DEAR MISS MANNERS: My daughter has become friends with my son’s ex-girlfriend, and wants her to attend her wedding. This girlfriend broke up with my son over a year ago, which hurt my son a bit. My son has moved on and has been dating a new girl for about eight months.

We’ve asked him what he feels, and he basically doesn’t want her there. But it’s my daughter’s wedding, and we are friends with her parents, too. To prevent a world war, who do I side with?

GENTLE READER: Do you remember when they were younger and fought over who had the toy first? Sometimes you took the decision out of their hands (“If you can’t agree, then nobody gets to play with it”), but sometimes it was more effective to make them work it out themselves.

This is one of the latter times. Miss Manners has no objection to your making the comparison when you tell your son and daughter -- it will remind them that they are brother and sister, and that they love and should respect each other.

However, it would be best to avoid being too explicit that the ex-girlfriend has been cast in the role of the stuffed giraffe.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My boyfriend and I live together and work for the same company. We are invited to a retirement party for a guy who used to work with both my boyfriend and his ex-wife.

The ex-wife was the retiree’s old boss. She is now in a different department with a bigger title. I would like to go to the party, but I feel this is more her turf, being that it was her old group. Should I still go with my boyfriend? Should he go by himself? I feel that skipping the party would not be a good idea, because my boyfriend has worked well with the retiree.

GENTLE READER: Mixing one’s personal and professional lives causes so many problems that Miss Manners would have thought people would by now have heeded her advice to desist.

Alas, no. Very well. Your boyfriend presumably has to interact with his ex-wife at work. If he -- and she -- are wise, they have decided to observe a merely professional relationship, saving any necessary remaining cleanup of their former status for off-work hours.

You should do the same. Whether or not to attend the party can then be decided on whether you were invited as an employee or the partner of one. In the former case, how well did you know the retiree? In the latter case, are other employees bringing their partners?

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I live on the corner of a major street in my town, very near the intersection with another major street. As such, there will be times when I am out working in my yard, or out in front for whatever reason, and a funeral motorcade will pass. I’d like to be respectful as they pass, but am unsure exactly what I should do. Any suggestion would be helpful.

GENTLE READER: Stopping your activity and standing with a solemn face while the cortege passes is an easy way to pay your respects. It is also a kind thing to do, so Miss Manners hopes you will not be discouraged if she notes that, it being a major street, others who do not notice are not guilty of impropriety for politely going about their business.

(Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)

DEAR MISS MANNERS: In this day of “pet parents,” I constantly find myself biting my tongue. A dog is a dog, and they follow a different set of rules than children.

I love my dog -- he has been my best friend for 14 years -- but he is a dog, and I will not treat him the same as I treat a human child. If he is driving me nuts, it is not abuse to put him outside for a while, as long as weather allows. It is not abuse to put him in a temperature-controlled garage when we are not home.

It is not unkind to not allow him on the furniture. If he is not listening or is generally misbehaving, I have no problem swatting his backside or grabbing him by the scruff of the neck, the same way his mother would have. As a result, I have an overwhelmingly well-behaved dog that I’ve never even had to have on a leash. Dogs respond to consistent discipline.

Pets are animals, NOT PEOPLE! What would you see as a proper response to someone who tells me that I should have my dog taken away for treating him like a dog? To be clear, I am never excessive in punishments and he has never been hurt -- he is a genuinely happy, fearless, active little guy.

GENTLE READER: We will assume that it is the dog who is happy, fearless and active, not the person trying to have him taken away.

Without disagreeing with your premise, you might consider accepting your assailant’s premise that there are some similarities between children and pets. As a Human Parent -- by which Miss Manners refers to “the parent of a child,” although not necessarily “a parent who has had a full night’s sleep” -- you would understand a stranger interceding in true cases of abuse. But you would be rightly indignant at strangers threatening to call the police because they disagree with benign parenting.

The next time you are criticized, try recoiling with a horrified, “Are you suggesting someone should take away my beloved Prince?” Then, while your critic recovers from the confusion, make a quick getaway.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My daughter is getting married on New Year’s Eve, and wants to list her father’s long-term girlfriend on the program as her stepmother.

I am against this, as they are not married. The wedding is being held in a church, and right off the bat, my daughter is lying in their first sacrament to God.

What is the proper-etiquette way to name a long-term girlfriend on the wedding program? Help. My daughter is upset and won’t talk to me.

GENTLE READER: Your daughter may be upset at having been accused of sacrilege. Whether or not your assessment is theologically accurate, it adds significantly to the emotional pressure of the conversation.

Etiquette recommends a gentler approach. As an enemy of wedding programs (a sacrament is not a theatrical performance), Miss Manners is willing to take the blame for recommending that the offending program be scrapped in its entirety.

(Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I have worked in the hotel industry as a room attendant for many years, and know the ins and outs of making beds. When my husband and I took a vacation to see friends of ours in another state, they kindly let us stay in their home during our visit. To our surprise, the bed we slept in only had the bottom sheet, and a comforter for our top layer.

Since it was rather warm, the comforter was out of the question to use. We politely asked if we could have a flat sheet for our bed. Our hosts looked shocked we even asked such a question, and flat-out said they didn’t have any flat sheets: “We only use bottom/fitted sheets for all beds in our home.”

We quickly apologized and let it go. The next morning, my husband and I went to the nearest store and bought a flat sheet to use and brought it back home with us.

Is this the latest trend, to not use top sheets anymore? Should we be packing sheets with us whenever we stay at other people’s homes?

What bothered us the most was wondering, when was that comforter last washed?

I guess what we are trying to say, for hostesses out there, is that if people are going to stay in their homes, please provide a complete sheet set that the guests can use or peel away.

Or are we out of line here?

GENTLE READER: When you say “we,” you might include Miss Manners, who believes that a properly made bed has two sheets, an actual blanket, a blanket cover, a bedspread and a reasonable number of pillows so that none has to be pitched overboard to make room for the sleeper.

However, she is aware that she may not encounter this arrangement when she leaves her own well-ordered household. Indeed, there are many who, in using comforters, immediately did away with bedspreads, and are now doing the same with top sheets.

Whether your hosts wash the duvet cover as often as they do the sheets, she cannot say. But it is rude to let on that you suspect your hosts of slovenliness. So Miss Manners hopes that you did not mention that you had to provide your own bedding.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I extended a single invite, one month in advance, for Thanksgiving and provided an RSVP date of Nov. 20. On Nov. 10, they thanked me, talked about their pending options and said they had not yet decided.

I have now been invited to another home and want to handle this correctly. Do I wait to hear back by the 19th, or is the expectation midnight on the 20th?

With social media tools, is email OK to wish my invited guest well on Thanksgiving and mention our new plans? Or, should I call -- and if so, what if I have to leave a message? I would like to join an extended family that is equally important to our lives.

GENTLE READER: You should have checked with Miss Manners before issuing a generous deadline. Without one, you could reasonably have expected an answer within a few days, and asked for a definitive one now. The best you can do is to plead that you find that you need to know -- without mentioning that you could do better.

(Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)