The world of AF; where fathers are absent and mothers are incompetent

[ex-ajhalluk585.livejournal.com]

In carmine_rose here quite a lot of debate was engendered by the question as to what conclusions could be drawn about Pam Marlow's parenting abilities with regard to two specific incidents, namely whether Nicola should be withdrawn from Kingscote if absence of funds prevented all five girls from remaining there to complete their education, and her sale of the Last Ditch in order to purchase Catkin for Ginny and Chocbar for herself. If you want to continue discussing that aspect, then it's probably worth continuing in that forum.

Actually, my own view is that Pam Marlow is a pretty competent parent given the competition, and especially given what a ghastly manipulative old harridan she has for a mother. Mme Orly is one of my favourite characters, but given what we know of her parenting style it's a remarkable tribute to Pam Marlow's innate strength of character than she came out as well as she did.

But given the choice between having Mme Orly for a mother, or Mrs Frewen - ugh! One has to put one's money on the mad hyper-critical old bat (who not only tells you that your bum does indeed look big in that, but shares her views with the whole of the Meet, to boot) if the alternative is Dog-Murdering Drippsley.

Helena Merrick is probably the nearest to a human icicle one ever gets to meet . Nice as Anthony Merrick is for a Tory MP, you also have to wonder about someone who only actually realises that his son is acutely unhappy at school (something he has been mentioning regularly over breakfast for several terms now) when he's on the point of expulsion.

Considered as a father, Edwin Dodd - well! Slashing
minors across the face with riding crops generally provokes adverse comment as a personality trait. And sometimes the negative attention of social services.

Mrs West - well, we never get to see her, because she's off solving the problems of the Middle East (if that's in the same manner as her parenting style, probably by sending the competing factions for ice-skating lessons). Mr West, however, is a sweetie and his daughter self-evidently adores him.

I have always taken the view that Mr Keith was probably an irresponsible git, though possibly his decision to leave his country of birth and move erratically around without leaving forwarding addresses was merely an effort to avoid his sister.

Mrs Todd is not presented in a positive light. And as for Mr Hopkins - shudder, shudder!

Of course it is to some extent a children's fiction trope that you clear the parents off the scene before the action starts, but it is fairly interesting, at least to me, just how much we actually get to see of some pretty indifferent (perhaps one might say; realistically indifferent) parenting in Antonia Forest's world.

So, any thoughts? Class, era, cynicism about the human race in general?

Comments

[carmine-rose.livejournal.com]

Oh God, Esther's mum. What a nightmare she was. She didn't have clue.

I can't quite remember why Esther was shipped off the Kingscote in the twins' second year - I'm pretty sure the baby came later? Am I getting mixed up with Sally from Malory Towers?

[oursin.livejournal.com]

'Better drowned than duffers' (Swallows and Amazons) is pretty tough love. And the parents are represented as sympathetic figures. Other unsympathetic childrens' lit mothers - Mary's ma in The Secret Garden who does not take herself, or send her child, off to the hills in the middle of a cholera epidemic - although Cedric Fauntleroy's Dearest is a fault in the other direction; and Colin's father who can't bear to look at him. I will not go through the list of Charlotte Yonge's fictional parents, but they include the Rev Underwood, who, suffering from advanced tb, goes on to beget a family of 13, and then dies, leaving them in severe financial straits. Dr May is irascible and occasionally unjust and fails to pick up on Flora's hypocrisy. Etc.

I did have a passing thought which I haven't pinned down properly yet that the Marlowe parenting is very much a specific class model (on Forest and class, The Thursday Kidnapping has some interesting material for reflection, on the shabbiness/handmedowns vs smartness issue among other things).

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

Speaking as an American, I'm struck by how hands-off all the parents are. The children are expected to endure, not fight. The response to the horrific events in *Traitor* is "Let's not talk about it any more*. The response to the various school injustices is essentially "Suck it up and deal". And, as you say, Mr. Merrick doesn't do anything about his son's misery until he's expelled.

I see this as a cultural (and probably time-based) divide: there's a lot more praise for silent endurance as a virtue than I see in American children's books.

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

I think time-period and culture play their part (though I know nothing about American parenting and have only experienced British parenting in that it was done to me) and also the constraints of the childrens' book genre - the adventure story doesn't allow for much involvement on the part of parents, and the boarding school story for less.

Even within those conventions, Helena Merrick's noticeably detached, mind you - it's probably a very good thing there was an Irish Nanny around to change Patrick's nappies.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

Today I have been working on the papers of someone who came from this sort of background (father was Sir Eminent Upper-Middle-Class Surgeon, did important field surgery stuff in Boer and Great Wars, mother was county and riding to hounds until very late in life), and was traumatised by being sent (as was the practice of this class) to prep school at an early age. After going to Dartmouth he decided against a naval career, studied medicine, got interested in progressive education and psychoanalysis, and did much-cited work on the mother-baby bond and child-rearing. It's an interesting model both of that milieu and the kind of reaction it could generate (as opposed to the 'never did me any harm' attitude towards the tradition).

[coughingbear]

I tend to agree that Mrs Marlow is a reasonably good parent, especially as she's managing on her own a lot of the time. Certainly compared to almost everyone else's parents - I too was shocked when Patrick's father, who I like, just didn't seem to care that his son was deeply unhappy at school.

What about Captain Marlow (when he actually appears)? It seems that Nicola and Rowan have absorbed a lot of their self-containment and endurance from him. He runs a fairly tight ship, and is sparing with praise, but he does seem to know his children fairly well - thinking of him reciting the Jabberwocky at Lawrie, a scene I like. And I rather enjoy that he's around to give the children a huge telling-off over their totally unecessary cliff-climbing expedition.

[sollersuk.livejournal.com]

"Silent enduring" indeed. I'm having problems with readers of my (original) historical fiction because they don't get "stiff upper lip".

I would recommend "Diary of a Provincial Lady" - she's falling to pieces when her son goes back to boarding school but she will NOT show it.

[ex-ajhalluk585.livejournal.com]

Well, with regard to the Traitor issue doing anything else would have involved a serious breach of the Official Secrets Act. The kids were treated as having the understanding to take on adult reponsibilities, and do well at coping.

But silent endurance is still endorsed as a virtue - hence for example the mutual cultural bafflement about the role and purpose of london_hurts.

[carmine-rose.livejournal.com]

I have always taken the view that Mr Keith was probably an irresponsible git

Is there a Mrs. Keith? If not, is she dead or just gone?

I'm actually surprised Miss Keith didn't step in earlier about Tim's education, especially since Kingscote has a junior side.

[anstruther.livejournal.com]

Class and era. I understand jonquil's comment about the parents being hands-off but when you look at the considerable freedom enjoyed by the Marlows, Patrick and other children's lit figures, i.e. they're pretty much self-regulating when it comes to their daily whereabouts, it seems natural for the children to be treated as more adult and self-reliant than they might be today. It may also be a reflection of the fact that AF started the Marlow books shortly after WWII, when events required both adults and children to cope, not emote.

The whole Catkin issue aside, I've always thought Mrs Marlow was a sympathetic figure and rather a good parent. I also think the fact the three Dodd children quickly form a good relationship with her is believable and a testimony to her parenting skills.

Mrs Todd is not presented in a positive light.

Mrs Todd is presented as a rather ridiculous figure but does she commit any major parenting crimes? I can only think of her allowing Pomona to arrive at Kingscote in some rather unconventional home clothes. The choice of clothing's not ideal, but Pomona was by no means the only new girl not wearing uniform. Apart from that, Mrs Todd seems like a reasonably attentive parent who turns up for her daughter's end of term play and sends food parcels regularly enough to invoke the Third Remove's envy.

[owl]

Ah! I've just realised I've been having the same problem with, wait for it, my Star Wars fic. People tend to comment with 'she's bottling it up and it's so bad for her' comments a la U. Logan. Fair enough, having one's planet blown up is much worse than anything Ginty had to face, but even for writing reason I can't have grieving all the time.

[ex-ajhalluk585.livejournal.com]

I think we're supposed to believe that Pomona blossoms at Kingscote having been removed from her influence, but since the only evidence we have to support how bad P's homelife is is Tim then I don't think that's a necessary reading.

[jen-c-w.livejournal.com]

i think we're meant to think of Mrs T as bad because she is the very antithesis of the marlows' parents. Whereas the Marlows are allowed, nay encouraged, to be self-sufficient and all develop good, strong characters as a result, Pomona is overfed, told she's wonderful and generally spoilt, so she is incapable of interacting with others - which is a skill she learns at Kingscote.

[anstruther.livejournal.com]

I agree Pomona improves a great deal during her time at Kingscote but I'm not sure AF intended us to think very much about Mrs Todd as a parent? Mr Hopkins and Mrs Frewen are obvious bad parents (I'm staying away from the subject of Edwin) but IMHO Mrs Todd is nowhere in their league. She seems to be a minor handicap but probably not more so than, say, Mr Keith. When Pomona arrives at school she's spoiled, allegedly sucks up to grown-ups and needs to learn how to interact with people but Lawrie, Nicola and Tim also arrive with flaws and need to learn new skills, including how to interact with people. For me, the fact Pomona's corners get rubbed off quickly suggests she wasn't that messed up to start with.

I would personally agree that the Marlows are good parents but do you think we're meant to think they're the ideal parents by which all other parents should be judged? It sounds a bit black and white for AF. And even good parenting doesn't necessarily result in children who have good, strong characters, Ginty (and Peter?) being a case in point.

[carmine-rose.livejournal.com]

I'd have liked to ask AF what she thought of the elder Marlow's parenting choices, actually. I wonder if she came from that kind of environment (I don't mean financially, I mean did her parents have a similar style to the Marlows) and if so, what she thought of it.

Does not knowing one's children make a parent incompetent?

[(Anonymous)]

Hello all. Bit of a new bean here, but pleased to find this forum! Haven't got as far as a proper account yet, but thought I would comment, as I've just been on a re-read of my books, and something struck me about the Marlow parents - they don't actually seem to know their children all that well. Maybe it's just a generation gap, or mabye it's because the children are away at boarding schools so much, or maybe it is something about their characters - they are not very observant or involved parents, at the least.

For example: Mrs Marlow gives the twins the lovely party dresses in Run Away Home, because (paraphrasing) "Rowan commented how awful it must be for the two of you always having second-hand clothes". Why was it Rowan who needed to point that out? Surely any fairly obvservant parent might have noticed that fact herself? Another example: When she writes to Nicola about leaving Kingscote, while she knows Nicola enough to know that she's the more sensible one and the better choice to have to leave, she doesn't really know how Nicola will react - again, it's Rowan who tells her Mum that Nicola would rather know if it was a possibility. Even back in Autumn Term and the twins are describing the Court of Honour, it's one of the others (can't remember who) and not the parents, that "suddenly sees how it had been", how the filthy full dress and formality of it all had made Lawrie tearful and Nicola tongue-tied, and the parents have to have it spelled out. It's Ann who notices that Nick is upset by the other laughing at their efforts to be credits to the family. There are various other examples as well, including some about the other children, where the parents ask "dumb" questions and the other children fill them in on what the other one is thinking or feeling. I can't think of many right now, as it's the Nick ones that stick in my mind, since I have most sympathy for her being misunderstood, but I remember noticing them when I was reading that it happened to the others as well.

The parents don't seem to have nearly as good a grasp on the emotional lives of their children as I might have expected: they don't know why they're reacting in a certain way, they don't see beyond the surface, they aren't as good at predicting how a particular one will react, etc.

That seems to be somewhat "indifferent" parenting to me. Not necessarily incompetent, but perhaps just not particularly good at it.

On the other hand, I have never been to a boarding school, and I've never had children, so the separation from the parents/lots of time spent with sisters, and the generation gap, might have much stronger effects than I realised, and maybe it's not specially the parents' fault.