DEAR MISS MANNERS: I took relatives out to brunch. During our conversation, we were talking about my niece’s new job and her search for a nanny to watch both her baby and a friend’s. My stepmother remarked twice that she couldn’t tell if the other child was a boy or a girl.
Later, after one of the servers freshened our drinks, she commented that she couldn’t tell if the server was male or female. And she repeated it. I responded, with a look of puzzlement, that the server was female.
I’m disappointed that I didn’t have a better response to what was a rude and poisonous remark. This woman often drops offensive, butter-wouldn’t-melt negative judgments that are personal, political or class-based.
Do you have suggestions for handling this gracefully (not my strongest point) while communicating that it’s not OK, at least around me? Complicating matters is that my father is elderly and I’m the only child near him.
GENTLE READER: Life must be getting more interesting for your stepmother, with her fascination with strangers’ gender identities. There are so many more now to choose among.
Miss Manners is given to understand that there are people who consider “What is your pronoun?” a polite question, although there are others with whom she would not advise trying it.
In any case, asking people directly should be on a need-to-know basis. (Small babies are an exception. Unless they have bows tied on their bald heads, it is considered legitimate to ask, as there are so few conversation openers with them.)
But if your stepmother is merely speculating privately and you find it annoying, you need only murmur, “I didn’t notice.”