DEAR MISS MANNERS: I was changing my baby's diaper in a public restroom the other day. The changing table had no privacy whatsoever, and anyone walking in or out of the restroom had full view of what was going on.

While most people seemed to avert their eyes, there was one woman who, while waiting for her children to wash their hands, kept looking over at my daughter while her diaper was off, and it made me very uncomfortable and upset. I don't feel that staring at anyone, no matter how old, in that position is right.

What would be an appropriate way to say, "Would you please stop staring at my half-naked daughter, it's quite rude"?

GENTLE READER: "Would you like to help?"

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My wife is a voracious reader, almost to the point of it being a compulsion. This is not a problem most of the time, but she insists on reading at the table. Breakfast, lunch or dinner finds her with a magazine or newspaper next to her place setting and she sometimes does not even look away to get another bite of food.

I have told her in the past that I think this is very rude behavior and her response was that we don't talk at the table anyway.

I admit that I am not a great talker at any time; my family did not converse a great deal at the table, as hers always has. But having a person glued to the printed page does not foster communication. She will look up briefly to respond when I do have something to say but goes immediately back to her reading.

It has gotten to the point that I simply eat quickly and leave the table. I wonder if there is something I could say to lessen this behavior without facing a stony silence and the feeling that it is I who has been rude. Or am I being overly sensitive to this?

GENTLE READER: Not sensitive enough. You have picked up on the etiquette problem, which is that it is rude to read at the table when dining with another person, but not on the marital problem, which is that you and your wife apparently have nothing to say to each other.

The two are related. Breaking bread together is the most basic of human rituals, precisely because it provides families, friends and colleagues with an opportunity to bond. That many families have abandoned the nightly ritual of dinner together strikes Miss Manners has tragic.

But you might as well have abandoned it, for all the good it is doing either of you. Stony silence would be markedly unpleasant, but blank silence is no fun, either.

Yes, it is rude to read at the table. But Miss Manners is afraid that a general agreement to talk will not break the impasse. Rather, you will have to initiate conversation by thinking up topics that will interest and engage your wife -- surely you at least once knew what they were -- and speaking with enthusiasm to give her a pleasant alternative.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: I just read about the tradition of requiring morning attire (until now translated as tails, pearl or black vest and striped pants) of all Justice Department employees appearing before the Supreme Court at oral argument.

Given all the precedent-setting possibilities implicit in this scenario, what would you recommend the new female Solicitor General do? Law is one of the few areas of life left that people take tradition and symbols seriously, and I thought you might be able to add an interesting -- and much needed -- perspective grounded in a real appreciation of etiquette.

GENTLE READER: Actually, nearly every profession or activity takes seriously its own traditions and symbolic clothing, whether formal or informal. It is not just the law, but also the military, the worlds of sports and of music, brides, street gangs and, oh yes, etiquette. Ordinary people do, too, which is why rock stars look like members of a church choir when they have to face a jury.

But the question of the Solicitor General is a hard one for Miss Manners. Not only is she generally fond of tradition, but she hardly gets to see anyone in proper morning clothes, now that presidents have decided that their inaugurations are not all that formal (or are afraid that top hats make them look like cartoon plutocrats). Japanese statesman and the occasional daytime bridegroom are about it.

In the Court, that formality symbolizes the stature of the executive branch's representative, respect for the highest members of the judicial branch and the importance of the occasion. Well and good.

However, these clothes, equally suitable for major daytime ceremonies and social life, are for gentlemen. The ladies' equivalent, of softly flowing dresses with hats, is strictly social. That makes them ridiculously out of place in a professional context. Not to mention that the variety expected in feminine clothes would be prohibitively expensive.

One solution has been simply to put the male clothes on females. Waitresses in fancy restaurants wear male evening clothes. Miss Manners finds the symbolism offensive, as it symbolically concedes that she is an ersatz male doing a male's job. But neither does Miss Manners approve the female slackness she sees in orchestras, where male musicians wear proper evening clothes and many female musicians slop around in anything black.

So unless some great designer can come up with a standard, professional-looking formal dress -- the formal equivalent of the everyday feminine daytime pants suits taken up by many stateswomen -- morning attire will have to disappear. It is a shame, but Miss Manners is afraid that the negative symbolism outweighs the positive.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am a professor at a large public university and recently asked the gentleman friend I have been dating for over a year if he would accompany me to a university social function.

He agreed, but three days before this event he told me he could not attend because he had just been invited to the 50th birthday party of a longtime friend and there was a time conflict.

What do I do? Stay home or attend the university event on my own and make his excuses?

GENTLE READER: Of course you should go. Miss Manners hopes you, at least, know how rude it is to throw over an engagement. Unless, of course, it is an engagement to be married.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am the mother of an 8-year-old boy with Asperger's syndrome. He's extremely intelligent and highly emotional.

Second grade presented him with significantly greater expectations in the classroom, which he greeted with significantly more disruptive behavior. His father and I and the school intervened quickly and were, we believed, working collaboratively to help him learn appropriate behavior within the constraints of the public school system.

I'll spare you the details; what matters is that each day was pretty unpredictable and stressful for him, his teacher and his classmates. His teacher was an experienced professional (20-plus years in the school) who had taught our older child two years before. Apparently, she reached her tipping point, because out of the blue one day, the principal informed us that she was changing our son's classroom placement in order to give him "a new beginning." He managed the transition pretty well, though he was very sad about leaving behind the friends he had made in his original class.

I simply cannot find it within me to greet her civilly when I see her in the hallways. I cannot even bring myself to make eye contact with her. My son has moved on, emotionally, but what he doesn't know is that she just gave up on him; she decided she couldn't tolerate the disruptions he caused in her classroom and asked for him to be transferred. (I know this from a conversation with his present teacher.)

Even realizing that such a teacher makes a bad match for my special-needs child has not helped me to forgive her. I know also that I am modeling a bad example for my son, which adds to my distress (except that he is oblivious to nonverbal social cues, so unless I were to instruct him not to speak to her, which I'd never do, I can nearly rationalize my own bad behavior). My son is not a monster; he has a medical disability, and it kills me that her decision signals to every other teacher in the school that she views him as ungovernable.

I assume my anger will dissipate with time, but in the meanwhile, I want to behave better. Can you make some suggestions for the next time I encounter her at school?

GENTLE READER: Look her in the eye. Greet her civilly. And if it doesn't choke you, tell her that you appreciate her having tried to deal with what you acknowledge is a difficult situation.

Since you are appealing to Miss Manners, she assumes that you know she will not justify behaving, as you admit, badly. But it may help you to know that behaving graciously is the best thing you can do for your son.

It isn't only the example, although you should not count on his total oblivion to your distress. He has evidently not been branded as ungovernable, because another class was found for him. You do not want to saddle him with the burden of being part of a package deal with an ungovernable mother.

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