>I wouldn't complain too much about the accents our children develop until you've got a daughter raised in the south (as I do). All day in school just reinforces it... :o)

Yes. At the moment I've got my kids adhering to some northern pronunciations, e.g. bath, path, laugh (with a flat "a" like you would say it) rather than "barth", "parth" and "larf" as down south. As I said, it's harder to instill it in my younger (I've a very different, lighter accent than MY brother).

People have said to me, just you wait till they go to secondary school and fall into the argot of their friends, you'll lose all control.

I know the NC accent. I used to have a buddy at college (Karl Moose, for Godssakes!) from there. His father, a big ex-airman I met too, when we visited their home in Llandudno, N. Wales

"... If y'all gonna get up any tahm soon, mom's fixed breakfast ..."

I think it's quite quaint. :-)