Bless my own heart...

There was a time when I was slightly ashamed of my Southern heritage and my own mannerisms and customs. As someone who believes strongly in human rights issues, I was mortified by our history of slavery and racism, and as a feminist, the whole "Southern Belle" thing rubbed me the wrong way, especially since I had inadvertently picked up some of these traits myself. The New England half of my family was refreshingly direct, and I believed, for a long time, that blunt honesty was preferable to our often symbolic and passive style of communication.  I noticed during my trips to Vermont the prevalence of women with natural faces, sensible hairstyles, preppy LL Bean wardrobes, and felt embarassed about my love of fashion and my tendency to wear makeup most of the time. I even found myself occasionally apologizing for being Southern.  "Did I just say "Bless her heart"?  Sorry, I'm Southern."

We are who we are and regional differences are delightful and make our country more culturally rich.  And, if we all lose our regional flair, our country will be so much duller for it.  I have already noticed that the younger generations of my North Carolina relatives have lost some of that Downeast accent, and, instead of local owner operated restaurants, everyone is eating at Hardee's and Golden Corral. The young folks are often not learning how to cook the recipes their grandmothers once cooked, and gardens full of okra, field peas, and butter beans are being replaced by the salmon pink tough tomatoes one buys at a chain grocery store.  This actually makes me very sad, as we are rapidly becoming Wal-Martized across America. When I travel, I always want to taste the local cuisine, and, though the larger cities usually have "regional" food restaurants, many small towns have nothing but the same chains I see everywhere else.

I have decided I will no longer apologize for being a woman from the South.  I no longer believe that my cultural attributes are weaknesses.  And though some of these mannerisms appear to contradict my professed feminism, I feel as much a feminist as anyone else, and I am finally at home in my own skin.

Some of my Southernisms:

I rarely leave the house without makeup, even if I am only wearing concealer and foundation with sunscreen.  Even if I am planning to geocache in a swamp all day wearing chest waders, I am going to "put on my face".  Yes, I say "put my face on".

I actually refuse to wear white shoes between Labor Day and Memorial Day.

I believe that etiquette and diplomacy are of the utmost importance.  If I have to confront you about something, I am going to say something positive at the beginning and at the end.  I believe that "you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar". 

I sometimes find it challenging to communicate with Northerners without getting my feelings bent out of shape.  My upbringing taught me that how you say something is as, if not more important than what you say.  If you come at me with blunt and direct feedback, I feel somewhat intimidated and just shut down.  I often find it difficult to directly confront others, and sometimes keep things to myself to "keep the peace". I am not weak; it's just something pounded into the heads of Southern girls as they grow up. Don't get me wrong- I love my Northern people as much as my Southern people, and half of my heritage is about as far north as one can get without crossing into Canada.  But I grew up in Virginia, and so I absorbed more of the southern communication style.

I will never dress anyone down in front of others.  Never.  I will not disturb an event or gathering with a public tantrum.  I WILL say something one on one, but I was taught that it is incredibly rude to air one's dirty laundry in public. Unless you publicly insult my Mama, Daddy, husband, kid, or friends.  And then, all bets are off.  I can go from diplomat to Mama Bear in about 5 seconds flat.

When someone DOES cause a public disturbance, it is completely awkward and uncomfortable for me, even if I am not involved.  I want to crawl in a hole.  I want to pull the offender aside and give them an Emily Post etiquette book.  And, when it happens, I try to smooth things over with humor and deflection.  I feel it's my responsibility to be "the hostess" at all times.

I often feel that people who invoke "authenticity" and "keeping it real" as an explanation for their overt bluntness are making excuses for being rude.  Say what you need to say, but there is no need to say it in a hurtful manner.

I believe that food should be involved in everything, and is closely tied to fellowship.  I may not be able to ease your grief after a death, but dangit, I can make some cake or potato salad. I believe that a cookie can make a kid forget their boo boos.

I believe that slips and proper lingerie complete an outfit, and I believe that there is a difference between looking "sexy" and looking like you are not fully dressed. And somehow, I can hold these views while still embracing those women who prefer a more androgynous, even butch presentation, and I don't believe in slut shaming.  I don't know how I have been able to do this, but I somehow have.

I believe that women of all sizes can present themselves beautifully, and that size should not be a barrier to finding flattering clothing and feeling fabulous.  This may not seem like a "southern" custom, but have you ever visited a southern church and seen ladies of all sizes with their dresses and hats? I do think we are a bit more forgiving of a little extra padding than some other regions.  We eat fried food all the time; how can we not be?

Hoppin' John, okra, grits, fried chicken, biscuits, BBQ, nana puddin', pork products.  I love them all.

I tend to proceed anything critical with "Bless his or her heart".

It is difficult for me to ask people for help, and when I do, I tend to proceed it with "If it's not too much trouble, would you mind...."

I worry a good bit about offending people.  I take the time, even when writing, to try to frame things diplomatically.  I worry that this blog entry will offend somebody. I'm not worried enough to not post it, but there you go.

While I would like to work a little bit on being comfortable with directly telling people when things they do bother me and on advocating for my needs, I am pretty much at peace with the rest of this.  It's who I am; it's how I was raised, and I have tried to take the best of my heritage and discard that which I don't like. And if you don't like the way I dress, carry myself, or communicate, well... bless your heart...

Ugh at bows and ruffles

My kiddo is about 75% tomboy.  She will wear a dress, perhaps, twice a year.  When she does wear "girl clothes", she favors a rocker/punk girl look, with skinny jeans, a modern blouse or girl's funky t-shirt, and a short shrug on top.  She has her own unique sense of style, and we only interfere when she is dressed completely inappropriately, i.e., too small/tight clothes, shorts in the middle of winter, etc. Each morning, I ask her "boy or girl clothes", and we proceed according to her desires.  Some days, she tells me she wants to change her gender; other days, she says she wants to be more "girly".  I realize it's quite common for girls to wish they were boys; often it's a stage.  If it continues when she reaches adolescence, I may take her to a counselor, if only to work through whatever social issues her gender identity may cause, and to make peace with whomever she is meant to be.

My HUGE pet peeve is that finding clothes that please her is near impossible, at least in our budget. For example, if she needs a pair of tennis shoes, her choices appear to be the pink/lavender/white spectrum, usually with girly trim, OR extremely traditionally masculine colors and styles.  Grown women have a variety of colors and options from which to choose.  Those who prefer a classic, more unisex style can go to LL Bean or Eddie Bauer and find non-girly women's shoes, and how many of us have a ton of basic black shoes? S loves to wear black, and we often have to hunt around a great deal to find items similar to what her mother wears.  I find a pair of what appears to be basic girls' jeans, and they are ruined for S because of pink piping or flowers that appear somewhere.  We then check the boy's section, but the designs are TOO boyish for her, and, frankly, the fit is different.  She has a girl's body, not a boy's.

My own style ranges from girly to punkish/goth to outdoorsy unisex.  But I have options for all of these moods.  I can peruse LL Bean for those New England preppy days, the Gap, Banana Republic, and Old Navy for dressing down while still wearing female silhouettes, and a ton of stores that cater to my love of glam/retro/girly dress-up gear.  But S?   It is a huge headache locating anything that doesn't pigeonhole her into girly girl or drag king boy clothes.  Neither of these are intrinsically wrong- there are a lot of kids who LIKE these items, but there are a lot of kids who fall through the cracks.

Why do we feel the need to pigeonhole kids into girly girl or uber-masculine boy, when, in fact, we don't feel the need to do so for older kids and adults? Are we being prescriptive?  "You are a girl, so you have to wear pink and bows." "You are a boy, so your clothes have to have transportation and space themes." And clothing for toddlers is even worse.  The princess theme was shoved down our throats, and S would have preferred a black t-shirt with aliens to the Trifecta of Disney Princesses.

Gift time is often frustrating.  Though I am grateful for all the gifts we receive,  it is not necessary to purchase pink Legos for my daughter, and sometimes, little girls would rather play with trucks than dolls.  Sometimes, little boys like to play with dolls.  The most egregious example I've seen are a set of twins that are boy/girl.  The girl is constantly presented with PINK everything, while the boy gets the BOY counterpart.  He gets toolsets while she gets jewelry kits, as if the world will fall apart if she picks up the toolset and he picks up the jewelry.  They often get identical gifts, but hers has to be girl colored and his has to be boy colored, as if there is no way they know what gender they are without reminders.  God forbid kids raised this way have gender identification issues.

Again, I am not judgmental of those kids who intrinsically prefer  items that match their gender.  Many girls are naturally girly, and many boys are naturally masculine.  But it shouldn't be so difficult for those on different areas of the gender identity spectrum to find clothes and toys that please them.  There is no reason there can't be lots of jean options for girls that are just plain jeans.  I find myself constantly frustrated.  There are specialty stores that have great clothes my kid would like, but they tend to be higher end, and I don't believe in forking out huge amounts of money on clothes for fast growing children.

Kids are hopefully going to eventually discover their own personal style.  As they begin to buy clothing that fits adults, they can easily find items that suit them.  So, why start them out with this prescriptive "This is how you should be a girl" or "This is how you should be a boy" box?