Continue To Give Them Same Response

Dear Miss Manners: I became pregnant by a child molester seven years ago. Although I have been married for a couple of years to a man who adopted my son, I am constantly asked, in front of my son, who his “real” father is.

I politely say I don’t want to talk about it, but this only makes things worse. The same people ask me over and over, every time I see them. This happens with friends, in-laws and especially at church. It upsets both me and my son every holiday and church service. How should I respond to the question?

Gentle Reader: It’s not so much how as why.

It seems to Miss Manners that you have answered the question. She doesn’t know how you could do so more clearly, and presumes you are not appealing to her for a suggestion on how to do it less politely.

Varying the response does not work as well in these cases as simple repetition. The inquisitive often believe they are getting somewhere when the answer goes from, “I don’t want to talk about it,” to, “It’s something I’d rather forget,” to, “I’m trying to put this in the past.” If you keep repeating, “I don’t want to talk about it” - even if they, in desperation, start varying the question - it will be clear that progress into your confidence is not to be expected.

Now that Miss Manners has dealt with the nosy, she has a nosy impulse of her own. That is to wonder why you classify relatives along with friends and strangers in this situation. Surely it is not the same thing to be asked about your son’s history by acquaintances as it is by those who are now related to him.

You may have excellent reasons for not telling them - they may, for example, be blabby people who will spread it over the universe. But their question needs to be treated with more respect than an idle inquiry.

Your husband could alert his family to stop their probing by saying something like, “She was taken advantage of, and it’s something painful we’ve agreed never to discuss with anyone. The main thing is that I’m his father now, and for her sake and our son’s, we’d like to leave it at that.”

Dear Miss Manners: People are reminded to return response cards received in wedding invitations, but they also need to be reminded that once they acknowledge they will attend, should their plans change, they need to notify someone.

My daughter was recently married. The caterer’s fee was “per person,” based on the number of responses she received. The day before the reception she gave the caterer the final count from her responses. The next day at the reception almost 30 people who had responded they would attend did not appear.

She was charged $20 per person, which resulted in a loss to them of well over $500. This was an expense they did not need. Please remind people how important it is to notify hosts should their plans change after they R.S.V.P.

Gentle Reader: Looked at another way, she got a bargain. For only $500, she found out who, among her closest acquaintances, is rude, thoughtless, callous and untrustworthy.

Miss Manners favors a much cheaper and earlier way of identifying these people. You don’t send out response cards at all (a big saving right there), much less remind people to trouble themselves to fill them out (a saving of time and energy). By eliminating anyone who doesn’t think that any invitation - even one to go to the movies, much less one to a wedding - deserves an answer, you save not only catering costs but future time you might otherwise waste on people who let you down.