Losing my momma's accent
My family is from the deeeeep south. Well, maybe it's better to say the very poor south. Graduating high school was a pretty big deal, and some of my relatives didn't get to high school at all, and had to either work or birth children. It's not really a great thing, it's pretty sad. When you're working class like that, you try your best not to think too hard in the wrong direction. I think there's a bit of an idea that people like my family must have a distaste for learning or thinking critically, and I don't see that at all. The reality is, they are absolutely ready to think critically and learn new things when it's safe, but the safety zone so many of them have had forcibly socialized upon them is so small, and so strong. That's why religion is so powerful over there, because that's the safety zone where the rules can bend. My aunts and uncles can talk for hours about the technical aspects of biblical history or the inner workings of biblical characters after church on Wednesdays as we all eat supper in the small church building with the kitchen (I can never remember the name of this room, but everyone cooks and eats here), myself and my cousins only half-listening as we're playing and running around. When it's time to learn something that pertains to survival, to keeping a home, to cooking, growing, or killing food; my family is often ready and willing to learn. You can crack jokes and be a smartass-I would know-but you had to stay within the safety zone. But for me, stuff like that often had my mind working. My observations of what was ridiculous or just plain wrong to me was strategically retooled into jokes and quips my family found funny and charming, coming from a young girl. Like most conservative groups, my tomboy nature was framed as a relief that I wouldn't be wearing too much makeup like a Jezebel and I wouldn't develop a sexuality deemed spiritually unpleasant like my more feminine peers, so adults didn't have to worry I was going to stop being a child in their reach.
It's strange when I hear of what I can only consider fanfiction of what people think conservative rednecks act. Often, it's a culture of hiding what you enjoy and how you really feel, sure, but you can often explain yourself with the right spin to reach a compromise as long as you maintain the proper amount of social cues that people call "respect". You have to layer the pill in, sure, but it always goes down pretty smooth. Most of the time, the uncomfortable reaction is emotional in nature. You can't just go to grandma and tell her you're a socialist now because capitalism is evil, you're going to have to forget ever using the terms poisoned by culture and focus on the definitions, you need to take her on a journey of your reasoning and make a case that appeals to a more rational thought. And yes, sometimes emotional reasoning jumps out, but often you're being asked if you care about something and you have to show that your rational thought process is done out of empathy for the people you might be painted as disregarding. But to be fair, you're never going to make some sort of overnight conversion of your grandma or whoever. It's so wild to me that anyone could be so dead-set on the goal of conversion that they would be fine with pissing people close to them off. I always just want to plant a seed of thought in people, at the most. I can't change people, that's just way too much ego taking over to think I should even try. But, I do think compromise is not only possible but often easy. You're not going to get your uncle to read the communist's manifesto, but you can get him to vote union and help you donate to local food banks. You're not going to get your aunt to a pride parade, but she's going to still love her gay child and try her best to push past her boundaries that were once iron-clad and enforced by violence by her own parents. I've got relatives who will give the coat off their back to any person in need, even if the two can't hold a conversation without getting mad at each other. To be fair again, I'm still incredibly frustrated about how short-sighted they are, and how little stake they put into good evidence compared to "source: my ass". I hate that their spiritual thinking puts them in a position where liars and bad actors can take full advantage of them and their emotional reasoning. I don't know if there's really a way to change any of that. I know that it can seem so bleak sometimes when I'll talk to them, and realize the best way I could create a mass-adoption of them voting differently is if I just made some shit up instead of talking with them in a marathon of one-on-one counseling sessions. These people are still my family, they're the culture I grew up in. They're the food I eat, the first type of love I ever knew, and the way I speak.
I often feel the urge to just grab everything and move back just to take care of the aging relatives that have less and less of my cousins around to take care of them (they're all moving away or have their own issues). My parents both moved away from everyone because of my dad's job, but there is a pretty big rift between them and everyone else. It's hard to fully articulate, but the most cut and dry one is they have never voted conservative or have ever really supported a right-wing party. I think I'm the only person I know who grew up raised strongly libertarian of all things lol. Of course now more than ever, my parents feel frustrated at their family for justified political reasons (and yeah, my parents definitely vote democrat now since the conservatives took libertarianism off the map haha). But my parents house is still the south; the food, the Christianity, the way my mother and father speak. I remember when we moved, and I had started a new school in 3rd grade, and when I first got there so many kids on the playground kept asking me; "why do you talk like that?". Like what? In my head when I spoke, everything was level and articulate, but looking back and hearing myself from old videos I had a strong wave to my speech that stuck out pretty badly. Of course, being a kid, I began doing what I could to cut it off immediately. It was mortifying at the time to realize I had been speaking wrong this entire time and no one told me.
Over the years since that, I've sort of danced in and out of having an accent. I sometimes fall back into it when I'm around family too long, but usually I keep it in that rigid way everyone here in the midwest seems to talk and think is normal. Even at my least sober, I've managed to keep it tight. In all fairness, this type of southern accent my family has is so strong and lacking in annunciation that you will often see people who talk like them have subtitles when on tv. Other southerners probably think "hey, at least I ain't talking like those folks over there!" when we come around. When I first heard people from Appalachia speak, I was so floored I had to double check I wasn't related to these people. They sound like home! My whole family and the tiny town they live in all talk like this! I also noticed that you can't seem to mention Appalachia without the words "extreme poverty" coming in pretty soon after. And well, yeah, true. I mean, they've got smart phones and a pizza hut back there now. The only person with cable or internet on that road where most of my family lives is my uncle, who still has dial-up and satellite tv (which I thought was the coolest shit back then lol). Now, the smartphones have kinda taken over and shoved them into the modern age without warning. It's absolutely had a huge effect, both good and bad, on everyone there. I've got cousins with anime tattoos driving beat-up trucks and they're able to google things now. I've got family hanging onto every word in a facebook post like its gospel because why would Margie Crook lie on her phone like that? The rumor mill gets stronger and faster and the outside cultures seep in a little too. I think if I had the resources, all of this would make for a fascinating sociological study.
But instead, I'm stuck thinking on occasion what I'm going to tell any future kids of mine about how my mom talks. These days I call them mom and dad, but growing up, even after high school, they were my momma and daddy. Because that's what everyone, all ages, would say. And more importantly it's what my parents said. I guess as I get older I get more sentimental about the legacy of something so pervasive and so personal about my childhood. Does my momma even want to have her accent preserved? When she heard me pushing to change my voice, was she hurt knowing her baby was losing something she never anticipated would ever leave? When I was young, being a southern girl was something I was uncomfortable being branded with, in fear that's all I would be to people. I was learning how much I liked things like anime and video games at the time, and generally I loved all the nerd culture I could get my hands on (much of which my dad showed me, but it's my mom that showed me my first video game!) so of course I felt like shedding the skin of my extended family. I think only in recent years have I grown to feel a lot of this culture is my parents as well, and I know they've grown a bit nostalgic for it in their older ages.
I think any future child of mine will simply get the full story of it all, no matter how much time it takes for them to wrap their head around it(or how much work it is too explain it all). I think they deserve the honesty. Maybe in the next few years, or when I actually have a kid of my own, I'll feel different. I'm turning 33 soon, I wonder how long it would take for me to lose this current accent and sound like my parents once again? For the other details of the language to resurface? I usually try not to think about identity this much because it makes me emotional, but also I feel ruminating on such things can be harmful. But when you are connected so strongly to something it's hard not to have feelings of obligation to it. I sometimes think I am able to go back there and make things better, but I don't know what better really means here. I think it's just me wanting to be somewhere where I can much less question if I belong. I could carry on the memories and help everyone better connect with each other, at least in my dreams. I know being a bit of a history and preservation nerd makes me think this way. I have an old church cookbook that I look through and get pretty emotional doing so. So many people down there are scared to try doing things, maybe I could be someone who shows them you can try. But all of this is just me wanting to be a part of something bigger, I think.
What's that thing about the past? Where you can go back, but no one's there anymore?