You tell 'em, Miss Manners.
The longtime advice columnist, aka Judith Martin, skewered a teen and her parents after the high schooler skipped her own graduation party.
MM's firm response has received social media attention because it's quite a takedown.
In a nutshell, the parents wrote in a letter that they planned a gathering of 30 people for their party-averse daughter and gave her the option of bowing out a week before. The party went forward and guests left monetary gifts at the celebration. But the daughter didn't show, texting her dad that she didn't feel up to it. She didn't open the gifts, either. The letter mentioned that the teen also ignored her grandparents, who flew in for the occasion, during their stay.
The writer notes the daughter's "extremely rude behavior" and asks Miss Manners if it would be rude to keep the gifts.
With what seems to be steam coming out of her pen, Miss Manners answers thusly: "It seems to Miss Manners that this is the least of your problems, considering that you have a thoroughly rude and callous daughter."
The etiquette expert, who now produces the Miss Manners column with her children Nicholas and Jacobina, counsels the parents to return the money with a note explaining that since their child did not participate in the celebration, she doesn't deserve it.
Then Mom and Dad get theirs: "Miss Manners does not consider you to be free of responsibility for this fiasco. Leaving aside your duty to teach your daughter manners and consideration for others, there is the question of why you even considered giving a party for someone who hates parties and your willingness to allow guests to make plans that you offered to cancel a week before."
Some readers of the column in the Washington Post wondered whether the child has an anxiety problem and noted that the dilemma was presented from a parental perspective without the kid's side of things. Others called out a line in which the writer said the parents would have to write thank-you notes since the daughter won't.
"It takes rude, inconsiderate parents to raise a rude, inconsiderate daughter," one person wrote.
For the full Miss Manners exchange, head over to The Washington Post.
