DEAR MISS MANNERS: My husband and I have been together for over 40 years. We both are accomplished cooks and greatly enjoy hosting nice dinner parties for four or six guests. We have accumulated fine china, sterling silver and crystal over the years, and we enjoy setting a beautiful table and creating good food.

However, over the years, many of our guests have said how much they enjoyed the evening but that they could never reciprocate, as they cannot entertain in the style we enjoy providing. We respond that we love hamburgers on the grill, too, and that just getting together is the primary enjoyment.

Although our invitations are always eagerly accepted, and our friends seem to greatly enjoy the evening, even repeat guests over the years have failed to reciprocate. My spouse suggests we just "dumb it down," keep the sterling and crystal in the pantry and provide more simple fare. I do not agree, as this would greatly reduce our enjoyment in entertaining, but perhaps our more formal style has become obsolete in today's casual world. By the way, many of our friends are well-off, with beautiful homes.

Do we compromise our standards and give up what we enjoy doing? Or do we continue to be the frequent dinner party hosts and seldom, if ever, the guests?

GENTLE READER: Please tell your spouse that you need not "dumb down" your parties just because other people are rude.

Yes, Miss Manners knows that many will take exception to this, but she will remind them that your friends seem perfectly happy to enjoy your finery, even if they are baffled by how to entertain formally themselves. Decent people do not entertain merely to show up others. If your friends cannot find a way to reciprocate within their means, it is their problem, not yours.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: We host my husband's sister and her husband for dinner at least once a week. Both of them have terrible table manners. While it bugs me, I could ignore it if it weren't for how it affects my children. When their aunt and uncle are over, the kids' own manners regress.

When I tell the children not to chew with their mouths open or to ask politely for more food, their response is always, "But Aunt Jessica doesn't have to do that!" or "Uncle Brian didn't say please!" Each time, the adults at the table look chagrined. (But not enough, it seems, to change their ways.)

Jessica and Brian are adults and I have no interest in parenting them or making them feel unwelcome at my house. Is it rude to respond to my children by saying, "I'm not their parents"? If so, is there a polite way to make it clear that the behavior is unacceptable from my children in front of people who are doing those same rude actions?

GENTLE READER: "Well, these are our rules." Miss Manners suggests that you practice saying this without overemphasizing the "our" -- or making eye contact with the true offenders.

(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: My son, who is 13, has a job mowing and weed-eating yards. He has started his own business: He bought his own equipment with saved-up birthday and Christmas money, and he keeps his business funds, spending money and savings in separate accounts. He sets his prices based on current fuel costs and the price of other parts and equipment, like weed-eater string.

Some of his clients are great-grandparents on his mother's side, who willingly pay what he charges. However, after doing a job for my grandfather, Peepaw asked him what he owed. When my son said, "$10," Peepaw promptly replied, "$10?? You'll take $5," and handed him $5.

My son is too respectful to have backtalked, but I'm a bit irritated. Is it wrong to say something? Is it wrong for my son to refuse to help in the future?

GENTLE READER: Since your son is already so savvy at business, you might educate him on one of its most important rules: Do not mix business with family.

His career seems to be taking off, so perhaps he can now steer away from providing services for family members, or make it pro bono for them in exchange for good references. Miss Manners assures him that what he initially loses in revenue, he will make up in the ability to ignore strong opinions he will no longer feel obligated to agree with.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I recently married a lovely gentleman who volunteers with a local Boy Scout troop. Several weeks after the wedding, I joined him at a scout family function. I was sitting among a group of friends and strangers, cheering for a group of boys participating in a ceremony with their mothers.

An unknown lady leaned over to me and said, "Just think, in 'X' number of years it will be you up there!"

My abdomen is certainly not flat, and I realized that this woman was assuming that I was already well along in pregnancy. I turned to her with a smile and said, "We won't be having children for several years yet, but I do look forward to having them someday."

A friend told me later that it was very rude of me to embarrass the lady like I did, though I felt, and still do, that my response was polite and appropriate. Was I incorrect and rude? Could Miss Manners please suggest a better way to tell someone that my figure and my family plans are none of their business?

GENTLE READER: "Perhaps."

This is not in answer to whether or not Miss Manners can suggest something, but rather a response to this woman's question. Yes, it may leave her wondering if the variable is that you are not pregnant -- or that you do not wish for your future child to be a Boy Scout. But that is an appropriate price to pay for making such a rude presumption.

(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: My husband and I traded in his car for a used luxury sedan. As we came home from the dealership, one of our neighbors looked at the car, then at us, and asked if we'd bought a new car. I said, "Well, it's used, but new to us" and smiled. She answered back, "You can't afford that." I laughed and said, "I had no idea you were my financial adviser."

She became very angry and told me, "You don't have to be a jerk about it." I shrugged my shoulders and said, "But saying 'You can't afford that' isn't being one?"

She stalked off in a fit of anger. We walked into the building and decided to ignore her going forward.

Was I being overly sensitive? I guess it doesn't really matter, because we only ever have small talk with her. No friendship has developed from our interactions.

GENTLE READER: Nor is it likely to, Miss Manners thinks. You responded to rudeness with more rudeness, which did not make you feel better, did not make your neighbor reconsider her own behavior, and increased the total sum of unhappiness in the world. For any one of those reasons, she would have thought it did matter.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My father passed away two years ago. He was not a religious man, strictly a "weddings and funerals" kind of person when it came to church, and did not hold clergy in high regard.

When he died, our family requested that in lieu of flowers, people make donations to an educational foundation he and my mother set up, or to the wonderful hospice facility that cared for him so well in his final weeks. Although many honored that request, many more instead gave money to their churches for a certain number of Masses, or even perpetual Masses, to be said for his soul.

While this might seem worthy to the giver, it bothered me. Nonetheless, we wrote thank-you notes to each person because we recognized their gesture of doing "something" in honor of my father.

But wasn't that telling them that next time, they should repeat the same thing for others who might not appreciate it? Sure enough, when my mother passed away a few months ago, we went through the same exercise.

Why do people ignore the grieving family's wishes? And what is an appropriate way to respond without encouraging the gesture in the future?

GENTLE READER: By not encouraging donations at all. With due deference both to the American entrepreneurial spirit and to your own loss, funerals are not fundraising opportunities.

They are not even gifting opportunities, as the honoree unfortunately is no longer in a position to derive any pleasure from the thoughtfulness of their loved ones. One brings food or flowers as a sign of respect -- and to provide the widow or child some immediate assistance as they grieve.

Miss Manners agrees that you will still have to express thanks, but perhaps friends who have not been instructed to make donations will be more inclined to grieve with you.

(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.)