The South is Not Dead Series - Southern Women

I haven't forgotten about my "The South is not Dead" series!  Sorry it's taken so long to get to the second installment.  Our topic this time is Southern Women.

I'm definitely a southern woman. Southern women are brought up a certain way by their families.  From the time I was tall enough to reach the stove, I learned how to cook.  When I got big enough, I learned how to clean house, fold laundry, you name it.  Me and my mother did the inside chores, and my Dad and brother did the outside stuff. 

Some might think that's pretty old fashioned, even anti-feministic that I was brought up learning these things from an early age (feministic?  is that a word?).  I definitely don't think of it that way at all.  We are brought up this way so we know how to take care of our families.  I for one am grateful I knew how to cook when I first was married!  God knows we would have eaten some burned up crap for sure for awhile, but that wasn't the case.  I was already a decent cook by then and it was easier to get into that role than it would have been had I not been prepared in my childhood.

I remember summers at home, and at my grandma's snapping string beans, picking and shucking corn,  de-shelling beans so we could freeze and/or can vegetables for the summer.  My Dad and Grandaddy took care of the garden itself, so they had plenty of work to do too!

My grandma especially was the epitome of a southern woman.  She went and had her hair done every week at the beauty parlor, usually on Friday so it would be pretty for church on Sunday.  Even now, older ladies are still going to the beauty parlor every week to get their hair set.  Grandmama would set her own hair at home sometimes and had one of those old big dryers with the cone-thing you put on the side table and then put the cone thing around your head to dry your hair. (see below for a picture)  When she got sick years later and couldn't make it to the beauty parlor, I would set her hair for her and put her under the dryer.  No, I'm not a hairdresser, but I knew how important it was to her to look her best, so I learned!

My grandparents never missed a week at church unless they were on a trip and they always dressed to the nines!  Appearances are still important in some areas here, and church is one of them. 

Southern women are strong.  We not only have careers and our own dreams we follow, but also fulfill that sense of duty to our families - making sure they are taken care of.  We are definitely caretakers 100%.  Sometimes that means we go without, and that kinda sucks but that's life in the South at times.

Again, sorry it took me awhile to get to part 2, hoping I can come up with a part 3 for ya!

Have a good week!