"It is not posturing, or hyperbole, or marketing. Southern women, unlike women from Boston or Des Moines or Albuquerque, are leashed to history. For better or worse, we are forever entangled in and infused by a miasma of mercy and cruelty, order and chaos, cornpone and cornball, a potent mix that leaves us wise, morbid, good-humored, God-fearing, outspoken and immutable."I like to consider myself Southern: I've spent most of my life in Arkansas, my grandmothers are from West Virginia and Alabama, and I've yet to kick my habit of saying "y'all" and the occasional (though my mother hates it) "fixin'."
I feel like this article pinpoints everything I believe in: I believe in hand-written thank-you notes and offering people a drink when they come to my house. I believe in making cookies. I believe in what my mother always told me, that you never leave the house without at least something on your lips. I believe that a fresh coat of nail polish can cure anything. I believe in caring because "not caring is not something Southern women do, at least when it comes to our hair."
I know I want to raise my kids Southern, even if I don't live in the South. I want to teach them "yes, ma'am" and "no sir." I'm going to put my daughters' hair in curlers and tighten them in the middle of the night, just like my mom did to me. But even more than that, I'm going to teach them that they are kind, smart and important. And I'm going to teach them to be sweet, sweeter than I am, because "daring to stay sweet is about the most radical thing you can do."
Bless your heart.
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