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

[clanwilliam.livejournal.com]

Actually, big difference. A riding school horse has its own owner and in a lot of cases also has a "temporary" owner who makes things up to them - the mare I learned to ride properly on was in many ways my mare and not anyone else's, to the extent that people used to grumble at *me* when she played up! I never owned her, I never had her on loan, but I was the person she came to for comfort (and vice versa). But even then, the primary owner is still that - I had a memorable encounter closing up one stables one night where a pony ignored his goodnight carrot until the yard owner came over to give it to him himself.

I have loaned out my own horse, and I happily put my friends up on her back, but even when she hadn't seen me for a couple of months, *I* was still her human, not the person giving her food and shelter.

Horses pairbond. If they don't have another horse to pairbond with, they pairbond with humans. Sometimes they even do it when there's other horses around. I've both seen this and experienced it, and two owners for one horse is not a good thing.

I suspect the Idiot Boy has a less comfortable life than Catkin - and as I've said already, I haven't read the books that feature his handover to Lawrie.

[carmine-rose.livejournal.com]

[T]wo owners for one horse is not a good thing.

Well, then we'll have to agree to disagree - I suspect a horse with a few riders would probably pair-bond to the stable guy and be perfectly happy, or to one in particular of the riders, but YMMV, obviously.

...the mare I learned to ride properly on was in many ways my mare and not anyone else's, to the extent that people used to grumble at *me* when she played up! I never owned her, I never had her on loan, but I was the person she came to for comfort (and vice versa). But even then, the primary owner is still that - I had a memorable encounter closing up one stables one night where a pony ignored his goodnight carrot until the yard owner came over to give it to him himself.

You're actually kind of proving my point here, if I've understood you right - "your" horse was obviously happy when he was with you, despite being "bonded" to his actual owner. So Catkin could easily have bonded more to Ginty than Lawrie but still have "belonged" to both of them and been happy being ridden by Lawrie.

[clanwilliam.livejournal.com]

Actually, missed a bit. Blossom's owner was away and he didn't care for her - he'd passed her on to the stables. In turn, she *hadn't* bonded with anyone at the stables, and did to a limited extent with me - but only a very limited one and not a real bond at all.

[carmine-rose.livejournal.com]

So... are you saying this was a happy horse or not? That it was content to be "your" horse (though not in fact really bonded to anyone), but lent out sometimes to others and go months without seeing you, or that this was bad for the horse? I'm just trying to relate this to Catkin's potential happiness as a horse ridden by several owners.

Maybe we should just stop discussing this. I just don't think it reasonable that one child out of eight be given such a disproportionately large one-off present, and you don't think it's unreasonable. I doubt we'll persuade each other! : )