R E L AT I N G
Modern Manners R E A L S I M P L E ’ S E T I Q U E T T E E X P E R T, C AT H E R I N E N E W M A N , O F F E R S HER BEST ADVICE ON YO U R S O C I A L Q UA N DA R I E S.
K.A. A SKS...
I’m an elementary school teacher. I teach my students to cough and sneeze into their elbows instead of their hands because of germs. But some adults in my life sneeze into their hands all the time, which makes me want to avoid contact. Can I ask them to contain their coughs in a less germy way without sounding like I’m talking to a student?
66 R E A L S I M P L E F E B RUARY 2018
Over the past few months, we have sent money for wedding gifts and new babies. One person thanked us face-to-face; one person thanked us via text. No one sent a thank-you note. Is writing a thank-you card old-fashioned? Has it gone out of style, replaced by modern technology?
ABOUT C AT H E R I N E The author of One Mixed-Up Night, Catastrophic Happiness, and Waiting for Birdy, Catherine Newman has shared her wisdom on matters ranging from family and friends to happiness and pickling in numerous publications. She gets advice from her husband and two opinionated children in Amherst, Massachusetts.
I have held out on this for a long time, insisting on paper thank-you notes while cobwebs spun around my sepia-toned values and the world wheeled into the apocalyptic future. But I am finally changing with the times enough to say: Yes, writing a thank-you card is old-fashioned, and yes, it has largely gone out of style, replaced by the immediacy of texts and emails. It is still a lovely thing, a handwritten card, still my ideal expression of gratitude. But no, you shouldn’t expect to receive one, even if you still write them yourself or make your poor teenagers sit down like ye olde weirdos to write them. (Sorry, kids!) In fact, I now find myself fretting that a card takes relatively so long to arrive that someone might take offense at the perceived absence of thanks! Ironic, no? But even if texting is the new normal, not thanking someone at all should not be—with the exception of new parents, who are losing their minds, and the newly bereaved, who are lost to grief. Anyone who needs slack cut for them? Just go ahead and cut it.
C AT H E R I N E N E W M A N I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y U L I K N Ö R Z E R ; O T H E R I L L U S T R AT I O N S B Y Y O C O N A G A M I YA
I’m laughing, picturing you summoning the other teachers for a read-aloud of Curious George Coughs into His Sleeve. Alas, while your students are with you to learn—including whatever you’re teaching them about courteous habits— your fellow adults, as childlike and runny-nosed as they may be, are not. There’s no polite way to teach them proper cough and sneeze containment. That said, if you’re talking about coworkers, you can encourage the administration to hold a meeting or post guidelines about maintaining a healthy work environment, and you can solicit everyone’s thoughts via email (thereby singling nobody out). Otherwise, your main job is taking care of yourself to keep your immune system strong: Get enough sleep, eat healthy food, wash your hands a lot. And, if passive aggression is your thing, conspicuously squirt yourself with hand sanitizer every time someone sprays their germs around.
M . P. A S K S . . .
