When I was in the fifth grade, there was a lull just before lunch that signaled our class’s down time. We 10-year-olds were allowed to doodle while our teacher read to us. The beauty of these sessions was that we selected the books and the teacher read them, cover to cover, stretching each one out over several days.

When my turn came to suggest a book, I opted for the 1948 classic Cheaper by the Dozen. I didn’t think my choice was odd; after all, the teacher had read plenty of other classics to us, including the 1860s frontier adventures of Caddie Woodlawn. But I soon realized that I hadn’t, perhaps, been so wise in my selection.

Written by two siblings, this memoir recounts growing up in the first quarter of the 20th century as a member of the unusual Gilbreth clan: parents who were industrial engineers and a gaggle of 12 energetic children. At the time when this book was set, having a dozen children was less bizarre than having a mother with both a college degree and a career. Having live-in household servants wasn’t strange, either. And making casually racist comments about non-whites was, well, quite ordinary.

I grew up in the 1980s and attended public schools in London and Seattle that had diverse student populations. By the age of 10, I was well aware of what could and could not be said in public about race. Fifth grade, after all, was the year I slogged through Gone with the Wind, a book of dubious literary merit but enormous length, and it must be said, one that offered quite an education in how black characters were once depicted in fiction.

I knew all about the racially discomfiting bits in Cheaper by the Dozen. What I didn’t realize was that my teacher didn’t. So when she reached uncomfortable passages — such as the mother using the term “Eskimo” to refer to anything she deemed unmentionable, or the father putting on minstrel shows for the family — she simply skipped over them.

Mortified, I believed my teacher must think me a closet racist. So I said nothing; I didn’t want to embarrass myself by pointing out that our teacher was giving us a cleaned-up version of a classic.

Decades later, I find myself wondering why she didn’t seize the opportunity to talk about the cultural standards of bygone eras. Maybe she thought we wouldn’t understand or would misunderstand. Maybe the whole thing just made her nervous, and so she shied away from it altogether.

When confronted with the uncomfortable, silence is often the easiest and safest response. As the saying goes, it’s better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. Around the touchy topic of race, opening one’s mouth can be riskier than Russian roulette. People are quick to misinterpret and judge. And when it comes to family, talking about race can feel like walking barefoot across broken glass.

One of the first major fights I ever had with my husband arose over a story I told him about my Southern relatives. I didn’t grow up in the South, and I find its culture alien. But I’d attended the occasional family reunion and had learned by osmosis how much could be communicated in the culture without saying a word.

The story I shared with my husband dated, again, from fifth grade, and concerned one of my great-uncles, a jovial, rotund Georgia boy who had served in World War II and now, as part of the social scene at reunions, felt it his duty to share choice jokes about African Americans, using the “n” word. The first time I heard him drop one of these bombshells, my mouth fell open — and then shut firmly in polite silence.

He chuckled to himself. A few adults smiled thinly. Somebody changed the subject, and the conversation moved on.

Later, I asked my mother about it.

“Well, you know, for his generation that was normal,” she said.

“I know, but why doesn’t someone tell him it’s not normal anymore?” I demanded.

“Because he’s your great-uncle,” she replied.

In other words: Respect your elders. Be polite.

My husband was furious. “You should’ve spoken up!” he argued. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

My response was the same as my mother’s: Because no one would’ve taken me seriously. Because it would’ve been rude. Because it’s not easy to confront anyone, especially a family member, about something so difficult to discuss.

Once, when I was in high school, my mother and sister and I took a road trip with my maternal grandparents from Georgia to the Florida Panhandle to visit an uncle. On the way, we drove briefly through a chunk of Alabama. My sister and I happened to have a cassette tape with the catchy 1970s Lynyrd Skynyrd song “Sweet Home Alabama” on it, and we asked my grandfather if he could put it in the tape deck to commemorate the crossing. Stupid, yes, but it was a long ride. He agreed, and loud, twanging guitar music soon filled the car.

Shocked at the noise, my grandmother protested, calling the raucous song “nigger music.” My own grandmother — my loving, anxious grandmother — had uttered such a racist thing in front of all of us. I was startled. But I was also a teenager and full of righteousness, so I dared my own feeble protest.

“Grandma, this is a white band,” I said weakly.

“I don’t care,” she responded. “I don’t like it.”

I decided to try conciliation. “Well, what kind of music do you like, then?”

“Big band,” she retorted. “Frank Sinatra.”

My mother was listening now, so I shut up. Well, lots of big bands were black, weren’t they? I wanted to snap. But I didn’t.

I sulked for a while and then tried again. “Grandma, how would you feel if I married a black man?” My mother frowned; starting a conversation point blank in this way was not, to say the least, subtle.

“Well, I’d be worried,” said my grandmother. “Not because of his being black, you understand, but because it’s difficult to be an interracial couple.”

I leaned back in my seat. I had no response to this because she was probably right. It did seem difficult to be an interracial couple.

I have no way of knowing whether my grandmother really believed what she was saying, or if she was choosing her words carefully because I was, as she called her Seattle grandchildren, so “West Coast” and had made my own beliefs clear. I might have lost some of my grandmother’s respect that day for being challenging and rude. Part of me wishes I hadn’t said anything; the urge to provoke is not pleasant. But then again, perhaps I won a little respect for screwing my courage to the sticking place. She died several years ago, and I never had a chance to talk to her about it again. But part of me is grateful that we had the conversation at all.

Despite having to raise her children in the “wilds” of the Pacific Northwest, my mother always took pains to instill manners in us. Manners, she made it clear, are not about old Southern traditions or strong men lending a helping hand to delicate ladies. They’re about making everyone, regardless of background or gender or race, feel at ease. That’s why you hold doors open for people and say polite things about the food at dinner and make sure to say hello to all of your party guests — because it makes everything easier for everyone.

My great-uncle made people uncomfortable, but he didn’t realize it. The silence that greeted him was a way of attempting good manners, of putting things right again. But when such a silence is ignored or misunderstood, there must be a way to break it, to fracture the glass of smooth socializing, so that people realize it can be a barrier as well as a portal.

I think, with my grandmother, I was trying to get there. Granted, I was using a sledgehammer to do the shattering. Perhaps now, no longer a teenager, I could do it more gently: firmly enough to attract notice, but not so quietly that it’s just a timid tapping.