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

[oursin.livejournal.com]

But I don't think Patrick at all gets the way things are in a large family - or indeed any family with more than one child, and that there are these pressures. And on the 'bicycle being handed round' thing, in Run Away Home Ann refuses what Nicola assumes to be a mere polite form request for use of her bike (though as we discussed on an earlier thread, even if she didn't have religio-ethical problems with the intended use, the fate of her bike in The Thuggery Affair might be sufficient reason for her to be a bit nervous about letting anyone else use it).