Schools want to punish parents for not doing their homework.

The assignment not being performed is child rearing, a task for which the parents can be said to have implicitly volunteered. At a few American schools and in England's government education department, the hope is to make parents legally responsible for the misbehavior of their children.

In many cases, Miss Manners is shocked to learn, parents don't even "turn in" the results of whatever desultory work they may have been doing at home. Failure to enforce the child's showing up at school runs afoul of truancy laws, providing a case for bringing legal action. But current thinking goes beyond that to the notion that the parent must produce the child in a state and attitude conducive to learning.

Nobody stoops to call the training involved etiquette, for fear of setting off uncontrollable childish giggles, but that is what it is. The ability to sit still for short periods of time, listen to what other people say and refrain from hitting as a first line of argument are manners that must be learned before one is in a state to learn anything else.

The presumption Miss Manners hears is that parents who neglect this homework have the same excuses as students who don't do theirs: They forgot, they had too much else to do, they didn't feel well, they had personal troubles, they didn't understand the assignment, they thought they had more time left in which to do it.

Yet she has noticed another reason. Some parents are doing other people's homework instead.

These parents would be outraged if they were considered neglectful. Why, there isn't anything they don't do for their children, including the children's homework.

That is to say, they help with the homework, as a good parent should. But sometimes this goes beyond curtailing other activities so there is plenty of time for the child to get the work done, discussing ideas, explaining principles and insisting that the child go back and check or redo it.

Sometimes it means showing by example, which is to say actually doing the examples or the writing, or at least correcting what has been done before it is handed in.

If the purpose is to educate the child, this does teach the convenience of passing off someone else's work as your own. So, if the purpose is also to improve the child's chances of getting into college, it had better not be a school with a strict code of honor. Or one in which the child will need the skills that lower schoolteachers failed to stress because the homework demonstrated he had already mastered them.

Worse, it may distract the parent from doing the parental homework of teaching the behavior needed to get along in school and elsewhere in the outside world. That's a harder task, and Miss Manners understands why they are shirking it or expecting it to be taught entirely in school, but sympathizes with the schools' determination not to let them get away with it.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: What is the proper time period for the cashing of gift checks?

Should the recipient cash the check immediately, thus keeping the gift giver's records in order? Or hold onto the check until a time when the money can be spent as desired and not lost in a checking account to bills or other household expenditures?

GENTLE READER: You should cash the check with the same immediacy that you write your letter of thanks to your benefactor. That is to say, directly after receiving the present.

Just as you want to save your benefactor annoyance, Miss Manners is trying to save you annoyance. As it is unthinkable that you would totally ignore the present until you happen to have a successful shopping trip, you would be obliged to write a second letter to explain the use of the check when it is cashed.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: What is the proper way for a lady to exit and enter a car? This may sound silly, but I am sincere. I want to be proper when exiting and entering the car, especially as I occasionally wear shorter dresses or skirts and do not wish to appear indiscreet.

GENTLE READER: Evidently there are a great many people who do consider it silly to avoid impropriety and indiscretion, not to mention indecent exposure. Miss Manners has seen more of them, and more of each of them, than she cares to, and you are quite right to be concerned.

To enter an automobile decorously, a lady sits down facing the street from which she has approached. Keeping her legs together, always a ladylike posture, she swings them inside while rotating the rest of her body to face the road ahead. To exit, she reverses the procedure.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I know that many people find the "Caller Identification" telephone feature an essential part of maintaining their privacy and discouraging phoned sales messages. But I think it has also raised a new manners issue.

Because their phone identifies me as the caller, some of my friends answer the phone with my name when I phone them. In other words, instead of just saying "Hello," they say, "Hello, Peter." I assume they think this is friendly, but to me it has the opposite effect.

To me, it seems -- I really don't know how to describe it -- jarring, startling, a bit off-putting, almost rude. I guess that somewhere in there I sense a bit of "I'm letting you know that I already know who you are" -- a bit of Big Brother in my town.

I prefer the traditional way, which gives me the opportunity to introduce myself and lets the recipient express pleasure: "Hello?" "Hello, Melanie, this is Peter." "Peter! It's good to hear from you. How are you?"

My wife, who is somewhat more techno-oriented than I am, thinks I'm being silly and not a little paranoid. We agreed to put the question to Miss Manners. How should someone with caller ID answer the phone?

GENTLE READER: "Paranoid" is rather a strong word for someone who can't yet let go of the idea that telephone calls are intended to be a surprise.

But once you get over the novelty, you might ask yourself why.

A person who opens the door can immediately see who is there, and may know before that by means of a window or peephole. A letter or an e-mail should at least have an identifying address. Surely it behooves someone seeking admission to another's house to submit his or her name first. Indeed, in many societies, a polite caller does so before guessing who has happened to answer.

Which brings Miss Manners to the question of poor Melanie. How do you know it was she answering the telephone? And if it was, you have given her -- according to your own thinking -- a sense of "I'm letting you know that I already know who you are" -- a bit of Big Brother not just in her town, but in her own dwelling.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: Monday night I treated my son to his 30th birthday dinner. The tab was $300, and I had also brought along a $250 Cabernet Sauvignon.

During dinner, there was incessant squalling and crying from an infant parked in a baby carriage two booths away.

Granted, I am old-fashioned enough to think that if the little one cannot read the wine list, he should be left at home with a baby-sitter. Admittedly, I am also tired of parents in undershirts carrying in their precious newborns (with umbilical cords still attached) in little baskets while I am eating dinner.

The only things to be carried in a basket in restaurants are rolls.

My wife and son thought my response to this situation was inappropriate and could have been handled differently: As the screaming infant and his daddy passed our booth on the way out, I yelled that the little snot had ruined my dinner.

My only concession to good taste is that I should have screamed at the father, rather than the infant. Your opinion please.

GENTLE READER: Miss Manners' opinion is the same as yours: that people who yell, scream and squall should be removed from restaurants (even reasonably priced ones). Evidently, your wife and son feel the same way about you.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: In March, two friends of mine will be getting married. They have been my friends since high school and I wish to be respectful, but I have never had to respond to the niceties of a same-sex marriage before this and I find myself rather confused.

I had sent them individual greeting cards for the holiday season, one to "Mr. Smith" and one to "Mr. Jones." Should I continue to send cards individually? Or should I send one card to Mr. & Mr. Smith-Jones? Or is there some other option that just isn't coming to mind?

GENTLE READER: Yes. Miss Manners cautions that one should never get so interested in the private aspect of people's lives as to overlook the obvious: One card and two names on two lines -- "Mr. Smith/Mr. Jones" -- make one solution for all couples who have different surnames but live at the same address.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I have noticed an increasing trend among chain retailers to interrogate their customers upon checkout or exiting the store, asking for receipts, photo ID, addresses and phone numbers.

When pressed for the reason this information is needed, store employees assure me that it is for my own protection or that I am not under any suspicion of shoplifting. Since I have no lack of advertisements sent to my home right now or marketing data collected on me, and since the stores have no legal right to demand much of this documentation, I would rather not oblige them.

Is there a polite way to say no to these requests? I know the employees are only doing the job they are ordered to do, and I hate to be rude, but they can become rather defensive and persistent.

GENTLE READER: Presuming that you are complying with reasonable, if ever-increasing, security measures in regard to checks, credit cards and unexplained bundles, Miss Manners assures you that there is nothing rude about declining to be interrogated.

You may say, "I'm sorry, I never give that information out," but soften it, if you wish, by adding, "It would be a waste of your money as you would only reach a telephone recording and I don't open advertising mail."

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