<p>LOL. When my boys were little and could ‘hear’ me walking on our wood floors (meaning I wasn’t in athletic shoes) they would also ask who was babysitting. </p>
<p>I have a neighbor who wears lipstick and a pants suit to mow the grass. It’s quite a sight.</p>
<p>In the 20 years we’ve been married I’ve never known my wife to ever leave the house for any reason without makeup…not a single time…</p>
<p>…with my son heading up to Chicago next fall we’ve been working to tone down and limit the “yes and no mams” so as not to appear “swarmy” to those not familiar to southern manners…</p>
<p>Frazzledad…I completely understand about the “m’am and sir” business…having lived in the South (AL and SC). Some folks even find it offensive…or think one is being sarcastic.</p>
<p>An aside - many years ago, I moved from a NJ metro area to a SC small town as a junior in high school.</p>
<p>M’am and Sir were expected when one was addressing teachers. My US History teacher was a former Army officer and very “Old South” and he would even give “minus points” to kids who forgot to “Sir” him…he finally had to give up on me, much to his chagrin, and even announced to the class that I was exempt from the rule due to my “upbringing or lack thereof”! </p>
<p>He was actually my favorite teacher and wound up writing several college recs for me, so I guess we reached detente! LOL</p>
<p>I’ll be the ogre and say that effusive manners make me wary. It usually takes me a while to sort out whether they’re genuine or mask outlooks I find thoroughly deplorable. Certainly generations of women have been held in check by restraints along the lines of “That’s not ladylike.” To which I say, “Bullfeathers.”</p>
<p>Fwiw, I hold doors open for men as well as women if the flow and situation are such but I would also expect a woman to hold a door for me.</p>
<p>And if you start getting formal politeness along the lines of “Sir” and “Ma’am” out of me and you’re not 80 years old, you might want to start wondering just exactly where it was that you just stuck your foot in it. </p>
<p>A different point of view.</p>
<p>I don’t know what I want to post in reply to TheDad. I can’t “get my mind right”. I keep thinking about over30’s neighbor in the lipstick- wearing the pantsuit -mowing the lawn. I keep wondering how close over30 lives to my Uncle Frank. </p>
<p>Over30, does your neighbor chain smoke Pall Malls and raise chinchillas?</p>
<p>Good one, curmudgeon!<br>
Having grown up in the NE and living now in the South, yes I would say , in generalities, there is a sociocultural difference. But the “south” is a broad swath. Even in the metropolitan area in which I live, students in one area of town are more casual in dress than students in another. You can watch trends (like those Uggs, for example) start in Calif- sweep to the E. coast before gravitating south… Things can be slower here (I still get funny looks for my rapid NE rate of speech)… But I know and interact with many, many bright, well educated, articulate assertive women. While yes, the word “assertive” in the south can be a euphemism for a less kind adjective, I haven’t run across any southern belles, cotillions or debutante parties lately. And for what its worth, I do often run out on non-work days in shorts, sandals, and little or no make-up. That’s when I undoubtedly run into everyone I know. There is one very upscale mall, though, that I wouldn’t be caught dead in without being dressed properly. My older son had a birthday party at the movie theater there many years ago, and a very well dressed bag lady joined us for cake in the open air lobby.</p>
<p>(I mean I’m creating this whole southern suburban meets John Waters thing with pastel pedal pushers and a little Nancy Reagan jacket, full make-up and red lipstick , pushing a Snapper Hi-Boy across the front lawn. Jeez. I’ll have nightmares for a week.)</p>
<p>Back to topic. It will come as no surprise to anyone that we are in a yes,sir and no,ma’am locale. D gets a double dose as Gdad,Gmom,and Gdad were all military folks. It comes so naturally to me, I don’t even think about it. I’m 48 and I “yes,miss” and “no,ma’am” to people half my age. If I’m calling out to someone I don’t know as in “Sir, I believe you left your chinchilla at the counter”, I’m more than likely going to use a formal form of address rather than “Hey,Buddy” or “Hey,you. Is this your chinchilla?”. But I don’t really notice it when others don’t use “proper” forms of address, and I am not really offended by the more familiar. But as a counterpoint to TheDad, I will say that I don’t trust anyone who moves in too closely, either verbally or physically, too quickly.</p>
<p>up here in PA… i call everyone by their first names (including my professors most of the times)… aunts and uncles…bosses… etc. i too hold the door for both men and women 
i don’t do the whole sir and maam thing, but don’t have a problem with those who do. I own exactly ONE skirt that I bought at a shop in NYC because I thought it was cute, i own two dresses - one prom dress and on funeral dress. other than that, i’m a pants wearing kinda girl. I’m definately not a jean’s kind of person though - the only jeans i wear I’ve had for about five years and have them nice and worn in. Most of my pants are nice striped pants, or plaid pants, some are a nice nylon material… as for shirts, i don’t wear the tiny little shirts that scream “HEY YOU LOOK AT MY CHEST”… but i dont wear big huge t-shirts either. I like wearing bikini’s, and i’ve noticed that the bikini’s at our beaches up here are much more… uh, modest? than the bikini’s on beaches in Florida. i’ve never seen so many thong bottoms in my life.</p>
<p>Just a reminder that manners doesn’t have to have anything to do with where you live or grew up, although “fashion” adherence certainly may. I have lived all my 50 years in the northeast (between Wash DC and Weschester Co, NY) and the Bay Area in CA. I always say “Sir” and “Ma’am” or “Miss” when addressing strangers, wear a dress when it’s comfortable, am really enjoying watching the silver threads appear in my hair, and haven’t OWNED any makeup for 30 years, much less put any on my face. If I lived somewhere where I was expected to make up my face to go to the store, I’d move immediately. But I’d be polite about it. :-)</p>
<p>Love that scary yardwork image, by the way…!</p>
<p>Wow here on the west coast things are a lot more laid back, i wear a tshirt/jeans/hooded sweatshirts/thrift store finds/ the works 
I wear makeup sometimes but not everyday, I’m a high school senior and I’ve got no one to impress. Still I’m not considered as a scrub, I’m pretty average really. We do have a few “barbies” and um “kens” if that’s what you’d call them, but beyond that everyone is pretty lax. My x-c team and even my classmates would make fun of me for trying too hard. I only want to attract genuine people so I dress so that I would never seem “uppity” please note that I am not accusing those who do try to look nice as being snobs. I do see the value in it especially if you are an adult or have a job and don’t get me wrong if the occasion calls for it I wear a skirt or nice pants, but at my age I just don’t see the point in wearing tight or even dressy clothes. Also I’d like to debunk the myth that only dressing nice equates good manners. My student body and the adults in my community are accepting, friendly, and accomodating. It’s just a town of good, hard working people (generally speaking, of course) Besides, I find spending large sums of money on expensive clothes to be rather illogical when so many of my peers and neighbors do with so much less, furthermore I find that many of the top brands and stores are involved with or at least affiliated with some rather… unsavory… business techniques and the like. It’s just a different culture over here. not to knock on anyone else’s :)</p>
<p>Curmudgeon, you made a good point. To an unknown stranger in the situation, “Sir, is this your hat?” or “Ma’am, your wallet slipped out of your purse” is fine. Far better the sir/ma’am for indefinites than “Hey, you…”</p>
<p>But I also make a distinction between appropriate “distance” and degree of formality. I mean, I won’t call the lady at the checkout counter “Snookums,” or even “Dearie” or “Sweetie.” </p>
<p>I did once observe a curious paradox with some of my D’s friends: the ones who called me “The” presumptively irked me whereas the ones who called me “Mr. Dad” I always preferred to call me “The.”</p>
<p>Not as tangentially as it seems, I’ve taught my D to check out a guy by how he treats people he doesn’t have to be nice to: post office clerks, waitresses and waiters, children, etc. The underlying attitude means far more, imo, than the surface language…treating someone as a real person, not a replaceable object; treating children, even small ones, as their own person and not an extension of their parents; etc.</p>
<p>Love this thread. My NW son hopes to attend college in the SE and keeps teasing me that he will bring home a girl from Texas. He met a few when visiting colleges and appreciated the attention they paid to their looks. I tease him right back, telling him that mantaining those looks costs money and he better be prepared if it gets serious! Where we live, people are very casual. You can wear jeans to the very best restaurants and lots of us do. He hasn’t said “Yes, Sir” even once in his life. Now I am worrying he’ll be seen as rude. But he wants to go east because he is eager to experience another part of the country, that is indeed different from where he grew up. I love the regional differences and look forward to visiting him if he is lucky enough to get there! When we moved west from the NE, we told everone we were working real hard at being laid back. We’re making some strides…</p>
<p>Wiwa, the NE is a different matter. I confess that with some NEers I just want to reach out and muss up their hair, if you know what I mean. Instead, I’m afraid that I can put on a SoCal barbarian act to heighten, ah…the moment. I’m glad that D is going to school in the NE, might as well learn to move in that world comfortably a bit.</p>
<p>I just wonder if all of that clothing and make-up business sets up a woman to be like some sort of trophy…The “cha-cha heels and sparkles” crowd looks at me with my chamois shirts and LL Bean Duck boots and they don’t quite know what to make of me, but I look at them curiously the same way!</p>
<p>It’s not really about me, anyway, at this point…I do get concerned about my daughter…she’s still in elementary school…came home the other day disconsolate because everyone wants to twirl the baton and she wants to be a playwright!..I guess family values set the example, right?.Maybe I should just lighten up a little!</p>
<p>Well you know Curmudg, using a riding lawn mower helps to keep your make-up straight.</p>
<p>Dke, don’t worry about it, when I was growing up it was cheerleading, by the time I was cheerleader age it was widely recognized that they were almost all sluts - there are authors and playwrights too (Harper Lee and Eudora Welty come to mind).</p>
<p>In case you are worried my son yes ma’ams me, but my daughter rarely yes ma’ams anyone, so we didn’t raise them completely properly. As for calling the clerks Dearie, you don’t understand at all - the clerks call YOU Dearie; you the customer, please and thank you the clerk!</p>
<p>I read something interesting once, though, might have even been someone on this forum - they were talking about moving from the North to the South, and said they could never tell what people really thought or felt, instead of being angry and showing anger, it was buried under a veneer of manners - everyone smiled all the time, while frantically stabbing you in the back. After I thought about that, I can see how someone unused to the culture could think that, because it does happen. People say one thing and mean another, but it is said in such a way that someone “raised right” gets the message. But mostly we are pretty tolerant of those with odd notions (everybody’s got one of those odd aunts or cousins). What Southerners tend to not tolerate are Southerners who reject or look down on their Southernness - we have enough of an inferiority complex for that.</p>
<p>Well, I’m a NE’er born and bred, and in my house, a dress-up occasion is a major stress–when all four of us have to look presentable at once, there’s a lot of ransacking closets for something, anything, dressy enough, and H and S fight over who wears the one sports jacket in the house. D had to go to my sister for make-up lessons (though she rarely wears it) as I am hopeless.</p>
<p>Incidentally, my H spent his first six years on Marine bases in the south, and he still routinely yes ma’ams/sirs. He got in trouble for it in school when he first moved up here.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.journalnow.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=WSJ%2FMGArticle%2FWSJ_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1031777896633&path=!localnews!localgov&s=1037645509123”>http://www.journalnow.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=WSJ%2FMGArticle%2FWSJ_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1031777896633&path=!localnews!localgov&s=1037645509123</a></p>
<p>From Article: “Basically, a Southern belle takes on iconic proportions,” Boiter said. “She tends to represent purity, religion. She’s on a pedestal. She represents the ideal good.”</p>
<p>"Women sometimes see the role as a refuge from the stresses of life, Boiter said, although in modern times many of the characteristics that people associate with Southern belles have negative connotations. Belles tend to have a sense of entitlement. They are indirect and manipulative, and they don’t speak their minds, she said. "</p>
<p>"The Southern belle lives on in the modern South, McCrory said, in some women’s preoccupation with beauty and fashion, but she said she doesn’t think that it dominates women.</p>
<p>I think Southern women are just as inquisitive and just as independent as women all over the world," she said."</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.dixieoutfitters.com/heritage/dgnews.php?dg=001[/url]”>http://www.dixieoutfitters.com/heritage/dgnews.php?dg=001</a></p>
<p>Dke, maybe this link will get you to the article. It is an interesting view.</p>
<p>Wow, where do I start? I guess I will just dive in. I grew up in New York/New Jersey area. I spent a summer at Cal Berkeley and fell in love. As soon as I could after college I moved to San Francisco. I lived in SF and then the Bay Area for 15 years. I never planned on leaving, until my husband was transfered to Orlando, Fl. I kidded that I would write to him. Of course I left kicking and screaming with two young children in tow. Do I like it here? No!! I have been here 10 years and still feel culture shock. When I dress up, I add a blazer to my sleeveless tank and jean skirt. I will wear lip gloss if I remember but that’s it. If I go to an upscale mall, I will slap some on. And yes I do get sales help, even without face paint. I am a health food nut and workout almost everyday. I think being in shape is better than makeup, but that is my opinion. I have used “sir” and “madam” but never “honey” or “sweetie” yuck! My neighbors think I am some sort of hippie I guess but thats okay. I love silver, never gold, I own 20 denim skirts, maybe two suits and a few nice dresses. I have 10 pairs of birkenstocks and two or three “fancy” shoes. And I am doing just fine in the South. Sorry if this is too long! I have alot of pent up stuff I guess!</p>