DEAR MISS MANNERS: When our daughter was born, seven years ago, my father-in-law gifted her with his mother’s lovely diamond engagement ring. At what age would it be appropriate for a young lady to wear such a piece of jewelry?
GENTLE READER: Your daughter’s response, Miss Manners would guess, is, “Now!” But not being 7, she disagrees.
Advanced jewelry (defined, for this purpose, as “anything other than a plastic tiara”) is reserved for serious, formal occasions, and there is a presumption that a child, charming though you may find her when she is licking icing off her fingers at the kitchen table, is not yet up to the task.
While that ban does relax as the child ages and the events become more weighty, an engagement ring has a specific significance. Your father-in-law presumably hoped she would someday wear it as her own wedding ring -- which, whether or not you share that hope, is an answer you can give to save yourself the heartache of hoping it will come home on your daughter rather than being lost behind a seat on the school bus.