Miss Manners: Should I return old love letters to my dying ex-lover?

After we separated, she told me that she had burned my old letters, but not out of resentment. I still have all the letters she wrote to me and I want to return them now: she has children and her letters capture many remarkable moments from her life.

Quick – ask! Miss Manners reminds you that people with incurable diseases are still alive and have opinions.

The fact that your friend burned your letters, not out of anger but just to put the past behind her, suggests that she may not like her children going through her old romance novels. You may think this is harmless history, but she may find it embarrassing.

Or maybe not. But the decision should be hers.

Dear Ms Manners, Every year my family spends a week at the beach with my in-laws. They pay for the beach house, which we can’t afford and for which I am always really grateful. At the suggestion of the in-laws, my son and daughter each bring a friend with them on these trips.

Last year they rented a house with just enough bedrooms for two of the four children. My son and his friend shared a room, and my daughter and her boyfriend had to sleep in the hallway. It wasn’t a big deal; there’s not a big age difference and there’s no reason why either of them should have more or less privacy.

My mother-in-law rented the same house for this year’s trip and I assumed my son would sleep in the hallway this time. However, she has announced that she wants to assign him the bedroom again.

She has a rather Neanderthal habit of favoring men and treating the women in the family as second-class citizens. For example, she gives my son an expensive skateboard for his birthday and then my daughter a coloring book. This is partly a generational thing. This is a woman who still calls flight attendants “stewardesses” and uses several other outdated terms.

Do I have the right to express an opinion on this? On the one hand, she is the hostess, but on the other hand, it hurts my daughter’s feelings. The ongoing pattern of favoritism sometimes even makes my son uncomfortable.

No, you don’t have that the power to reassign rooms in other people’s houses. Nor to re-educate your mother-in-law, as much as she needs it.

But you have the authority to discipline your children—in this case, by showing your son how to deal with his feelings of discomfort.

He could ask his grandmother, “Would it be okay if I switched with Lily? She was in the hallway last summer and that doesn’t seem fair. Ethan and I would like to sleep in the hallway.”

New columns by Miss Manners appear Monday through Saturday on washingtonpost.com/advice. You can send questions to Miss Manners via her website, missmanners.com. You can also follow her at @RealMissManners.