Judith Martin who writes under the pen name  Miss Manners writes a fabulous column in the Washington Post. Her books written to the “Gentle Reader” are  so helpful, humorous and very practical.

For example on unwanted visitors

“What if nobody invited them? They just announced they were coming, or they actually showed up on the doorstep.

Then someone let down their guard, probably out of the goodness of not wanting to seem rude. There is a polite way to bar entry. One offers profuse apologies and regrets (Oh, what  a shame you’ll be here then- ordinarily, we’d love to have you here, but that’s a bad time for us”) but no specific excuses that can be countered with such blithe reassurances as ” Oh, don’t worry about that- we’ll just entertain ourselves”.

I wish I had know that years ago; that there is nothing rude about refusing entry. One instant in particular comes to mind, I had 3 children under 3, the youngest only a few weeks old and waking at least once in the middle of the night, dear husband was out. All the children were  just settled and I was very much looking forward to an early night and at 8:30pm someone knocked on the door and wanted to talk. I felt obliged to invite her in. Since I have got older I just decided that the children came first and needed a rested mother and so I would now have turned the person away but it is nice now to know how to do that with good manners.

Don’t worry, Miss Manners does encourage us to practice hospitality and gives wonderful guidelines to make it an enjoyable event for all.

I am looking forward to reading  her guide on raising children.

Auckland Library carries two of her books.

Here is the link for the book at the NZ National Library

Here is the link for the books at the Auckland Libraries

Click on the image to buy it from Fishpond, it is also available as a board book