This Week June 20, 1990. Page M7 = s MODERN LIVING ‘Raising a child without prejudice EAR MISS MAN- NERS -- I would love my preschool child to grow up as non-prejudiced as I feel I am. I know I can’t do much about remarks she hears outside our home, but I find myself in a bit of a bind when guests make remarks about blacks or retarded people. I am appalled at some of the things people say about others. But being an adult, I just try hard to overlook this problem. My daughter is just a child. She could innocently say something hurtful or offensive to someone that she heard from one of mommy and daddy’s friends in her own @ home. Is is proper to let guests and family members know how I fee] about this type of talk in my home? How does one do it tactfully? I don’t want to insult friends. My husband doesn’t feel as strongly on this matter as I do, and would be very upset if I embarrassed him or our friends over this matter. GENTLE READER -- Miss Manners agrees with you that this is an extremely important issue. Unlike your husband, she would go so far as to say that it is important enough to embarrass guests over -- mild- ly enough not to break the . tules of hospitality (also a a gross rudeness) but strongly enough to disassociate your- self from bigotry, whether your child is present or not. You may politely challenge their statements conversa- tionally, with “Really? That's children have witnessed, are not at all our experience” or “Perhaps you don't know what an elderly patient that she had widespread and -- for practical purposes -- untreatable can- cer. My patient was bedridden, and so was the elderly woman in the next bed. My patient was hard of hearing, so I was speaking rather loudly, and after I had told my patient that ing the role of a supportive family member. GENTLE READER -- By the conventions of etiquette, that flimsy curtain that separates hospital roommates is deemed impenetrable. So the other lady should indeed have pretended that she heard nothing of the conversation, ——Miss-Manners- af By JUDITH MARTIN [© / css it’s like, but we employ some retarded people, and so know how wrong these ideas about them are.” But whether you do that or let things pass, there must be a double-barreled parental les- son after the guests leave. Your child must be told that people often say harmful things carelessly, and that al- though we don’t go around cor- recting others (lesson No. 1), we don’t ourselves endorse such mean ideas (lesson No. 2). People who teach their children only general rules, without teaching the applica- tion by critiquing events the only doing half their child- rearing job. DEAR MISS MANNERS -- I am a doctor, and I had to tell the diagnosis had been con- firmed by the biopsy, her room- mate loudly said, from the other side of the curtain: “Oh, dear, Oh, dear.” As I continued, “Tll pray for you.” I thought her expressions of sympathy were intrusive and should have been postponed. I felt uncomfortable with the evident assumption, despite the drawn curtain, that it was a three-way conversation, as the subject matter was so im- portant and so personal. Should the roommate have kept quiet? If she had con- tinued to speak, should I have said something to her? My patient was without close relatives, and the roommate may have seen herself as play- she added, .The night Nurse Smith ‘defined professionalism twas 11 p.m. and the and hospital was as quiet as the country that surrounded it. Shift change was coming up and we were busy doing last minute chores. We had a new charge nurse that night, a recent arrival from one of the big city hospitals. She seemed determined to whip us all into shape. It was starting out to be a long week. Maybe she did have a point. In the country time has less urgency, and I’m sure she found us somewhat lax. Not that we didn’t get things done, and done on time, but we went about things in a different way. But Smith was a good nurse, that we knew. She had graduated at the head of her class and won commendations in her first year of nursing. Only recently married, she had followed her husband when his office transferred him to our area. The telephone rang. I picked it up. “There’s been an MYA on the river hill,” I said. “The am- bulance is on its way in. One woman badly injured, and two males with cuts and bruises.” We alerted the doctor on call and got things ready. This would be our first emergency with Smith at the helm. The doctor arrived before the am- bulance. The waiting is the hard part, never quite know- ing what to expect, and always anticipating the worst. =Geldenrod= By IVY KENT This time it was pretty bad. The middle-aged woman was unconscious with serious in- juries to chest and abdomen. It had been a head-on. She would have to go straight to the city, but first we had to clean her up and apply dry dressings to her wounds. I remember trying to get all the glass out of her hair, and Smith at my elbow ad- monishing me to be careful. She was crisply efficient, in command of herself and very professional. In record time we had the patient ready for transfer. She had not regained consciousness. Only when we had done all we could for her, did we turn our attention to the two males, waiting with their police es- cort, for our ministration. With them, Smith was coldly polite. We did what we could to patch them up but they were too drunk to feel any pain. I suppose it wasn’t very charitable of me, but I thought after a night in the tank they would probably feel more remorse over their 4x4 write- oft, than their victim. I rather envied Smith’s cool detach- ment. Shift change took place while we were waiting for the am- bulance, so I didn’t know until the next day that Smith had gone with it into the city. “Smith grew up here,” ex- plained the supervisor. “On a farm down by the river. The patient was her mother.” We heard a lot about profes- sionalism in training. That night Smith defined it for us. and discussed the diagnosis only if the roommate herself told her about it. But we are dealing literally with a matter of life and death here, and that makes it ex- tremely hard to abide by con- ventions. Surely the other lady was merely so overcome by distress that she blurted out her sympathy. Yet your patient was entitled to privacy. Surely for such an important announcement, you could have arranged to have her taken out of the room (she may have been bedridden, but hospitals are uniquely equipped to transport such patients) or waited until the roommate was away for a test or visit. DEAR MISS MANNERS - Would you please explain how to use foil-wrapped butter packets? In some cases, one has a bead-and-butter plate; in others, not. GENTLE READER -- No matter how often the health issues have been explained to Miss Manners, she cannot reconcile herself to commer- cial containers on the dinner table. Butter foil must simply be tolerated: If there is no bread- and-butter plate, scoop out the butter onto the edge of the din- ner plate, and crumple the foil to the side where the waiter might mercifully take it away. FOLKFEST ‘90 AT CENTENNIAL SQUARE JUNE 24 TO JULY 2 Seposazacesvesters Opening Day Sunday, June 24 ........... 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