this is still so fucking funny, I can’t get over this. never.
Reminded again of one story from our drama teacher in high school, which I thought was pretty funny then and appreciate in some different ways now.
She grew up in Baltimore, and got a rather startling introduction to some cultural differences not that long after moving to a small town in Southwest Virginia to take a teaching job.
One day, she looked out and saw some guy just casually walking down the street, carrying a shotgun. And…nobody else seemed to notice or care? There was certainly no screaming or sirens. It was very weird.
At least she did take a cue from the total lack of alarm from some neighbors who were out in their yard, and didn’t call the cops herself. But, you couldn’t have paid her to go out there for a while, just in case.
Definitely not in Baltimore anymore!
Yeah, my automatic assumption in that case would be that he was probably taking it to show a friend, or something like that. Barely worth noticing unless the person is acting squirrelly. Just not something I would have been that surprised to see.
But yeah, very different experiences and expectations in Hillbillyland compared to most urban areas and some other parts of the country.
Not too surprisingly, I’ve ended up disconcerted in the other direction on multiple occasions since moving to Greater London.
Including when my uncle and his family came for a visit when I’d been here a couple of years.
While they were doing touristy stuff, they went to the London Eye. And everyone involved got a bit of a surprise when they went through security to get in, and my baby cousin (probably 15 at that point) pulled out a totally standard pocket knife to leave there if they insisted.
I think that may have even been the same model (with under a 4" blade). Like I said, a very standard type of pocket knife back home. I was mostly surprised he was the only one of the family carrying one that day, because they’re handy tools and that’s just kinda what you do, but yeah. (And honestly I still usually do, aware that someone might eventually turn it into an issue. ETA: Though that’s less likely to happen, not being a young man.)
The security guy just couldn’t believe that (a) a kid had this Big Scary Knife at all, and (b) his crazy American family didn’t seem at all concerned about it. In the end, they didn’t totally confiscate the knife, but he did get some stern warnings to leave it wherever they were staying from now on. Which I think he actually did, because jfc.
They were amused afterwards, to say the least. I wasn’t along that day, but I can imagine.
It has been drilled into me that asking personal questions about potentially sensitive topics is rude, so I almost never inquire about them unless they are explicitly volunteered and just live in suppressed curiosity until someone opens up to me or I piece it together from clues. Or I die, I guess.
Which means I have… a lot of friends whose important details I just don’t fucking know. You could show up at my house one day with an alligator head and I just wouldn’t bring it up in case you were uncomfortable talking about it.
A lot of the time people will be like, “Oh, why does your friend need x accommodation?”
Fuck, I don’t know. They just do. Maybe a witch cursed them, maybe they’re half Vulcan and it reacts badly with their copper-based blood, maybe their parents were eaten by the M&M mascot… all I know is they can’t have blue candy. I have theories as to why, but unless they tell me directly or invite me to ask, I’m not going to pry. If they feel it is necessary for me to know, they will tell me.
That said, I’m pretty good at putting two and two together, so there have been many occasions where a friend will make a big confession to me and I… I definitely figured that out already but didn’t want to bring it up.
i know at least a dozen people whose genders i am honestly not sure about.
The last bit of commentary here got me thinking more about another side of the “Enough In Atlanta” factor with some differences in social norms. (Major prompt there: “Speaking as someone who was raised in New England but went to college in Virginia, I was more at home in actual England than I was in the South because of the lack of talking to strangers.” As a transplant from SWVA to Greater London.)
Before, I focused more on the fewer actively unpleasant casual interactions out in public part of things, because that was heavily on my mind when I started venting.
Now, I am a fairly reserved person,at least by the standards I was raised around. And I definitely don’t have anything like the same gift of gab as, say, my mother. (Tbf, not that many people do. She was toward one extreme there.) And I realized going in that there are some pretty significant cultural differences going on there–as with so many other things–and try not to take it personally.
But, it can still mess with your head after a while, when the negative casual interactions are nowhere close to getting balanced out by positive ones.
Maybe especially when that pattern is sufficiently far off the norms you’re used to. Hard to imagine that wouldn’t apply pretty much across the board, but who knows. 15 years is apparently not enough time to get used to that imbalance.
(Not to say that pleasant casual interactions never happen. Just not as often as the other kind. And the people bent on acting gratuitously nasty out in public don’t seem to get a lot of feedback to discourage that. Not sure how many fucks a lot of them would give anyway, but hey, it seems worth a try.)
Oh I’ve heard about CPS getting involved especially with working-class families of color. One of my coworkers this summer is an Indian-Bangladeshi American woman and she grew up in the Bronx with her dad (her parents are divorced) and there was only one bedroom in their apartment and CPS literally came because they thought it was “neglect” even though her dad slept on the couch and let her sleep in the room like…… people are fucking disgusting and awful and this is 100% due to class violence and racism
also i learned about the practice of co-sleeping and how it differs from country to country in my developmental psychology class and again… i was literally shocked to learn that my experience of co-sleeping with my mom was not something practiced in the US. it’s legit common in most countries though lol
I was in my cultural anthro class and the professor said how co-sleeping helped children develop their sense of self faster because they were in close quarters with someone that Was Not Them for so long and then of course when I went to my Adolescent Psych class, my (white) prof said that wasn’t true lmao and how co-sleeping hindered a child’s independence and my gf and I had the LONGEST fucking look at each other
oh the “hindering independence” thing is another big reason why american parents dislike co-sleeping… imagine how fucked up individualism is, that it conditions people to think a parent sleeping with their infant is “fostering dependency”
my family in bangladesh are so surprised that I sleep alone in my bedroom since it’s practice to sleep with other people in the same bed. my 9yo cousin still hates sleeping alone and says it scares him.
there was a really publicized case in 2012 when norwegian CPS took away an indian couple’s kids for “feeding them with their hands and sleeping in the same bed” and the indian government had to intervene
My stepmom was a pediatritican in Nigeria before she moved here and suggested I cosleep when I was getting no sleep with my daughter. When I told her that could get her taken away by cas, my stepmom was horrified. She just couldn’t fathom how sleeping with your child could be a sign on neglect. She as a pediatrician coslept with each of her 4 kids.
Just reminded of one Irish friend years ago talking about her surprise after she came to London, at just how differently people here tend to handle death.
Apparently, funerals tend to be much smaller and more private affairs. And she was amazed to run into actual adults who had never been to one.
Same, tbh. I can’t even remember the first funeral I got dragged to as a little kid. (The first would have been an uncle who had a motorcycle crash when I was maybe 4 months old, though obviously there’s no memory there.)
I’m more used to pretty much everyone the dead person has ever known being obligated to at least make an appearance at the viewing, unless they’re half-dead themselves. Usually a little bit smaller crowd for the actual funeral service, though not necessarily by much. Also closer to what that friend would expect.
That conversation didn’t go around to how people talk about death and people who have died, but I would be surprised if there weren’t also some significant differences in social conventions there.
It is pretty interesting, just how much attitudes and conventions can vary depending on the culture. Definitely including around death and dying. I can’t help but favor some more matter-of-fact approaches, which isn’t that surprising considering.
Being a woman for me personally in my life is like other women talking about how much being a woman is bad and you’re thinking, “damn, you live like this?” and worried they can all see right through you and see you’re just a flesh entity who happened to be blessed with being assigned female and that you are not whatever they think being a woman is.
It’s other women thinking their experiences are universal and that you’re a moron in denial if you disagree.
the entire terf talking point about gendered socialization is frustrating as hell to me not even because its a dehumanizing one (i expect dehumanization from those people, they never do anything else, its predictable) but because its so sociologically illiterate and like such an extreme form of structural determinism it might as well claim humans are programmable robots who cannot stray from their programming. its like, laughable tripe that says that no matter how massively your living conditions change you will always act exclusively on the basis of messages you received as a child! it denies the capacity for adult humans to internalize their current social conditions! its garbage! i could debunk this entire god damn argument when i was on my second year of university with the meager sociological knowledge i already had… of course the local terfs of this website would just resort to even more absurd talking points such as claiming any more advanced form of socialization theory was merely “college postmodernism” but really, that just shows the utter illiteracy of the entire god damn argument.
I just left my husband alone with our two children for sixteen days. I was not worried about anything regarding the house, their food, or their wellbeing. I put all the appointments in the family calendar and my husband checked it and kept them. I literally did not worry about them. I missed them, and I was sad that they missed me, but I didn’t worry about them AT ALL. I need to impress upon you all that I missed their company, but was not worried for their welfare.
I also did no meal prep. I don’t even think I went shopping right before I left.
This is not about apples and oranges. This isn’t even about my husband. This is about the fact that this is apparently WEIRD.
Another mum at my daughter’s school is leaving for ten days. She’s taking her youngest (who is a very small baby) and leaving her husband with their two girls. She has been cooking for days preparing freezer meals. She’s panicking and deputizing her six year old to remind him how to make school lunches. AND I AM APPALLED.
A) He is definitely not helpless. (He’s a doctor or something.) What gendered bullshit. B) THAT LITTLE GIRL IS NOT OLD ENOUGH TO BE RESPONSIBLE FOR HER AND HER SISTER’S WELLBEING. WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK. C) Why is she married to this person and creating children with him if he’s this big of an idiot?
While she was laughingly recounting this, the other mums were nodding and smiling sympathetically, like oh yes, I too have my caveman at home!! Such managing required! I was the only one who was like “Dude, he’ll be fine. Literally. He will be fine.” I said it a lot. She was not convinced. She kept bringing up her older daughter. She’ll be like a little mum!
NO.
NO NO NO NO.
NO.
Straight women, don’t do this shit. It’s gross. Don’t infantilize your husbands and then expect your daughters to pick up the slack. So fucking gross. So. So. GROSS.
The fact that so many adults think a six year old girl is more capable of learning and performing basic domestic tasks than a grown-ass man says it all, really.
This stuff is so toxic and awful. I told a car full of women one time that I refused to be in another relationship until I met a man who was capable of making his own doctors’ appointments and washing the dishes. They told me I was going to die alone.
Fuck this shit. Don’t enable men’s incompetence and label it cute.
Yeah guys, This is ridiculous. Like, if they had a mental disorder in which I knew they would have a hard time with this stuff. sure, I may try to help prep in advance. Hell, I have to do that stuff for myself because I can’t function properly. But Being in the mindset that someone can’t do something because of their gender…? It’s just as bad as saying a woman can’t work for UPS because they’re worse at lifting than men… like what??? The parent should also be in charge of the child, not the other way around. that’s not how it works. Now if the child WANTS to help the parent, that’s cool. Kids like helping their parents do stuff. But the dad CAN take care of things. like literally… idk how people come up with this stuff.
Like i WANT to understand why conservatives think the things they do but it’s so tough to figure that shit out when what they offer you, more often than not, is a snappy one-liner or “I don’t have to listen to you because if you don’t agree with me 100% you’re a grabber”
It’s… impossible to do anything with that
I think part of it is being raised with a different set of… I dunno, cultural myths? I feel like is the word I’m looking for? They might have the same basic religious/educational pattern as a lot of people who aren’t conservative but when they went home from school/church/scouts they got this whole other thing layered on top of it.
I think some of it comes from the things various churches emphasize – for instance the more evangelical stripes of Christianity in my area are really big on the idea of Christian persecution. It’s a rite of passage for kids in these churches to go attempt to convert people and get yelled at for it so they can go back to the fold and tell stories about how the world really does hate them (protip; they fucking detest it when you forgive them for assuming you were unsaved and then ask to pray with them to help them be filled with the love and compassion of Christ in spreading the word through kindness and hospitality and generosity). The people who show up at college campuses with signs about mouthy women, teh gayz, abortionists, swearword sayers, and so on are doing the same thing. That’s why it’s better to, say, sing opera over them or set up an amp and play loud rock than it is to engage in debate or gather a shouting mob around them. That’s what they want so they can show their church how these liberal colleges discriminate against good, kind, Christians.
And I think that attitude translates to other stuff – you’re a grabber and you’re part of the fallen world and I can never fix you or see eye-to-eye with you and therefore can’t allow myself to be tempted.
[Sidenote: I have some THOUGHTS about CS Lewis and temptation and the isolation and festering ideologies that happen when you’re worried that discourse with the outsiders might interfere with your mere Christianity]
And then there’s a layer of confirmation bias that happens – since they refuse to actually talk to the Libs and hear what they’re saying because “I tried talking to one lib and they used the same talking point that I saw on a facebook meme on the American Patriots page so the lib I was talking to is obviously just as stupid and cruel as the strawman from the meme.”
As much as I hate the whole tone policing, be the bigger person, you’ve got to be kinder than they are sort of thing [because you shouldn’t have to be nicer, you shouldn’t have to be patient with their cruelty, you shouldn’t have to reach farther than they do, it’s not fucking fair and it’s exhausting] that’s kind of where you have to go.
Also you can try sealioning. They seem to enjoy doing it so we might as well see if there’s something to be gained from it. Why do you think I’m trying to grab your guns? Can you point to an example in the US where gun control has resulted in the forcible seizure of firearms? Has a gun control measure ever resulted in a house-to-house search in the US? What about all the people who end up grandfathered in? That happens with every gun control measure, what if your collection was grandfathered? Do you think that the same gun rights should be extended to [X GROUP THEY ARE VERY AFRAID OF, SAY, PERHAPS, ANTIFA WHO CAN TOTALLY BE LEGAL GUN OWNERS FOR THE MOST PART]? What kind of gun control would you like to see for [X GROUP]?
But a part of it is also the whole ingroup/outgroup human bullshit that I don’t know that there *is* a solution to.
Yeah, I think that’s part of it. I was raised liberal Christian, and there was no going out and converting people. There was “showing them the love of Christ” by being kind to them, listening to them, and trying not to judge them. The belief was that eventually they would notice this and ask “why are you so nice” or “why are you doing this” AND THEN you could say “because I was commanded to by my God” and MAYBE they’d get curious and come to church with you. At which point everyone gives them, like, hugs and food because welcome.
At church, politics wasn’t mentioned, but at home, I was always taught that we were liberal because Jesus wanted people to love, help, and protect one another, and the alternative was to be selfish and callous and make Jesus sad.
I’m not saying it was perfect, my mom could be a guilt trip machine when she wanted to be. As a teen I read A LOT of nietzsche and Ayn Rand and wanted to know what Republicans think and why we disagree with them.
But I quickly came to the conclusion that ayn Rand at least didn’t make much sense—I’m disabled, I needed health care, I got it and it’s worthwhile I exist. I could never make not giving back make sense, especially once trickle down didn’t seem to be why middle class people prospered for a while under Reagan.
I’m still curious but I feel like I never get answers when I ask “what did I miss at 17? Why didn’t this stuff convince me? Do you want to try and finish the job?”
I just get like “libtard” and “lol.” I can’t make a coherent worldview out of lol, sorry.
Completely off topic, but I have to ask – did the ‘be nice to make them covert’ thing actually ever work? I assume it could be fairly effective for someone going through a really rough patch where nobody else was being nice to them, but I’d imagine the average person would either not ask, be nice back so not notice, or just not care either way.
I don’t think so, but I don’t think it was designed to make converts in the same way the door knocking thing supposedly is. I think it was more of a “everyone who spreads love and compassion is doing what Jesus wants anyway, extra points if they explain it like we do” kind of deal.
Raised in a religion with a similar philosophy toward making converts. The idea wasn’t “never mention your religion unless directly asked a question you can’t answer honestly without mentioning it” but rather “be open about your religion and the fact that you’re Being Nice because you’re living by the tenets of your religion, but don’t push it on people”.
The idea being that if you do it right, pretty much everyone who knows you should end up with some basic exposure to your religion by you mentioning it in passing when it’s relevant to do so without being pushy and weird about it, and hopefully will recognize that this religion makes you a good person and also want to be a good person themself so will then seek out more info and possibly convert.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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