trennels | Fairness in the Marlow household

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Fairness in the Marlow household

I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on the fair/unfair treatment of the Marlow young by their parents. I'm thinking specifically the treatment of Nicola by her parents/mother in Cricket Term. Is there anyway this could have been handled better? Should it actually have been Nicola who was going to have to leave? Should they have told her or dropped it on her in the summer holidays? Should they have removed all the girls, or perhaps just both twins?

For that matter, should Lawrie have been given the Prosser? (I know this wasn't her parents' decision, I'm just interested whether people think it was a good judgement call on the part of the staff.)

In a similar vein, what about the horse business in Peter's Room? Was it fair that their mother bought Ginty a horse for her birthday, and said no-one else was to ride it? Was it reasonable to buy herself one before ensuring the children all had equal access to a horse for hunting? In effect, she created a situation where one daughter was the only one in the family who was unable to go hunting (without hiring a horse), which seems harsh to me. But then, I'm from a small family where such unequality with gifts never happened - is this normal for a large family? Was Lawrie's reaction reasonable, or did other readers take it as just one more example of her throwing whiny tantrums?

These two occasions seemed to me to best illustrate Mrs. Marlow's failings as a mother (and also perhaps where the children got their selfishness) - I wondered if anyone else felt the same.

Can anyone else think of any other examples of this kind of thing? Or of fairer treatment?

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I think that's the point of the entire series: be the dependable person and everybody leans on you!

But also, there's a difference between not caring and not complaining, as Rowan points out to Lawrie. Did you actually not care? I'm not saying I don't believe you, it's a genuine question.

Yes, but her instinct is to assume that if he's 'hers' she ought to share with her siblings (the arrangement is a compromise between gift and loan, it seems to me, without going back and looking at the text). Patrick says 'he's yours' but provides a formula ('say I'm funny about it' or something of the kind?) so that she can deal with assumptions within the family.

Hmmm. but I'd argue you can be a good (ie accomplished) rider and a bad horsewomen, and in my original post, I said Lawrie was a reasonable rider. I shouldn't have changed that to "horsewoman". Plus I think her behaviour in the Attic Term shows she evolves into an empathetic rider.

> But I don't think it's unreasonable for each one to have one nice set; and one best set can be used for lots of things other than just parties. What's "unreasonable" about that?

Speaking as a mother myself, I'm more inclined to spend on everyday clothes than on party clothes. Indeed, when my children were younger, I always bought their party clothes at the second-hand store (or had them bought by a doting grandmother). The children simply didn't wear them often enough to make them cost-effective. Note that the Trennels children seem to need evening clothes only in the Christmas season, which means that they get, at most, one year's wear per child unless they're handed down.

Most of my daughter's elaborate dresses were passed on to cousins undamaged, and much appreciated. One coat made it into three different sets of Christmas pictures.

Actually Lawrie, IIRC, finally does show some empathy for the pony; having got all indignant about the fact she'd hired it for the whole day, she suddenly sees it as having behaved rather cleverly, much as she might in the same circumstances, and feeds it the sugar lumps she'd brought. But of course as you say the point that the man at the stables made is that if it's a fast hunt, three hours or so is long enough for any pony, whether hired or belonging to Lawrie.

I wonder if there's some other stuff going on here with Ginty? She had half a term off following the events of Marlows and the Traitor, which were compounded for her by having been trapped in a bombed house some time previously, so perhaps Mrs Marlow thinks Catkin will be good for her as she clearly does enjoy riding and is good at it, and that having full responsibility for him is also important (which is one of the things I thought was going on in her not being allowed to lend him to her sisters).

(Want to borrow Attic Term?)

That's true - I always try to buy my god-daughter something fancy for Christmas, because her parents aren't that well off so they spend money on necessities - and I know they appreciate getting such things as a gift.

But "best clothes" as oppsed to "party clothes" can be used for all sorts of things, if they're adaptable enough. Not that hand-me-downs can't also be used for this. I think I should have stuck to my original point about the girls having equal access to a pony rather than getting into the clothing thing, because it actually didn't register that much with me when I read the book!

Yes - I think she reflects that Patrick as an only child is lucky not to have to deal with those kind of assumptions.

Of course, Patrick makes the point that it's no fun for Buster to belong to more than one person; this may be part of the point with Catkin too. He's not a bicycle to be handed around as required.

Oooh, that's a good point - like as a confidence building exercise? That could certainly have been part of Mrs. Marlow's reasoning, and definitely not something she'd share with the other children, nor one that Lawrie would be likely to think of herself.

But "best clothes" as oppsed to "party clothes" can be used for all sorts of things, if they're adaptable enough.

Not in their situation, they can't: Nicola and Lawrie are going to parties in the Christmas season or wearing "that dreggy uniform dress" at school. The same would have been true of Ann and to a certain extent of Ginty. Rowan may well need a "good" outfit to meet with bank managers, as Karen no doubt needs one when she's at Oxford, and no doubt they have what they need.

I was thinking of weddings, christenings, family get-togethers etc, and parties at Easter and summer, which are certainly possible. Hunt Balls, perhaps. The Marlows were in effect still newcomers to the county at their first Christmas at Trennels, so I'd expect their holiday social lives to improve gradually. Not that we've seen the Marlows at any of those, but they are still hypothetically something their parents would consider.

as Lawrie isn't proetesting that a sister got a horse when she was her age, she was protesting her getting one when there was no prospect of her getting one at that time or later.

And in fact, she eventually did get a horse - shares in The Idiot Boy with Peter. Given the stables at Trennels and the fact that a horse once bought was, in their circumstances, really not costly to keep, if Lawrie had thought about it sensibly, she'd have known that while no one could promise she'd definitely have a horse of her own at any definite point in time, she would, if she really wanted a horse, be able to get one at some point when a suitable one became available at a price they could afford. What would have been wrong would have been making false promises of "You'll have one for your next birthday" or "by next Christmas" when nothing like that could have been definitely promised.

I do actually think that; it's the way I was raised

Ah well. I was raised to believe that as my brother and sister and I were all different people wanting different things, we wouldn't all get the same things. That my sister got ballet lessons and I didn't, or I got riding lessons and my sister didn't, or my brother got driving lessons and I didn't: we weren't clones of each other, and we were different ages, and we got different things at different times. My mum figured that we had to learn earlier rather than later that just because your sibling gets something doesn't mean you must automatically get something the same or of equal value at the same time - because life's not like that.

And from the description of outfitting for the Merrick's party, the prospect of Kay getting a new dres is something looked forward to by her younger sisters as something they'll inherit/share.

Yes, that's true, she did get The Idiot Boy, though of course she couldn't have known that at the time. And I'm pretty sure it wasn't a gift - didn't Nicola and Peter buy him, and then Nicola and Lawrie do swops? I don't think it would have hurt to say, "You'll get one eventually", though of course Lawrie would have then mithered and mithered to know when, and if she never had got one, would have remembered ever after that she'd been promised one.

As for the way I was raised - I certainly wasn't ever taught that me and my brother were clones, or even that we had the same needs or desires. And we well knew the world wasn't a fair place to be - but my parents both thought they should be as even-handed with us as they could be. It is possible to teach your children that "life isn't like that" while still ensuring they get as equal attention and opportunities as you can provide. As it happens, I ended up at private school, and my brother didn't, because I passed the entrance exam well enough to get a scholarship, but he failed it - this was an object lesson to both of us that what happens to you in life isn't all completely "fair" or "even", even if your parents do try give you equal birthday presents.

Also, as you mention - you got riding lessons, your sister got ballet lessons, your brother got driving lessons - in the examples you've given you did all get something. Lawrie was obviously of the opinion that she doesn't get anything. Giny gets a horse, and Lawrie wants one too - not really a case of "wanting different things".

I think my difficulty with Catkin - whom we know cost somewhere under eighty-seven pounds fifteen shillings and eightpence, though how much less is open to doubt, likewise the purchasing power of eighty-seven pounds fifteen shillings and eightpence in either 1948 or 1959 (depending on whether the Legatts held to their original selling price between End of Term and Peter's Room) - is not the not lending him around bit (it strikes me as quite clear that none of the younger children with the possible exception of Lawrie is remotely capable of riding him) but that given he represents a fair percentage of the Last Ditch, and the Last Ditch is by definition a one-off, that there is no possibility of any of the other children having a present remotely equal to him in lavishness.

That, actually, always has bothered me; it does look like favoritism because it's a whopping expenditure which - so far as one can tell- simply can't be replicated for any of the other children, and I do wonder why. And I do wonder if in some respects it's because Mrs Marlow is seeing something in Ginty which she recognises in herself; the pretty party girl with all the dance dresses who stays up all night to dance and is off to the Hunt looking fabulous the next day on an hour and a half's sleep (and, better than Pam ever managed, Madame Orly actually approves of Ginty!). No-one suggests, for example, that Nicola ought to have a dinghy, or Ann a grand-piano or even a superior upright.

I think Mrs Marlow was quite right to buy Chocbar for herself, but I do wonder why Ginty gets this big splashy present which is out of line with anything we ever hear of any of the other children getting - or of its being possible for them to get.

oooh I don't know - in Autumn Term no one seems to be able to tell one from the other, they're just more of "those Marlow girls", admittedly partially because they fail to go into the a form.

Also, as you mention - you got riding lessons, your sister got ballet lessons, your brother got driving lessons - in the examples you've given you did all get something.

Yes, but none of us all got something at the same time. If I add it up over the 18 years each of us spent as dependent children, my parents were probably fairly even-handed, though I doubt they were totting up and allowing for inflation and so forth. If you picked any one incident, no doubt it would have looked differently.

but my parents both thought they should be as even-handed with us as they could be.

Indeed - as they could be. It was impossible to buy all the children horses. Ginty obviously really wanted one: Lawrie seems (frankly) to have only wanted one because Ginty got one. Why deprive Ginty because Lawrie was going to stomp round going "it's not fair"?

Lawrie was obviously of the opinion that she doesn't get anything.

Yes. But then, Lawrie was frequently of the opinion that she doesn't get anything - a state of mind frequently found in youngest children of large families. (My sister had it to a certain extent, though not to the degree Lawrie does: I figure it's a defense mechanism the youngest child develops to avoid getting overlooked.)

I cared - but not much. I'd rather have had other stuff than the clothes, and didn't, for example, envy the friends who had much cooler clothes. The only girl I really envied clotheswise was the one whose mother allowed her to wear jeans to our (non-uniform) primary school - but that was an issue of standards. I certainly owned jeans (including a memorable pair of gloriously comfortable flared ones that originally belonged to a male cousin and my mother was *mortified* that I insisted on wearing them).

I was very much brought up with an idea that clothes didn't matter that much as a child, and it definitely had an impact on me.

You see, past a certain level, they're indistinguishable to me. You can't be a good rider without being a good horseperson, not least because the horse's needs are always paramount.

Waiting for GGB to produce it, thanks. Marcus already offered ages ago. Still touched that he and AJ *never* mentioned *that* chapter in Peter's Room that led to me bursting into tears in a Hampshire pub...

It's interesting that - if I'd had a pony to share, my siblings would never have assumed it was their right to ride it. They might have requested a ride under my supervision at some point, but not assumed that they could share it.

It's a rather cavalier attitude from Nicola towards Buster, really, isn't it?

Yeah, but at least people knew they existed! *g*

The way my family is structured, I got *very* used to people expressing surprise at my mere existence when I was in my late teens! (Oh, and only three years between me and the next eldest!)

Actually, that does raise a point for me from my university days. I was the youngest so I was the only one on my parents' hands at that point.

I actually refused to benefit from my parents' relatively increased wealth as a result and actually yelled at my dad a couple of times for putting money in my bank account!

You've articulated perfectly what my thoughts on this, better than I've been doing - thanks for that.

As I've said elsewhere in these comments, it's that both horses were bought at the same time with the Last Ditch that makes me uncomfortable. If Mrs. Marlow had sold her own tiara to buy herself a horse, that wouldn't bother me a bit. Or if she'd sold it to buy two horses for the children, say one for Ginty, and one for the twins to share, or for Lawrie and Peter, since Nicola has more-or-less permanent usage of Mr. Buster, that wouldn't have made me turn a hair. It's just that it's such a huge one-off thing that none of the others get a share in. It picks Ginty out from the others.

I also wonder if Karen felt a pang about the tiara - as the eldest daughter, she may well have expected to inherit such a valuable piece of family jewellery. Obviously this is purely specualtion; there's no textual evidence for this.

Which probably makes me incredibly weird or summat.

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