Why Won't Older Southern People Use the Front Door?

Although I have family in the area, I was brought up in the Outer Boroughs of New York, and a lot of things Southern seem really mysterious to me.

One thing I'm having a lot of trouble with is our neighbors refusing to use the front door. Our property has a lot of roots and rocks, and our back porch has no handrail, and it scares the heck out of me to see some ninety year old tottering over the lawn when she could easily walk across a smooth walkway to the front entrance.

Another neighbor brings her grandkids over to play, and she always comes around the back and knocks on the French doors on our porch. She also presses her face against the glass and looks in. More than once, I've been frightened out of my wits to walk by to her face peering in.

ALL of my older neighbors use the back or side. In contrast, all of the younger folks and transplants from out of town use the front door.

Do they think this is friendly? To me it seems a bit intrusive. Any thoughts?

Dont have an answer, but another curious observation from a yankee. In our area,the sticks, alot of the houses up and down the road have two front doors, for the most part into the same room. Many of these are very old houses, some like ours are log houses. One thought we had was maybe mens/womens doors?

Any time I have used the side/back door to one of my homes or that of a family member/friend, it is usually because it is closer to the driveway and thus a shorter distance from the car. Also, the side/back door usually leads to the kitchen which a lot of southerners consider to be the heart of the home.

Neighbors or other friendlies using the back door and houses having two front doors are sort of related.

The front door is more formal. It usually leads to the parlor or some other notion of "public" visiting space. That room contains the fancy furnishings and it's for "real" guests and company. Neighbors and close friends are too familiar to qualify as either. I still know a lot of people who never use their front doors and are startled when someone does, as it's obviously someone they don't know.

The two front door thing worked along the same lines. One door leads to formal visiting space and the other to private, family space. It also allowed the house to be more easily split into a duplex type dwelling for the multi-generational use that was more common then.

Gender usually only factored into the equation for churches, as the sexes sat apart from each other in different sections.

It's still common to find folk art-style signs that say "Back door guests are best." They used to crack me up when I was a kid.

Gender usually only factored into the equation for churches, as the sexes sat apart from each other in different sections.

I think it was common for Shaker homes to have two entrances, as well - I seem to recall that from Shakertown and Shaker Village.

Why Won't Older Southern People Use the Front Door??

We're Southerners?

Garage door, tradesmans entrance, back door casual gathering entrance, and Front door.... formal gathering entrance.

Just a guess from a Native NYer!

I have no problems with people using back/side door, but for neighbors you don't know well to do it, yes that's a bit presumptuous. I had friends in high school where if I didn't use the back door they laughed at me. At one particular friend's house they laughed at me even if I used the backdoor but bothered to knock first!

Why Won't Older Southern People Use the Front Door??

We're Southerners?

Not from what I've read . . .

[Robin Garr]

Not from what I've read . . .

SOME of you hillbillies might be, but real old-line Louisvillians certainly aren't.

Case in point: I've never even <i>heard</i> of anybody bypassing the front door. {shrug}

I grew up in Arkansas (which some folks seem to think isn't southern either, but anyway...) and it really was common practice to use front or back door much in the way folks here have suggested. Friends, extended family and friendly neighbors nearly always used the back or side door, whether they drove or walked to get there. Sometimes the back or side door was used because, as others have noted, it was closest to where the car pulled up. I think in some of the religious sects, the habit of having two front doors, suggesting a sort of segregation of sexes, was related to the fact that the religious services travelled from one home to the next, rather than having a central place of worship. The meeting hall at Spring Mill, for example has exactly that arrangement.

At our place, people rarely use our front door and walkway, preferring to come through the bakery to the back door. Again, that may have more to do with the driveway situation.

On another note, the south was advanced way before the rest of the country in using "mz" since forever.... Way easier than having to go through the rigamarole of having to ask "miss" or "mrs."

Why Won't Older Southern People Use the Front Door??

We're Southerners?

Not from what I've read . . .

We are from what I've read.

See the book "Nine Nations of North America" by Joel Garreau.

Case in point: I've never even heard of anybody bypassing the front door. {shrug}

I also have never heard of using the back door instead of the front. I would find that really odd if someone used our back door. But then again, my husband, who is from central Illinois, will not use the front door. He goes in and out of the garage door, even to just get the mail.

I guess it just depends on the lay out of your home...

In our house we go in and out of the back door because it is right next to the garage... And the front door really doesn't come into play because our walk coming up to the front of the house is cut of from the street because of an easement...

We are a mixture of Southern and Midwestern. Whether we're "Yankees" depends on who's talking. Personally, I'm a Yankee, but if I was from Elizabethtown I'd call myself a Southerner. For me, the line is that close. Yes, folks I've known use the entrances as several have described: front leads to the "formal" area, back leads to the "close and friendly" area which is usually the kitchen. Side doors vary. For instance, if the house is a Shotgun style, and you come in the side way, you may walk straight into a bedroom.
But it could be the kitchen.