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CrunchyMom
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| Posted: March 01 2008 at 6:44am | IP Logged
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I apologize for sounding offensive. I had no idea of my comments being taken that way. I am proud of my heritage and miss these things about the South, but there are plenty of reasons I probably won't move back there including anti-Catholic sentiments and lack of good bread, cheese, and other cultural elements I truly love about where we live now. As others assumed, I did mean it in a light-hearted way--also in regards to "pretty" being like sweet or whatever. People do carry themselves differently in the South--and dress differently, speak differently, etc. Girls are more girly.
A greater percentage of pageant winners are from the South My voice teacher in college was first runner up to Miss America and was Heather Whitestone's (the deaf Miss America) pageant coach. She replaced the previous teacher who had been Miss Alabama, and my piano teacher in high school was never Miss Alabama, but she paid for college by working the circuit and winning in talent competitions, etc... Things like "pageants" permeate the culture in the South, whereas no one here seems to really care about such things. I've not met many women who carry themselves like these ladies in the North. I certainly don't think that winning beauty pageants is superior morally or an accomplishment all girls should strive for by any stretch, but it is just really different how girls are taught to be in the different places.
I can see the bad from those things, too, but the original question was how are they raised differently, and it is a big difference I see.
And yes, I think it is more respectful to be kind to the cashier or customer or whoever you meet on the street. There are certainly plenty of Northerners I have found to be this way--its just not the expectation overall here that it is in my hometown. However, I grew up in a very rural area and moved to a more urban area; so, perhaps that has more to do with it than region?
Also, my dh is from the Midwest and is a perfect gentlemen. I don't think the South has a monopoly on gentility, but I was a bit taken aback at how few men in my workplace in the NE acknowledge that I was a pregnant lady lugging around heavy boxes of books, etc... That wouldn't happen back home. Not that there aren't individuals who wouldn't offer to help (just like there are individuals who would offer to help in the NE), but just the overall attitude that is different. Maybe women are expected to serve men more at mealtime, etc..., but men are also expected to serve ladies in other ways, too.
Like I also said in a previous post, I think that modeling respectful behavior to our children is the biggest way they learn it. Sure there is an expectation for children to say yes ma'am, no sir, etc..., but it is also modeled by their parents when they address elders, teachers, relatives, etc... And that can be done no matter where one lives.
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Lindsay
Five Boys(6/04) (6/06) (9/08)(3/11),(7/13), and 1 girl (5/16)
My Symphony
[URL=http://mysymphonygarden.blogspot.com/]Lost in the Cosmos[/UR
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Mary G
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| Posted: March 01 2008 at 8:00am | IP Logged
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"Be sweet" -- have you ever read Gone with the Wind? Often, Scarlet is considered the main character; however, Melanie is the true Southern Belle with her quiet ways that get done what she wants to get done ...
And a big piece of the difference between the North and South is that much of the South is still fairly rural/small urban ... once you get south of NoVA, you've got Richmond, Raleigh, Charlotte, Columbia, Charleston, Atlanta ... and these aren't even really that big by Northern standards ... if you go to Tennessee, you've got Knoxville, Nashville, and Chattanooga, Montgomery, Birmingham ... well I think you get the point!
I think the Mid-west has a completely different perspective/personality -- again possibly because of the rural-ness vs the industrialiness
And the West is just wacky~! 
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MaryG
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nissag
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| Posted: March 01 2008 at 8:12am | IP Logged
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I have indeed read "Gone With the Wind" - I think three times. I see just what you mean now when you point to Melanie.
::Tangent warning::
Have you read "Scarlet"? I thought that it was seamless. That's quite an accomplishment since it was written so many years later and by a different author.
Thanks again everyone for your responses so far. Now, how about the boys?
What was that song by Trace Adkins? Something about why girls like southern boys... I'll have to look it up.
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Nissa
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nissag
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| Posted: March 01 2008 at 8:15am | IP Logged
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nissag wrote:
What was that song by Trace Adkins? Something about why girls like southern boys... I'll have to look it up.
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No, that's not the one...  There was one that talked about boys who love their mothers and open doors...
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Nissa
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CrunchyMom
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| Posted: March 01 2008 at 9:00am | IP Logged
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For boys, wouldn't it be along the lines of teaching the those things like opening doors for ladies, stepping aside to let them go first (as in when stepping out of the pew for communion), holding doors (though, that isn't restricted to men, ladies hold doors, too, for those behind them), opening car doors, etc...
Its hard to put my finger on it, and I guess it comes from teaching empathy and compassion in conjunction with manners, but there are definitely those with Southern mannerisms that don't come across as sincere.
Its kind of like in a Jane Austen novel. The overall attitude of treating others as ladies and gentlemen is of course prevalent and important, but the real heroes and heroines have a sincerity that the antagonists lack. I think of the scene in the BBC P & P where poor Jane faints at dinner with Bingley's sisters, and they elegantly ask the servant to help her without any true regard for her well-being. I don't actually remember that particular scene in the book, but its a good example of what I mean.
I would definitely connect teaching young men to teaching them true chivalry, though, I'm not sure that that's exactly how Southerners do it.
I think part of it is from the expectations of those around you. For instance, I know many girls are told by their fathers when first dating to just wait on the boy to open the car door even if that means standing on the curb while he drives away or sitting in the car all evening (it rarely comes to that  ), but while the boys are told to do these things, the girls are also taught to wait in expectation of it.
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Lindsay
Five Boys(6/04) (6/06) (9/08)(3/11),(7/13), and 1 girl (5/16)
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[URL=http://mysymphonygarden.blogspot.com/]Lost in the Cosmos[/UR
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chicken lady
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| Posted: March 01 2008 at 9:49am | IP Logged
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Mary G wrote:
And the West is just wacky~! |
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As a Californian transplanted to Ohio) I agree with you
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JennGM
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| Posted: March 01 2008 at 10:31am | IP Logged
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I apologize for having a hotheaded reaction earlier in the thread. I was thinking this thread is a little like bragging about your alma mater. Of course your own college is the best in everything when you're talking to others, but if you're talking to fellow alumni, you share the negatives, too.
In response to your question about boys, I wrote something earlier in the thread about my own experience in my family and I've also seen in some extended family and friends.
To go back to girls issue. One of the things I've discussed with others is that many times the stress on the outside appearance can be just skin deep, very shallow. Some of the friends from the North have a hard time dealing with women from the South. Their experience has been all nice and charming on the outside, but catty behind the back, so there's insincerity in the manners. That's the dark side of the nice exterior and manners -- and it depends on the family to make sure it goes deeper, that the outside reflects the inside.
That "be sweet" I heard so much, but I never thought about it until now. Another word that hasn't been used here but I always heard it used for both ladies and gentlemen is genteel. Some definitions on the internet seem to have a negative connotation, but growing up in my house it meant having good manners and sweet on the inside and out.
Here's an example of very expensive but the fine clothing of Southern gentlemen: Ben Silver. The Wooden Soldier I've always enjoyed, but thanks for the new catalog tip, Elizabeth! Dress up time is when I wish I had girls, too.
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SallyT
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| Posted: March 01 2008 at 1:58pm | IP Logged
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Jenn, my husband and I are fond of the saying (which I think originated with either Walker Percy or Shelby Foote):
A Southerner's nice, until he shoots you.
A friend of my husband's, a sociologist named John Shelton Reed, has written extensively about the South and Southern culture -- his book Whistling Dixie is an interesting and entertaining read. I forget whether he pointed this out, or whether it originated elsewhere, but one of our other favorite observations about the South is that the most-often heard last words in these parts are:
Hey, y'all, watch this.
So, there you go -- wherever "there" is. I love the South deeply, despite the fact that I don't even have an accent -- I gave it up at four or five, on reflecting that people on television didn't say "Mah" for "my" and "nahn" for "nine." My grandparents did, but they weren't famous, whereas the people on television were. So I trained myself to say "my" and "nine," and now I sound like I'm from nowhere. I kind of lament that, and I lament the passing of a distinctive Southern culture, despite knowing perfectly well that that culture has a dark side. Mostly I miss the old Southern people, my relatives and childhood teachers and church ladies and so on, who were SO Southern, and entertaining in their Southernness and eccentricity. The New South largely doesn't seem to want to BE the South at all, out of shame and guilt over its history, and while I'm not proud of aspects of that history, in which my slave-owning ancestors were implicated, I don't want to say that there was nothing to be proud of at all.
I guess the paradigm that comes to mind for thinking and talking about the South is that of my grandfather, whom I adored and still miss daily. He was born in 1907, in Jackson, TN, and was a farmer all his life. He was a deeply gentle, goodhearted man who loved us children and dealt kindly and fairly, as far as I ever knew, with whoever came into contact with him. He was also, as I now recognize, and as my mother will say point-blank, a racist. He used words for and had attitudes towards black people which I would never use or hold. That did not, as far as I ever saw, translate into treating a black person badly, though the tenant farmers who lived on his land lived, as I now realize, in unbelievable poverty (for that matter, so did my husband's grandfather's family, who were sharecroppers in Mississippi -- rural poverty in the South in the early-to-mid-20th century was fairly colorblind). Of course I can't be proud of that. It pains me deeply to know that there were aspects of a person whom I loved so much which were so wrong. But I can't not love and honor his memory even so, because so much of what I understand as good and honorable and even noble was modeled in him. And if I were going to talk about my grandfather to a bunch of strangers, I would typically NOT qualify every good thing I had to say about him by adding, "Of course, he was a bigot." Nope. I would talk about what I loved about him. And I would hope that other people would understand that I wasn't putting THEIR grandfathers down because I loved mine, or that I was blind to his sins simply because I might choose not to dwell on them in company.
So, I'm sorry that people were offended by what, as Mary said, began as a lighthearted cultural conversation, but I'm even more saddened that too often what the rest of the country -- if not the world -- sees of us are the worst moments in our past.
Sally
PS -- Meanwhile, on a lighter note, here is a "party-invitation rhyme," with instructions for making the invitation, from my Junior League cookbook (actually my grandmother's), for your entertainment:
"A Tyme to Rhyme With Mother Goose!
Invitations: Folded construction paper makes the shoe in which the old woman lived.
The invitation opens to read:
There was an old woman
Who lived in a shoe.
She's having a party
And especially wants you.
Come to my Mother Goose party!"
And another one, for a birthday party with "doll babies:"
(written on cards cut out to look like paper dolls, with joined hands)
August twenty-first is my birthday.
What fun we'll have if you'll come to play!
Get all dressed up like a big lady,
And bring along your favorite baby!
Repeat umpteen times.
And Mary, I lived in Utah, which was really the wacky west -- and I loved it.
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Mary G
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| Posted: March 01 2008 at 2:38pm | IP Logged
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I think a really "telling" example is:
have you ever been in the South on a Sunday morning ... and then been elsewhere in the country on a Sunday morning? That's the picture I always remember about the differences...
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MaryG
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JSchaaf
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| Posted: March 01 2008 at 4:03pm | IP Logged
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Cay Gibson wrote:
hylabrook1 wrote:
A friend from Mississippi always tells her little girls, "Be sweet."
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We are raised on these two words down here and I say them to my girls at least twice a day. |
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I spent a total of 7 years in Mississippi and heard that alot, and now say it to my kids! "Be sweet" encompasses many things-be polite, behave, keep your voice down, etc. etc.
Jennifer
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JennGM
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| Posted: March 01 2008 at 8:44pm | IP Logged
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Sally, I would have to quote your whole post, but I think we have a LOT in common in this area! I've lost most of my accent, also. (BTW, Mrsgranola has the most charming Southern accent -- we all enjoyed listening to her at the conference). Some of my ancestors had plantations, and with them came slaves, of which I'm not proud. Some of my relatives in my memory also had some bigotry, saying things that wouldn't be allowed now -- almost exactly what you describe. I've found each generation has been less and less racist -- each trying to eradicate what they saw as wrong in their family.
I'll have to find your friend's writings. I did a lot of delving into agrarianism in college, and traditional Southern and Catholic ideologies fit right into this (and founding fathers, like Thomas Jefferson).
It's a shame the South is tainted with its terrible sins. It can never be right, but in trying to look at the positives of the South it gets difficult, because the dark cloud is always there.
Love the quotes from the cookbook. Now which Junior League is this, as there are many?
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Jennifer G. Miller
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Cay Gibson
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| Posted: March 01 2008 at 9:00pm | IP Logged
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JennGM wrote:
| Love the quotes from the cookbook. Now which Junior League is this, as there are many? |
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I absolutely love the cookbooks produced by our Junior League. I received their "Pirate's Pantry" as a wedding gift and it is now almost 22 years old and falling apart. And I still love it. 
I should add: "Be Sweet" is something many southern mothers use in public. It's our polite way of reminding our children all we have taught them at home.
I have heard too many northerns say how hospitable and nice our area of the country is to dismiss it lightly. I'm sure there's much truth to it. But I have to warn against stereotyping the South. We are not all sweetness. We have G.R.I.T.S., Steel Magnolias, and YaYa Sisterhood. Go figure.
But I have witnessed too many ladies from this forum and other eloops who are from the North and have hearts of gold. I am blessed to hearby proclaim you all G.R.I.T.S./Steel Magnolias!
Welcome to the YaYa Sisterhood.
To learn more about southern manners check out: The Grits Guide to Life.
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Cay Gibson
"There are 49 states, then there is Louisiana." ~ Chef Emeril
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SallyT
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It's Memphis, honey, 1971. The book is called Party Potpourri -- so the whole thing is about party food and themes. I don't know that my grandmother used it at all, though I did find her chicken pie recipe tucked into the pages when it came to be after she died.
One thing I notice about myself as a Southerner is that even when I was in graduate school, at the height of my halfhearted feminist phase, I was just about the only woman I knew who really was not bothered by men, especially older ones, calling me honey, darling, sugar, etc. Men of my grandparents' generation just DID that, and ladies, too, and I couldn't find it in myself to bristle at them and snarl, "I'm NOT your honey!" So I guess I was being sweet . . .
Sally
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CrunchyMom
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SallyT wrote:
| I couldn't find it in myself to bristle at them and snarl, "I'm NOT your honey!" So I guess I was being sweet . . . |
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I must admit that I don't have an accent anymore either. I slip into it when I go home or talk on the phone for a while with my family, but I studied music and theater in college and worked SO hard not to have one. It is kind of sad, I think... I do however still use lots of words and sayings that confuse and amuse my husband.
Oh, my, how hilarious it was when my fellow Alabama transplant and I were discussing her car battery at work. People went from confused when asked if they could "jump off her car" to horrified when asked if they could, yk, "jump her off."
And I still slip and call a grocery cart a buggy even though no one here would even have a clue what I meant.
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Lindsay
Five Boys(6/04) (6/06) (9/08)(3/11),(7/13), and 1 girl (5/16)
My Symphony
[URL=http://mysymphonygarden.blogspot.com/]Lost in the Cosmos[/UR
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chicken lady
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| Posted: March 03 2008 at 6:16am | IP Logged
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CrunchyMom wrote:
And I still slip and call a grocery cart a buggy even though no one here would even have a clue what I meant. |
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I call them buggies and I am from Ca. I will ask my mom what she calls them, as she is from TX!
I love the south, and as for the south having a black eye, well what region does'nt. I love Ca. too, can anyone say they don't have a reputation? God's people are everywhere. I am with Cay, I have met women from these boards from all corners and they are wonderful! Not perfect, but wonderful!!!
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Topic: Q: Raising children southern style
