Miss Manners: Do I Need To Respond To Awful Letters From Strangers?

[minoanmiss]

DEAR MISS MANNERS: What is the correct response to a critical unsolicited letter?

I am in my 30s, and sadly have been estranged from my parents for the past few years due to abuse. I periodically receive long, scathing letters from people I've never met, and from distant family members who think I should give my parents another chance. Presumably, my parents have asked them to send these letters, as they contain many misperceptions about the situation.

What is the etiquette here? I do not think it is appropriate to discuss the situation with them, and my first inclination is to not respond. But I also want to do the right thing. Most of these letters come from members of an older generation, who may care more about etiquette.
Do proper manners require you to respond to every letter you receive? Or are there some situations that supersede the rules?

GENTLE READER: Members of a generation who care more about etiquette would not write rude, impertinent letters in the first place.

Miss Manners assures you that you do not need to answer. But if you are worried about fueling the feud further, you may write back a curt, "Thank you for the advice. I hope you are well."

That this is perfectly polite, but might make them madder, is a bonus.

Comments

[joyeuce]

It's amazing what people choose not to see. My father once hit me several times on the legs with a reasonably sized stick, at a dramatic-society-and-families picnic. I was screaming, and trying to climb a tree to get away from him, so I don't think people can have failed to notice. No one (including my mother) intervened, or even mentioned it.

[full_metal_ox]

Then they don’t get to pop up out of nowhere decades later to be shareholders in your behavior, do they.

[joyeuce]

Indeed not. Unlike LW, I am fortunate enough that they haven't - apart from my mother. And she gets, not exactly a free pass, but a bit more leeway, on the grounds that he sometimes hit her too.

[minoanmiss]

Ah Happy Childhood Memories[tm]. It is absolutely amazing what people will Choose Not To Notice, isn't it? I was impressed that people Didn't See my mother dragging me around by my ears or nose but this takes the proverbial cake.

offers commiserative hugs

[joyeuce]

Thank you. It does make me wonder what my father's father was like; I remember very little about him.

[azurelunatic]

By all accounts my own father's father was more violent and less patient.

[minoanmiss]

That makes sense. There are a lot of holes in my knowledge of my family, but not one that comprehensive.

[joyeuce]

Grandfather died when I was about 7, so I only had a small child's knowledge of him. Now my grandmother and father are also dead, and my aunts have informed me we're "not really family" (they were adopted), so there's no one left to ask.