Is there an AMA American thread?

[upskilledotter]

I have so many (probably really boring) questions to ask of Americans (USA) but don’t know if a suitable thread exists.

Thank you so much to everyone who has responded and accepted that this was in spirit of understanding our differences and peculiarities!

A few more questions to keep thread rolling if that’s OK and once again thankful to everyone for engaging.

1. What is the worst think someone could do etiquette wise where you live?
2. Does every home have a flag outside? Are they raised/lowered at different times of year or for varying circumstances?
3. When you eat a family meal - everyday kind of thing - do you have starters, mains and pudding?
4. What happens when you are older and retired? What are care plans like especially if additional needs like dementia?
5. What do non-sporty kids do?

Thanks

My non-sporty kids do the same sort of non-sporty things that they did when we lived the UK; skateboarding, bike riding, Minecraft, Lego etc. DD plays Dungeons & Dragons with her friends. DS has a very all-consuming autistic special interest.

Their school isn’t particularly sports-focussed, maybe because it’s an inner city magnet school. There are sports teams, but the school social calendar doesn’t revolve around their fixtures, and there are loads of other extracurriculars like choir, chess, debate and robotics. The theatre and orchestra kids seem to be the school stars rather than the football players!

What is the worst thin(g) someone could do etiquette wise where you live?
Our friends are pretty polite and we live in a naice area, so I don't know about this. Maybe bringing an uninvited guest over? Snooping through drawers? The usual stuff, I think.

Does every home have a flag outside?
No. Sometimes we put one out for 4th of July or Labor Day but DH (former military and from a military family) is very upset about the current state of things in the US so our flag is neatly folded and stored in the closet. People would never leave a flag up overnight.

When you eat a family meal - everyday kind of thing - do you have starters, mains and pudding?
Now that DH and I are empty-nesters we mostly have the main and a little dessert. If we have people over, we a starter or snacks like nuts/crackers/cheeses, the main with protein, veg, carbs and a homemade dessert of some type (I bake.)

What happens when you are older and retired? What are care plans like especially if additional needs like dementia?
There are retirement communities that are phased. So you start in an apartment, move to assisted living and then to memory care, if need be. Some people have in-home care. This all costs the earth! Everything is very expensive and you hope have good insurance.

What do non-sporty kids do?
Sporty has a range--some kids are on school-wide teams or some city-wide. There are also regional sports teams for really talented kids. Smart kids do robotics team or chess team or piano lessons, like that. Most kids play video games. Plus homework is hard and there is a lot of it. Lots of kids have jobs during the academic year and over summer.

1. Well, in the city I live in, manners and etiquette are practically frowned upon 😂. Being a slow-walking tourist is about as heinous a thing a person can do! But, having been raised in the UK, it's true that children aren't routinely taught how to use a knife and fork properly, even amongst the chichi crowd. I cringe internally, regularly. Children learn how to use chopsticks before they master cutlery. Obviously there are many well brought up children, who've been taught to please and thank you/hold doors open/not wander away from the table/etc - but my personal experience is that they stand out for being exceptional. Shame. The corollary is that there's much less snooty/sneering looking down on people for such things. Manners and etiquette aren't a marker here to the extent they are in the UK.
2. Not in the cities, and in rural areas in my state, it's the Republicans who fly them. Your England flag saga of last year (was it?) x100. All year round, come down for bad weather only. July 4 obvs when you see them the most. But, civic buildings fly them everywhere, airports and ports, some/most schools. You see the stars and stripes here much more than you all see the Union Jack or the national flags of the UK (I don't think I could tell you what the flag of NI is, come to think of it). It's a bit weird, but lots of countries are more like the US than the UK imho.
3. Hell no!
4. Depends how much money you have. There's an outcome for everyone, from penury (dying at the state's hands, in anything from dismal to actually-not-that-bad state facilities depending on which state you're in and where you live) to a type of luxury you don't see in the UK but which I think could work well (retirement villages, or estates (as you have them) for the 55+ or 65+ communities, with a sliding scale of medical/non-medical home care depending on needs). At the top end, you pay for everything out of pocket or via healthcare or private pensions; at the bottom, you're fully reliant on the govt, which isn't pretty (but is it anywhere?).
5. Same as they do anywhere else in the world. I have one sporty kid who is annoyingly good at any sport they play; and one who is the opposite. They've both found their crowds/niches. The whole NFL/cheerleader based thing is quite regional. It's a small % of the population that watches the Superbowl for the football! Basketball is also huge, but also regional. It's a bit like how some kids really get into soccer in the UK, or rugby. It's a whole scene for them but not for the majority of kids even if they watch from time to time.

Why is junior year most important?
How do you graduate High School? Is it final exams or assignments or a mixture of both?

I've lived in Chicago for ten years and raised dc there. Chicago is an amazing city, we love it. ( Brits)
It is like a version of London you can actually afford to live in with a swimmable seafront ( actually a giant lake)
It's art museums are worse than London to be fair but everything else is very enjoyable.

Yes i want to know this
Is there different levels of the diploma?
Does it count towards University?
Do the most able have a higher grade ?
I dont really understand it
Also i watched alot of teenmom and some of them without a high school Diploma did the GED is it really an equivalent

Where I live, this is the norm. There are a few houses with decorative fences at the corners of their front yards, but the vast majority of houses have their front lawn (various sizes here), some bushes, flower gardens - varied landscaping really - steps up to the front doors, usually a front porch but at minimum a little platform at the top of the steps outside the front door. The houses here were mostly built between 1880 and 1955, with the majority in the earliest three or four decades of that period.

The openness is very pleasant. Sometimes neighbours coordinate their front yard plantings. Kids can run after a ball or fall off a bike into the grass. People tend to observe the privateness (if that's a word) of the front yards - kids play on the parkway grass or in their own front yards. (Parkways are the grassy areas between the sidewalk and the street).

Residents often sit out on front porches or stoops or in the front yards themselves watching children play or chatting.

My question is, why do so many Americans seem to go by their middle name? In fact, their middle name often is their name.

Etiquette -
Bring up politics or religion or brag about any element of your life at any social occasion. Huge no nos.
Flags -
No, very few flags here apart from defiant ones supporting black lives, opposing ICE, etc. Lots of Irish flags in March, lots of flags of different World Cup countries back then.
Family meal -
I've been told by my DCs that I was unusual in cooking home made meals. We always had just a main course with a salad. Dessert might be a cookie or some ice cream, or cake after anyone's birthday, maybe a brownie if anyone had baked them.
Retirement/ older people -
Where I live, older people are sitting on homes worth $1m or thereabouts, if they still love in the area at all. This is the nest egg for some, but most have investments and will retire with significant wealth. People tend to sell their homes around here as soon as their youngest graduates high school, because property taxes are very high (ot takes a lot of property tax to fund excellent schools that draw people in the first place).
Non-sporty kids -
Performing arts / stage crew are a huge thing here, and most teens have a part time job too. You can make a lot of money doing casual evening babysitting and after 16 you can be employed by a business, shop, etc. The local high school has hundreds of clubs - chess, clubs centered around various academic subjects, wheel throwing, big buddies, far too many activities to mention. Music and dance are huge. There are traditional choirs, gospel choirs, school band, orchestra, jazz ensemble, glee club, musicals three times a year, dance ensembles of all kinds, and the studios and facilities to support all of that both in schools and in the community (dance studios, school of rock, Irish dance, etc).

Sometimes a first name is used to honour an older family member but the middle name is used day to day. I don't think this is all that widespread tbh.

Not in my day to day life in the area where I live or where i work. However, if I were to walk fifteen minutes toward a nearby major city neighbourhood, I would be very conscious of guns. It is a high crime area, very deprived, with a lot of open air drug sales and drug use. I do not drive there late at night, especially on holiday weekends in summer.

My DCs all did various drills in school - fire drills, tornado drills, active shooter drills. Fires and tornadoes are both significantly more likely than a shooting.

I'd like to see much tighter regulation of guns. The recent prosecution of parents of school shooters has given me hope that others are feeling the revulsion I feel at the phenomenon.

But I'm also aware that people are shot every day on the streets of the city I live near. Gangs ply their trade in drugs, vice, and extortion, and enforce their power with guns. The toll is far higher than school shootings.

Homecoming queen -
Not really an aspirational thing where I live, or at least not in the form of the trope you see in movies. It's an honorific centered around the last home game of the (American) football season - though this varies by region - where alumni of the high school.are traditionally welcomed (hence homecoming). Students vote for the queen and court. The local high school votes for character and contribution as opposed to looks/ popularity/ mean girl element. A star athlete won it one year, a girl from the special ed division who participated in two sports won it another year.

Neighbourhood vibe -
Well kept front yards, lots of politically conscious yard signage, houses looking well kept, no fences or walls around front yards, no security screen doors, bikes and other toys strewn on front lawns and left overnight, lack of graffiti, lack of trash stuck in bushes, lack of 'neighbourhood watch - we call police' signs, usually indicate a well to do and safe neighbourhood.
In bad neighbourhoods you will see overt signs of security - fences around front yards, signage relating to neighbourhood watch, often a lot of weeds/ unkempt yards, maybe empty lots, trash stuck in bushes, lackmof attention to landscaping, houses in a little or more disrepair (flaking paint, etc).
That is just in the urban area where I live.

Religion -
There are lots of churches in my area, and they all seem to have active congregations. I'm a member of one. All the congregations tend to be pretty liberal and involved in 'peace and justice' outreach, supporting food pantries, ministering to people held in an ICE facility a little way away, ministering to migrants over the last few years (supporting physical and legal needs). The RC, Lutheran, and Jewish communities have elementary schools, and the RCs and Lutherans have high schools too. The RC schools have high visibility and healthy enrolment even though with strict separation of church and state, all are fee paying schools.

The right of freedom of religion - belief, practice, and association or assembly - is enshrined in the bill of rights, iirc and has been extremely important in American history, even to today. It guarantees that nobody can be persecuted for being a Muslim or Jew or RC or Mormon, etc.

I sent my DCs to a lovely RC elementary school that prepared them extremely well for high school (public for my DCs). We always said grace before meals as a family and they prayed before lunch in school and at the start of the day in school. It came as a surprise to me to learn they pledged allegiance to the flag every morning. I told the DCs they could opt out if they weren't feeling it but that's easier said than done. I understand the historical reasons why a RC school would feel the need to prove loyalty to the US. Catholics were considered dangerously loyal to Rome once upon a time here (and in the UK). As well as that, many school alumni served or died in WW1 AND WW2, Vietnam, Korea, etc.

That is a lot of olives in a martini!

You get a high school student to babysit, or enroll your kids in some sort of camp - local or sleep away. Around here, camps fill up within minutes of online registration opening up.

As young teens, my DCs made a lot of money looking after kids in the summer. Many people hire college (i.e. university) students as basically a summer nanny.

It's commonly believed that junior year (year 11, age 16-17) is most important because students apply to university in the fall of senior year (year 12), based mainly on a transcript of courses and grades from years 9-11, plus two teacher recommendations. The recommendations are usually from teachers who taught them in junior year. They don't yet have their senior year grades when they apply to university. If they're applying in the regular round, the universities will usually receive grades from first semester of senior year before they make their final decisions, but many students apply in an early decision round, with answers by mid-December, and senior grades don't figure into those.

Every high school sets its own graduation requirements, though some states have specific laws or guidelines. In general, a student needs to pass a specific number of courses/credits in specified fields: typically four years of English, three years of math, two or three years of science, two or three years of history. Some schools may require courses in other areas, such as modern languages, physical education, civics, economics, or art/music. The standards are usually not too demanding. My brother finished the requirements in 3.5 years and arranged to work full-time at his part-time job for the last semester! (This is not common; he was very enterprising, and fed up with high school.)

Exams matter more at some high schools than at others, but in most cases, they are not too important. For example, a high school senior might enroll in A.P. Calculus, get a grade for the course based on homework and unit tests, and then take the national exam in May. If the student had a passing grade in the course, that would be all that mattered for the high school diploma; he or she could get a 1 (lowest score) or 2 on the exam, without any consequences for the diploma. New York State has standardized exams that students must pass in order to earn a higher-quality diploma (called the Regent's diploma), but this is not common elsewhere. Even in New York, one can get an ordinary diploma without the exams.

To those of you who are American, have you ever suspected anyone you know of being undercover KGB officers?

No, but I've known a couple who I'm pretty sure were CIA.

Or, seeing as this is an anonymous forum, are you pretending to be American but are in reality undercover Russian spies?

If I told you, I'd have to kill you 😂

Yes and yes

Chicago - as a pp said, like London only affordable. A truly great city, really beautiful (if architecture is your thing).
Never been to Detroit.
Ohio - drove through twice. It seemed to take weeks each way. Every radio station on the dial featured country music apart from one in the vicinity of Cincinnati, where I thankfully tuned in to a classical music station even though the announcer couldn't pronounce Tchaikovsky.
I'm sure it's better than my first impression.
Austin - blue city in a red state. I liked it even though it's a bit self-consciously hip.

I will try to answer these questions, but the shortest answer is that our education system is extremely decentralized and there aren't many hard-and-fast rules.

The GED is a high school equivalency exam. It is typically taken by young adults who left high school before they finished, but who later want to get a diploma and, in many cases, progress to higher education. It is not prestigious, but it is useful. Community colleges and state universities will admit students with a GED instead of a high school diploma.

In general, a high school diploma is an either-or thing: you get it, or you don't. Outstanding students are distinguished in other ways. Many high schools calculate a GPA (grade point average) for each student. When I was in high school, every semester report card listed my GPA and my class rank. In the spring, the local newspaper published brief profiles of the top ten seniors about to graduate from each local high school. This isn't common where I live now, but it was very much a thing in the Midwest in the 1980s-1990s. The highest-ranking students may be designated valedictorian (1st) and salutatorian (2nd). Many high schools also award prizes for the top senior in each subject. This is all very public, and it can feel a bit brutal, so some schools are moving away from these practices now.

Most universities require every incoming student to have a high school diploma or a GED. Some will admit able students without a diploma, based on recommendations and test scores.

Chicago is an amazing city with lovely neighbourhoods, great restaurants, stunning architecture, a nice art museum, good culture and a gorgeous lake, complete with beaches. Downsides are that public transport could be better and the weather can be extreme, hot in the summer and brutal in the winter.

I have relatives who have lived in Cleveland and Detroit. Cleveland is ok, not a ton going on, but it's also on a nice lake and there's the rock and roll hall of fame. Detroit was at absolute rock bottom, bankrupt and a disaster in 2015(ish?) but has had a real revitalisation and feels like a burgeoning, exciting city. A lot of people live in the suburbs of both - Shaker Heights in Cleveland and Grosse Pointe and Huntington Woods in Detroit are all extremely ritzy.

I don't have any personal experience with anyone with a drug problem, but, yes, I do think it's a big issue, particularly in areas with a lot of poverty.

@x2boys@ilovepixie
You gain the necessary credits in all the state and locally mandated courses and get your diploma.

All your work from the first day of high school, plus house exam results count toward passing or failing in my local HS.
All that work also counts toward your grade point average. This is the average result of all the written work, class contribution, and house exams you do over four years, in every subject. Some schools do a weighted average, weighting subjects taken at honors or Advanced Placement level. This means a student could get more than the perfect 4.0 GPA (A-grades in each course in every semester over four years yield a 4.0 GPA).

In many high schools, students are traditionally assessed before freshman year and placed on various academic tracks - honours, college prep, vocational. remedial, etc. Courses in core subjects are offered at different levels. Usually, students on the honours track will advance to AP subjects (Advanced Placement). This can also be possible for students in College Prep tracks, or even general level tracks with a boost from summer school.

The track you're on anticipates the sort of university you'll apply to. Most really bright students will do a lot of subjects at AP level in their junior and senior years, or even earlier in the case of kids who are really good at maths. These students will normally apply to the most selective tier of universities.

The various levels (honours, etc) do not affect whether a student graduates. A student could barely pass every course over four years, but as long as the transcript reflects passes, that student can graduate. Equally, a student with a GPA over 4.0 will also graduate. The bare graduation requirement is a minimum.

Junior year is important because students apply to university with their grades up to that point to hand. Some will.aplly for early decision (by December of their senior year). It's also the year when students do the PSAT/NMSQT test, which determines entry to the National Merit Scholarship programme.

Yes, the GED is evidence of passing the state high school graduation requirement. This is a minimum requirement.

A few people asked about gun violence and gun laws. I wish from the depths of my heart that we had different, much stricter gun laws. Teaching (in another state) through the terrors of Sandy Hook and Uvalde was heart-breaking and sent my blood pressure soaring. My hometown had a campus shooting a few years ago; it started about fifty yards away from the nursery school I attended. A lot of Americans have personal geographies like that.

Many people I know are impressed by other countries' gun laws, particularly Australia's, because Australia is seen as a model of a country with a real gun culture that nevertheless manages to manage it. But I have little hope that things will improve here.

What is the worst think someone could do etiquette wise where you live?
Support Trump

Does every home have a flag outside? Are they raised/lowered at different times of year or for varying circumstances?
No one in my family has ever had a flag. Around here it's generally become a sign of being fairly right wing, although there's been a bit of a 'reclaim the flag' movement by people who are more left. A few Love is Love and Black Lives Matter flags. Lots of towns have an American flag on literally every post or pole on the main street, though.

When you eat a family meal - everyday kind of thing - do you have starters, mains and pudding?
We mostly only have those things if we have guests. On an ordinary night we would have a main and generally two sides, one vegetable and a salad. We occasionally make a little starter, but that tends to be dependent on whoever is cooking feeling creative and/or ambitious - I'll use up a tired looking zucchini (courgette) by making a few courgette and feta fritters, for example. We don't tend to eat puddings on a regular basis, but there's always chocolate in the house, and I make and freeze little balls of cookie dough, so someone can put a few of those in the oven if they fancy something.

What happens when you are older and retired? What are care plans like especially if additional needs like dementia?
As PP's have said, there are communities where you buy or rent in where you can progress from fully independent living to a higher degree of care. Some of the places are very nice, but that depends on your insurance and income/wealth. My father is 91 and my parents are still fully independent although they sold their house and have moved to a very nice smaller house with a downstairs bedroom and bath in a community similar to this https://highlandgreenlifestyle.com/home-options/. No issues with dementia, but their actual health care has been excellent.

What do non-sporty kids do?
We have mostly raised our kids in the UK (two sporty, one very much not), but I would say that among our friends and relatives, the non-sporty kids had a very similar experience to our non-sporty one - art, music, drama, hobbies, books, niche interests.

I feel like the fact that nothing changed after Sandy Hook was when I accepted that it wasn't going to get better. Not to take this off topic, but do you follow Nelba Marquez-Greene on any socials? She's a Sandy Hook parent and flat out on of the most incredible and inspirational people I've ever come across.