A Northerner’s response to the some of the
“17 Things You Learn From Growing Up In The South”
now that I’ve lived here for a decade.
OriginalPost by Chelsea Fagan
1. Southern food is truly the best. Whether it’s spicy gumbo, fried chicken and biscuits with
honey, sautéed greens, or BBQ meat that falls off the bone — the south has it
locked up. You grow up with that food and it is the stuff you will be craving
for the rest of your life. The day I arrived back in America after a few years
abroad, the first meal I had was fluffy biscuits with sausage gravy, two sunny
side up eggs, and a glass of real sweet tea. It was transcendent.
I’ll give you gumbo, collards, okra, and
grits… but out of all the foods I have ever eaten, these are my least favorite.
Sorry Chelsea.
2. Hot asphalt and hot vinyl car
seats are the stuff of summer nightmares.
RIP to all the bare feet and thighs that have been lost to their merciless
sizzle.
Yeah, we have the sun too… crazy how that
works.
3. “Southern Belles” and “Southern
Gentlemen” still exist, but the
people who openly identify as such often embody neither idea.
Completely agree!
4. People really are
ignorant. The same people whose parents
didn’t want them to be in science class when we learned about the Big Bang are
the same people who, at age 25, are flagrantly posting Facebook statuses about
Obama being a Muslim or gay marriage being dangerous to society. And on the one
hand, you realize that they were kind of doomed from the get-go, but on the
other hand, they have a vote. (Of course, this doesn’t mean that the
stereotype about all southerners being backwards conservatives is true, either.
There are Democrats and Republicans, just like you have anywhere else.)
Completely agree! Ignorant people are
everywhere.
7. Spankings are definitely still a
thing. When I moved up to Maryland (which
some people still consider the south, but that’s debatable), I realized that a
lot of my friends’ parents just “negotiated” with them from age two and beyond.
This is not acceptable in the south. One of my most formative memories is being
popped in the mouth by my grandmother in front of the entire line at Winn-Dixie
because I called her a bitch. It was a moment equivalent in education to about
four full years of schooling.
My 7 year old hiney can tell you that
spankings are a northern thing as well.
8. There is no limit to how many
foods can be fried. And, let’s be honest, you’ve tried
(and probably enjoyed) 99 percent of them.
The fair comes to northern towns too, ya
know.
9. American flag clothes are very
much in fashion in parts of the country.
My neighbor as a child had a collection of NASCAR memorabilia in his living
room, including a box of limited-edition Dale Earnhardt Bugles (the corn
chips). This man’s clothes were at least 40 percent covered with American
flags.
Ever heard of the Indianapolis 500?
10. There are a million Honey Boo
Boos. And the famous one is far more
articulate than most of them. I had several Honey Boo Boos in my neighborhood
except, instead of spouting adorable sayings, they mostly just ate push pops
until their whole faces were orange and threw rocks at animals.
I agree, the south has rednecks, the north
just has white trash. The difference is in the dialect.
13. There were very liberal “riding
your bikes in the neighborhood” rules.
Everyone pretty much had free reign all summer, and people were very rarely
indoors. The sound of the crickets coming out (and the moms yelling from the
doorways) were the only indicators of what time it was or that the day was
actually over.
Me too. Just had to be home when the
streetlamps came on.
14. All sodas can be referred to as
“Coke,” even though this objectively makes
no sense and only makes ordering drinks a step more complicated than it needs
to be.
We called it “pop.”
17. Respect for elders is the most
important thing ever. Talking
back to an adult in the south, or not calling someone ‘sir’ or ‘ma’am’ is a
one-way ticket to being punished into another generation. If you don’t have
respect for grown-ups, you have no home training, and life is just going to be a
struggle for you. To this day, as a 25-year-old, I still call older people
“Mr.” and “Ms.” out of force of habit. I’ll likely do it until I am dead, and
honestly, I’m a better person for it.
My friend’s parents were Mr. and Mrs. Last
Name and we said “yes please” instead of “yes mam” and “no, thank you” instead
of “no mam”. I do see a difference in language here, but do not insinuate that
the north does not have manners.
