Combine Birthday Gatherings

Dear Miss Manners: What does etiquette say regarding birthday parties for children? I mean, is it proper to have a birthday party for a child every year?

If so, should everyone invited be expected to go every year? It never ends. This one has a birthday party for her child, then another family member has one for his child, and it just goes on and on for years. It almost makes you dread the coming of these birthdays. I realize that first birthdays are special and maybe at five years, 16 and 21, but every single year a person is alive?

Let me know your thoughts on this so I stop feeling guilty and obligated to attend these dreaded get-togethers every year.

Gentle Reader: As children insist upon having birthdays every single year, Miss Manners is afraid they are entitled to birthday parties every year.

What etiquette officially says about these events is that they are extremely important, as they allow children to practice the civilized skills of concealing greed and simulating graciousness. What it says privately is that it can’t blame adults for not wanting to witness this lesson in progress, still less for not wanting to witness such an event when the lesson is not being given.

For this reason, the proper guests for the birthday parties of children who are too old to sleep through them so the adults can hear themselves talk are - other children. Interested adults may decline to attend such parties and pay their own birthday calls on the child at another time.

However, you seem to be blessed with a large family living nearby. Miss Manners therefore recommends that a family council be held, at which you suggest using the various children’s birthday parties for periodic family gatherings - say, every three or six months, or whatever the adults find suitable. At that time, all children’s birthdays since the last gathering would be acknowledged, without being allowed to overrun the pleasures of a multigenerational family party.

Dear Miss Manners: How do you tell friends and relatives to stop sending you nonsense e-mail that is frequently batched out to all their closest friends and enemies? Not only do I not have time to read these missives (or better yet, “missiles”), but I have better things to do with my spare time.

My mother never had this problem, so I was never taught how to deal with junk e-mail. And to date I’ve never seen it addressed. I have a very favorite relative who thinks these are hilarious and sends us and her fifty other addresses daily nonsense. How do I tell her to take me off her batch list?

Gentle Reader: If your mother doesn’t have these problems, isn’t it about time you got her on the Internet?

It is not that Miss Manners is concerned that your mother may miss out on these same silly jokes that have been cycling cyberspace for years now. It is only that she hopes that once everybody gets on, the novelty will wear off, as it did when everyone got used to answering machines, and people will stop using e-mail as a toy. In the meantime, hit Delete.

Judith Martin is the author of “Miss Manners’ Basic Training: The Right Thing to Say” (Crown).