In honor ofnit nearly being Independence Day, wibu to tell you

[PratStick]

That Bleu is not a common American name?

That we do have required biology lessons. (Obviously)

Baby showers were never meant to be massive affairs with enterence fees and that I never heard of such a thing before MN. Your mate threw a party, invited your other friends, you ate brownies and were given diapers artfully formed in to a cake.

We also didn't invent "destination weddings" if we did had done, no one would go as we get far less time off than you do. It's also the reason many Americans don't have a passport, nothing to with America being too awesome to bother leaving.

Only a third of us have guns.

I was never taught creationalism in school. It is illegal to mix church and state and we I never took any form of RE. We do not have state funded religious schools. Your nearest school will be a non religious state school.

Any Americans have anything else to add?

What about stop looking at stereotypes and differences and start looking at the things we have in common? There's enough hate, prejudice and nastiness without whipping up more.

DD just finished kindergarten and her science class this year included evolution and they learned all about Charles Darwin.

The gun issue here is much more complex than most people in the UK understand. The stats being banded about have little meaning because most people who own a gun have more than one gun and most of the time the guns used to kill people are obtained illegally. We have much lower knife crime than the UK because criminals here in the US use a gun. Mugging here in the US is rare where we live. Not so much in similar socioeconomic areas in the U.K.

Someone told me when I moved here that the top and bottom of America are absolutely rotten and the middle classes are the best whereas in the UK the upper middle class is the best. I don't know about the UK piece but the US part is accurate based on my experience.

I was never taught creationalism in school.

Neither was I, and I am pretty old and grew up in the Deep South.

Margaret Mitchell named the child in Gone With The Wind Bonnie Blue Butler in 1936, so it's not a new thing.

Ah, yes, but that was just her nickname (for the Bonnie Blue flag). Her real name was Eugenie Victoria, named for two empresses. The only "Blue" I have ever known was my Uncle Bobby's old bird dog.

I once met a guy from America who told me how proud he was of America being so secular . We had an interesting chat then he started crying and shouting God bless America and kissing a dollar bill and I quickly moved to the other side of the bar.

Other than that one line in the Pledge of Allegiance there really is incredibly little religion in US public schools. As a Brit, I just took for granted in UK schools that there were Nativities and prayers and RE, etc. Then I moved to the US, and there are no Nativities or prayers in public school, and you're taught about religions as part of Social Studies, but you're not taught religion. You don't get Good Friday or Easter Monday off school. People are still very religious, but they do it outside school. Nativities are organised by churches for example.

TBH the 'one nation under god' bit of the Pledge of Allegiance is the bit that offends me least, and I'm about as irreligious as you can get. It's the assumption that students will revere their country without question that bothers me. I dislike that jingoistic patriotism that's expected here.

Be That's like Australia, only religion outside of school is minimal too.

I find it surprising (and disconcerting) that religion seems to be a part of school life in general in the UK. It has no place in public schools here.

I think adherence to Christianity dropped by 10% between 2011 and 2016, which is quite amazing.

I'm British, but agree that people here do criticise Americans/American behaviour too much. If baby showers here are OTT, that's our fault, not America from where the idea came. There are a lot of good things about the US (not Donald of course) such as people's positivity, and I think people here are too quick to sneer. And we don't do it about other countries. It feels wrong to me.

Sorry about all the US bashing - Happy 4th of July.
Your current president is a dick but either your constitution or simply the passage of time for his 4 year term will get rid of him for you.
We are stuck with Brexit .

Happy 4th
I love the US, I've lived more of my life there than in the UK.
I loved the schools my children went to in the small town we lived in.
I enjoyed many baby showers none of which involved entrance fees or were OTT at all.
I loved how fit I was and how healthily we ate in California. Four years in here in UK and I'm having trouble shifting weight due to all the deliciousness of pastry, cakes and sweets. bloody chocolate biscuits
I didn't like how many guns were around. However I was happy the older kids had gun safety and were taught to use them at high school by the local sheriffs department. It gave them a very healthy respect for them and they have never wanted to "play" with them out of curiosity.
Theres tons more but lots to do here.

I don't know how prevalent the Pledge of Allegiance is in schools these days, but I do know that by law children can't be required to recite it.