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

[coughingbear]

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?)

[carmine-rose.livejournal.com]

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.

[clanwilliam.livejournal.com]

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...

[coughingbear]

That would be the always much rather it were one of the family chapter?

Feel rather envious that you still have unread Forest.