* * * * Savannah Morning News, Friday, June 15,1990 - 90 Living Couple Raising Unprejudiced Child Unsure How To Handle Guests' Comments DEAR MISS MANNERS - I would love my preschool child to grow up as non-prejudiced as I feel I am. I know I can't do much about remarks she hears outside our home, but I find myself in a bit of a bind when guests make remarks about blacks or retarded people. I am appalled at some of the things people say about others. But being an adult, I just try hard to overtook this problem. My daughter is just a child. She could innocently say something hurtfUl or offensive to someone that she heard from one of mommy and daddy's friends in her own home. ,. Is it proper to let guests and family members know how I feel about this type of talk in my home? How does one do it tactfully? I don't want to insult friends. My husband doesn't feel as strongly on this matter as I do, and would be very upset if I embarrassed him or our friends over this matter. GENTLE READER - Miss Manners agrees with you that this is an extremely important issue. Unlike your husband, she would go so far as to say that it is important enough to embarrass guests over - mildly enough not to break the rules of hospitality (also a gross rudeness) but strongly enough to disassociate ywuieif frwn bfgttry, whether you* child U presort WMt YM nay ptUteiy challenge their statements cMvenatitaally, with "Really? Thai's Mt at all tor experience" tr "Perhaps yw bWt tastw what it's like, fart we employ some retarded people, tad sa I kaow how wrtag these ideas abttt them are." Bit whether yo« do that or let udtlh Martin things past, there mast be a doablebarreled parata! lesson after the guests kave. Year child nrast be from the other side of the curtain: told that people often say harmful "Oh, dear. Oh, dear." As I continued, she added, 'Til things carelessly, and that aithoogh we don't go around correcting ethers pray for you." We then discussed the necessary (lesson No. 1), we don't ourselves endorse such mean ideas (lesson No. medical procedures. I was half expecting input from the roommate *>• People who teach their children and was relieved not to get any. I thought her expressions of symonly general rules, without teaching the application by critinndng events pathy were intrusive and should the children have witnessed, are have been postponed. I felt uncomonly doing half their drfld-reariag fortable with the evident assumption, despite the drawn curtain, that job. DEAR MISS MANNERS - I am it was a three-way conversation, as a doctor, and I had to tell an elderly the subject matter was so important patient that she had widespread and and so personal. Should the roommate have kept - for practical purposes - untreatquiet? If she had continued to speak, able cancer. My patient was bedridden, and so should I have said something to her? My patient was without close relwas the elderly woman in the next bed. My patient was hard of hearing, atives, and the roommate may have so I was speaking rather loudly, and seen herself as playing the role of a after I had told my patient that the supportive family member. GENTLE READER - By the diagnosis had been confirmed by the biopsy, her roommate loudly said, conventions of etiquette, that flimsy cnrtain that tfnnntfs hoinftil pte the foil to the side where the waiter might mercifully take It ^»^^^ ^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^w ^F^r^^^BHB ^Mi^^nviV •^B^^^MWUHBPW ive pretended that she heard nothing of the conversation, and discnised the diagnosis only if the roommate hersent told her nhovt it. But we are dealing literally with a matter of life and death here, and that makes it extremely hard to abide by conventions. Sorely the other My was merely so overcome by distress that she blurted out her sympathy. Yet your patient was entitled to prhfecy. Sorely for snch an important announcement, yon conW have arranged to have her taken out of the room (ike may have been bedridden, hot hospitals are imiqnely equipped to transport stock patients) or waited ondl the roommate was •way for a test or visit. DEAR MISS MANNERS Would you please explain how to use foil-wrapped butter packets? In some cases, one has a bread-andbutter plate; in others, not. GENTLE READER - No matter how often the health issues have been explained to Miss Manners, she cannot reconcile herself to oommercUl containers on the dinner table. Batter foil most simply be toternted: If there is BO brend-nnd4Nrtter plate, scoop oat the batter onto the edge of the dinner plate, and crnm- This make* Miss der why they took the tronole to fabaway. ricate an etiqietfe rate agntart givDEAR MISS MANNERS - I ing petpk shoots. Is tt hecMOt yon have given sets of sheets to family members as an anniversary gift a pened to yow promts? Yon number of times. I did not know un- shouldn't do that. Having retnmed til much later that they got rid of the the shoots, they might have been gifts, saying that things for the bed- desperate for an excuse and meant room are very personal and should by "personal" that it is write to not be given as presents. choose something sach as fattened I didn't know this. Is it true? Such sheets wriest yon know someone's things are given at bridal showers. personal taste. GENTLE READER - Bridal showers are supposed to be given and attended by intimate friends of the bride, so personal presents, provided they are not vulgar, are perCHAIN missible.' Of come, yo« gave those LINK sheets to family members, and they are even closer than good friends. Necklace! Sets CHARLES J. RUSSO SEAFOODS Fresh Local Shrimp All Sizes 3 OO .._ w . Ib. and up 40th at Aborcom for that "Professional Look" jcwcirt) 234-5196 Best five t-*: Save J**\J on* ALLSALE MEN'S RINGS! 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