That expression has been on my mind. No, it doesn't have anything to do with a dried grape.

It's a Southern expression. What exactly does it mean? Am I taking it right? I hear: Don't be more successful than the people you grew up with. You have no right to improve your lot in life. If you're born poor, you'd better stay that way, or else. Cross-reference the Crab Mentality.

I grew up Southern myself, and I've seen people ostracized by their families for succeeding. A friend of mine had his father say to him, when he enrolled in college, "Well, if yer gonna go and git all uppity on us, ya don't need to come around here no more." And Papa wasn't joking. That man was no longer welcome in his childhood home, just because he went to college.

In my own family, I hear a lot of the phrase "too good." It is always said with disdain. For example, the woman who insisted on buying a new mattress instead of one from a Goodwill or a yard sale, and a family member commented in a tone dripping with sarcasm, "She's too good for a used mattress." My mother was criticized for owning a car that actually looked pretty and didn't have dings, dents, and rusted out holes all over it. It wasn't expensive, or even new, but it didn't scream "ready for the junk heap," so she was vilified for having it.

Am I right? Did Flatt and Scruggs actually write a song (sung by Ricky Skaggs) that promotes reverse snobbery? Is there really something morally wrong with having a better lifestyle than your parents had?