Fairness in the Marlow household

[carmine-rose.livejournal.com]

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?

Comments

[yonmei.livejournal.com]

I don't think she's a particularly good mother

I think she's an excellent mother. The horses pother is really not a good example of it.

The letter to Nicola, on the other hand, is arguable; I think it's an example of how she is a good mother - she's clear about what's happening, she explains why Nicola will have to be the one to leave, and I think she breaks it to Nicola the right way: she could have come to visit and told her face-to-face, but then everyone would have known something was up, and it's obvious Nicola is a much more a private person - I think it's reasonable that Mrs Marlow knew a clear, honest letter was the best way to tell Nicola something as shattering as that.

The only argument on the other side is that you could argue that a good mother always treats all of her children exactly alike, and if they couldn't afford all the girls at Kingcote, none of them should be there. That's a point, except that while disagreeing in principle with private education, I agree with Mrs Marlow that it would have been unreasonable to move Ginty or Ann just as they were studying for exams: and personally, I think it would have done Lawrie a lot of good to be separated from Nicola during term-time. ;-)