Posted on 11/21/2010 8:23:21 AM PST by Huck
I'd like to hear from any Freepers down in Dixie on a societal question. I'd like to know if the old southern virtues survive, or if mass-media culture has erased or eroded them. I'm talking about the basic manners, and in particular, the relationship of young people to adults. Allow me a moment to explain.
I was born and raised in New Jersey. I was in many respects NOT raised right. EXCEPT, I was fortunate enough to spend extended periods down in Alabama with my grandmother. I attended public school for a short time in Alabama as well. This was in the 1970s.
Culturally, Alabama demonstrated superiority to New Jersey in two specific areas. They demonstrated better manners generally, and they had a more structured and appropriate relationship between adults and children. In Alabama schools, all adults were addressed with Yes Sir and No Sir or Yes M'am and No M'am. No exceptions. This was unquestioned by any student. And in the community generally, the adults were all on one team, and the kids were all on another. No adult ever sided with a kid against another adult. The first response was always to support the authority of the elder, and to reproof the child, pending investigation.
Here in NJ, it was NOT like that, inside of school or out. I find that this Yankee culture is inferior. The best one can do here is to send a child to Catholic School, but even then, the general culture does not support manners, decorum, and institutionalized respect for elders. It's chaotic here. It's a mess.
So, back to my question. I'm very curious to know if this culture still survives in the south. I hope it does. I wish there were some way to transplant it to the rest of the country. I'd love to hear some thoughts and reports from Dixie freepers.
If she was upset, she wasn't a lady.
I know “Yes ma’am and yes sir” are still the norm down here for most of the children. And you can strike up a conversation with most anybody in the store or anywhere, and you’ll be treated like you’ve been friends for life.
I know when visiting my daughter, who had moved to a Northern state which will remain nameless, I was striking up a conversation with the cashier while she rang up my purchases and got not a word in response. And this was not an isolated incident. When my dughter got married and the groom’s family that was in the wedding party from that said state came to my house before the ceremony, they hardly spoke a word. And it wasn’t from my lack of effort. I treated them like I do anyone whom I don’t know, which was friendly and warm, and tried to strike up many conversations, and got barely a Yes or No in response. And definitely no Yes ma’ams or No sirs.
my sentiments exactly!
Good manners are still being taught and expected here in central Alabama, but I think that media influence and migration of folks from one region to another has changed a lot of the old ways of doing things down here. Big sigh!
I have lived from east to west coast, and as far north as Pennsylvania. While I enjoyed everywhere we were stationed, especially Pennsylvania, I wouldn’t give up living here in the South for anything! Family, friends, church, food, football, beaches...the only things I can’t stand still are the bugs and the humidity, but that comes with the whole package, doesn’t it?
You can’t expect to find it much in big cities or in fashionable suburbs (any suburbs, really). But there are a lot of kids that were raised right still in the South. You tend to find them at the local church on Sunday, in 4H meetings, at the TSC or Southern States stores helping their fathers load the truck. They’re in Boy Scouts and/or JrROTC, and they spend Saturdays fixing up a car or motorcycle with Dad, who by the way still lives with Mom. Yes, it happens. I know. My boy and his friends are among them.
—the OTTB mare, trying to pretend the suburbs aren’t beginning to surround us
I had forgotten about the lack of prefix in addressing aunts/uncles. On my side, as opposed to my husband’s side, adults are addressed as Aunt, Uncle. But on my husband’s side it is on a first name only basis. That was a bit of culture shock for me when we became acquainted.
An anecdote of southern manners.
This is from a man born in 1900. At the age of eight, he was invited to dinner, just him, at the home of a then elderly couple. His parents cautioned him at length about having good table manners, as the elderly couple had manners from an earlier age, where children were expected to not speak unless spoken to, and to reply with mostly formal and brief yes or no answers.
He managed to hold his tongue well, accepting each portion of food as was offered. But he could barely contain himself when offered some tapioca pudding, his favorite. His enthusiasm lasted only until the lady removed the lid, and he saw that the pudding was covered in red ants, invisible to the poor eyesight of the elderly couple.
All he could do was very politely decline. Then watch and hold his tongue as they each had a large dollop of the treat, smothered in ants.
After his return home, he did not mention the tapioca out of courtesy to the older couple, until some days later when his mother became somewhat upset, because she had talked to the elderly lady.
Concerned because he might have said or done something offensive, she said that it was nothing he had done. She was upset because the elderly lady had extended her sympathies about him.
The elderly lady said he was handsome enough, but sad that he was slow witted. They had tried to make conversation with him all through the dinner, but all he could say was yes or no. So they assumed that he was perhaps a tad feeble-minded.
It brightened his mother up considerably when he told her about the ants.
It has been eroding as the socialistic "values" of Progressivism spread like the cancer they are, but it is still a more polite society. Kids will either use the "sir/ma'am" address, or they will call me "Mr. Bob".
Many college professors are Christian and/or fairly conservative and even those that aren't tend to et you "get away with" espousing conservative views during class. Many grade school teachers are openly Christian and conservative withjout being run out of the business.
It may not be what it was, but it is still much better than the socialist bastions.
Are there any southern colleges anybody would recommend, where my kids could go to meet friends and go on dates with people who are courteous and have traditional good manners?
They are still in middle and elementary school, but it’s good to look ahead.
BTW, everybody is talking about rude “Yankees”, but I must say that I met really nice people when I was in New York and Rhode Island. Heck, I met really nice people in San Francisco last summer. However, I have run into some terribly rude kids and adults in Orange County, CA, in the hipper, status conscious areas. Must be a bummer to live with these people.
I don’t know about the rest of the south but in NC the civility ends with BBQ cultists pushing the wrong parts of the pig, cooking methods and sauce recipes as gospel.
I heard him swear once, in relation to the IRS LOL.
I wholeheartedly support your inclination to lay off the swearing. I think younger people have become accustomed to this due to the flood of profanity reaching our ears via movies/television, etc. I will tell you this, if my husband heard a young man swearing before he became interested in one of our daughters, the guy had zero chance of getting past him. Zero.
Glad you like my screen name. I think there was a Goldfinch already here when I signed up during the 2000 Bush/Gore fiasco, and I had to define myself a little narrower LOL.
Yes, the virtues of Southern politeness and respect for others are alive and doing quite well in the South.
When someone is rude to me, I ask them if they from Texas. 100% of the answers have been “no”.
Part of the duty of Texans is to educate newly moved in Yankees on this attribute.
One of my clients in Michigan was silent when I told him that there is no “Road Rage” in Texas. He sort of gulped when I told him the reason: 60% of the automobiles in Texas have pistols in them. It is a bad policy to follow particularly now as the legislature has simplified the carry in car laws and the number is probably closer to 70%.
No highway snipers either. Very few car jackings.
Yep, and the same holds for chili. I make mine with black beans, which is heresy.
STAY UP THERE!
The host was so flustered he didn't know what to say, stumbling for a second before he replied, "You don't have to call me Sir."
The parents just beamed.
The people of Paris are really bad about common courtesy--even non-Parisian French citizens complain a lot about the behavior of people in Paris (it's been said the French in places like Bordeaux, Toulouse, Lyon, Marseille--heck, anywhere beyond the Île-de-France administrative region--are actually pretty decent people).
LOL! Y’all should take a daytime trip over to the Red & White store in Durham, up the road from the 501 exit off of N-85.
Been there for over 50 years. From the time when the tobacco plants were roaring and people all worked. They still shell their own peas, corn and always buy local if they can. They say “sir” and “ma’am” to the customers. Of course, Durham is a nightmare thanks to the 3rd world nature of the ruling liberals from Duke. Cary still has good folks, bluegrass pickers and the ones who stayed own the real estate to lend.
SON!! You are so right! Ever been to Hursey’s in Burlington? Or any of the real places in Lexington?
Thank you for saying that. My family is from the Deep South, but my siblings and I are all first generation Californians. We grew up with a slight variation on the Southern standard.
My upbringing nearly exactly matches the typical Southerner's, except that I was taught to say "Yes Sir" and "No Ma'am", only when replying to adults whom I didn't know personally. For family, it was always, "Yes Daddy", "No Mommy", etc.
Referring to any adult by their first name was strictly off-limits. Even for aunts and uncles. I've got one aunt who's a year younger than me, and I called her Aunt Ada, until we were both grown.
There are also certain standards of respect for my elders that are so ingrained in me, I couldn't break them if I tried. I've only used a curse word in my parents' presence on the rarest of occasions (and well after I was grown). To this very day, I've never heard my 80 year old father utter a curse word, and only rarely from his dad, who was a grizzly old cuss.
One other thing I might mention about growing up with Southern manners and discipline, is that much of it was learned by example, but quite a bit was taught to us directly. I can still remember countless admonishments from my mom about proper manners, decorum, respect, morality, appearances, etc.
That constant attention helped shape my core values. It also gave me a solid base of common sense, which helped me to survive the temptations and danger of modern urban life.
Roxboro Road?
Hi Tupelo, I’m from right down the road from you, about 45 miles away in Houston,MS.
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