Nobody recognizes that this is a very intrusive question.

DEAR MISS MANNERS:I am a mother of two young children: a 2-year-old girl and a 5-month-old boy. How should I react when someone asks me if I am breastfeeding them?

I know it’s 2024 and many people have made significant efforts to promote breastfeeding as a best practice for babies and young children. I’m also grateful that we live in a society where mothers can feel free to breastfeed in public without feeling shame or embarrassment.

But people I barely know, both men and women, often ask me if I breastfeed my children. I am a fairly private person and I don’t really like to talk about my private parts in front of people other than my husband or a health professional.

While breastfeeding is celebrated today, breasts themselves remain an intimate part of a woman’s body, aren’t they? How polite is it to ask a mother how she feeds her child?

FRIEND READER: It’s not just because it concerns your breasts (as Miss Manners delicately puts it) that this question is outrageously intrusive. It’s designed to lead to lectures on the subject – berating you if you don’t breastfeed, or questioning you further if you do.

Therefore, this deserves an answer that is none of your business, such as: “Why? Do they look hungry?”

Oh my God, another sarcastic retort.

Miss Manners sometimes hears kind readers say that they prefer that even occasional rudeness be dealt with by frank expressions of one’s feelings, preferably with the help of therapists. But if we analyzed and sought to punish every ounce of carelessness, we would have little time for anything else.

It’s easier to dismiss such things with an offhand remark or, if you prefer, a simple shocked look.

DEAR MISS MANNERS:My partner and I received a substantial cash gift from my parents to celebrate our elopement. They delivered the gift to us during a visit to our home about a month ago (they live in another state).

Usually when I receive a gift I send a thank you note the next day so I don’t forget. In this case I really don’t remember if I sent one or not.

These are my parents, not just acquaintances. Is it okay to ask if they’ve ever received a letter from us? Or is it better to send one now, perhaps acknowledging that it might be a duplicate?

LOVED READER:The problem is your checklist. Not that you forgot to write it down, but that you treat it as a fixed exchange: a gift, a thank-you letter.