Struggling to Get Dinner on the Table Every Night?
In your ideal world, your family happily gathers around the dinner table every night. The kids eat your home-cooked delicious meat loaf and green beans without a fuss, everyone chats about current events and shares interesting things that happened to them that day, and your hubby helps clear the table and does the dishes. In the real world, you rush […]
How Do You Handle a Determined Lip Kisser?
As far as I’m concerned, there are two kinds of people in life: those who kiss you on the lips, and those who kiss you on the cheek. ACCEPTABLE LIP KISSERS Your spouse/romantic partner Your toddler Your grandfather Your former boyfriend QUESTIONABLE LIP KISSERS Your teenage child Your siblings Your best friend UNACCEPTABLE LIP KISSERS Your neighbor Your coworker Anyone […]
No One Offered to Throw a Shower? Plan Your Own
A couple of readers have said they disagree (thanks for writing, ngarner29 and ynwa098) with my opinion that it’s perfectly fine to throw your own party to celebrate your wedding or new baby: ynwa098: I am simply stunned by your statement in the April issue of Real Simple that it’s appropriate to throw your own shower. This is NEVER appropriate, […]
A Nice Problem to Have: Both Families Want to Pay for the Wedding
This week’s etiquette question comes from a reader named Mike66, who is getting married – congratulations! – and already finds himself in the middle of a skirmish between the in laws over cash. But it’s not the usual fight over who has to pay… In this case, the bride’s family was planning to foot the bill for the wedding and reception. […]
Weigh In: Who Should Get the Wedding China?
A young mother dies when her son is 6. She had no sisters, so her brother’s wife packs away her wedding china. Thirty years later, after the boy is grown and married, the china reappears, causing problems. Here’s why: “After my husband’s mother died when he was six, (his aunt) held it for 30 years until she handed it down […]
Let’s Put an End to This
Ellen Seidman is a woman I worked with years ago when we were both editors at Glamour. While we were working together (well, not actually during work hours, but during the years we were colleagues) Ellen gave birth to a son, Max, who had a stroke when he was born. Max has cerebral palsy, is both a challenge and a […]
