Guess so.

That's funny. I've always felt like maybe half American women get the same sort of thing from their fathers. "Daddy's Little Princess" does a lot of damage. A lot of American women struggle in adulthood from deep paternal wounds of abandonment and neglect.

Maybe that explains the attraction men from the UK have for my region of origin in the US, because it does seem to be somewhat of a thing. It must be relaxing to be let be and not be nagged at like that all the time.

M, A, and T all married men from the UK. They're actually all still married and doing well last I heard. One I thing I noticed last time we got together before Urchling and I moved out here was that none of them ever complained about their husbands being controlling or being drama whores around issues of control or "protection". I didn't notice that until we were all in a larger group and the inevitable complaining started up. I always thought it was just me, you know? Hard to participate in female bonding when the bonding points are always what constant pains in the ass your husband, children, and parents are and how you have to sacrifice and put up with them. I don't have anything meaningful to contribute here. I guess I could nitpick some things, but what for? It's like the hairspray talks during the early 90s all over again. But I noticed they all went quiet too or drifted off to their kids or hubbies.

And when the men started up a gripe fest of their own, their hubbies did the same.

Funny how sometimes having nothing to contribute is the foremost statement of happiness and contentment, huh?

But anyway, maybe that's part of the mutual attraction between Appalachians and the UK. Neither side infantalizing the other in those pernicious ways. You can just be, without being monitored and scrutinized, and corrected and "helped".

Like I said, relaxing.