Last week my friend Marsha updated her blog with a post on the limited Southern stereotypes the media tries to pin on us. One would do well to know Marsha in order to understand her logic and thinking on this matter, so here's the abridged version. Marsha is the girl we all want to be when we grow up. She pledged at Ole Miss, lived in London for a short time, and married a handsome football star. Oh, and she's also a published writer, an attorney, and a judge. That's right, a Judge-- as in sits on the bench, bangs a gavel, doles out sentences, fines, and such. She also squeezes in the role of Momma, too, so what she writes holds a lot of weight with me for all the above reasons (I just so happened to marry a handsome football star, too, but I assure you, readers, there's more to it than that).
The gist of her argument was that no one should try to put any Southern girl in a corner, let alone one that has me wearing camouflage and sitting in a deer stand. I don't do that. Neither should anyone suggest that I NEVER go anywhere without a face full of Merle Norman. Far too many Kroger employees have seen me at my worst to try to fit myself into that Southern girl stereotype. So while I totally agreed with her ideas on Southern girls being too unique, too educated, too diverse to pigeonhole, I couldn't help but think that although I don't fit into a corny, Cracker Barrel-t-shirt Southern girl stereotype, there may be a stereotype that I do embody.
If anyone asks me what I "do," my first response is "I have four children." So that makes me a mom. I've been a room mom, team mom, and currently hold the moniker of soccer mom, complete with the cool, new age mini van sporting a 26.2 bumper sticker on my back windshield. On any given day, my minivan typically holds baseball batbags, school backpacks, an emergency stash of healthy snacks and juiceboxes, and a Tervis tumbler in my cup holder so that I can get my required 8 glasses a day.
Before I head home to pack processed-free lunches for my honor roll-achieving, public school-attending kids, I squeeze in a great work out at the local YMCA or meet the ladies for a good sweaty tennis match or maybe go for a run pushing my perfect baby in the Jeep jogger. I, of course, am dressed in all Nike dry wick, so as to avoid any unnecessary chaffing (and maybe look good while I'm at it). Coach loves to taunt me with lunchtime texts that say, "How was your serve today?" or "don't forget your sunscreen." Methinks those messages are riddled with sarcasm, but what do I know? I am networking, exercising, and learning valuable tennis tips I can pass on to my children should we ever join "the club."
I am guilty of sooo much more than this as I find myself putting myself into this suburban stay-at-home stereotype, but I'll finish with this: Yes, my kids wear new clothes on Easter Sundays; yes, I always send in homemade goodies when it's my day for snacks, and yes, I think Girls' Night Out is underrated and overly necessary, wine or no wine(but please, someone, bring the Cokes). So while I'm not the typical Southern belle, stalking anyone's deviled egg plate or secret pound cake recipe, I am currently fundraising for whatever teams my children are playing on and diligently rounding up some of those Southern Belle types who like to sit around and read good books and share good recipes and call it a Book Club. And if being that Stereotype is wrong, y'all, I don't want to be right.
