The Yardstick of Motherhood

[marydell]

I'm thinking today about the way we measure ourselves as mothers.  I suppose we all have a set of mothers in our heads--the ideal one we think we should be;  the bad one we strive not to be and maybe fear being.  Maybe we were raised by a version of one of those archetypes, and are measuring ourselves against our memories and hopes.  If we adopted

Comments

[rikibeth]

Well, I was thinking recently about how I'd like to actually HAVE the skill of casting bullets, because I'm making these vampire-hunter kits, and...

At least Pa Ingalls did his share of keeping his family fed (although natural disasters and his misjudgement of government regulations made this harder than it might otherwise have been). He made some sketchy choices as a provider, but he was a hell of a lot better than, say, Bronson Alcott! Bronson Alcott is my standard for pretty-talking, WORTHLESS father.

[marydell]

The Pa Ingalls of the books did stuff like building a house out of sod...but the Pa Ingalls of the TV show mostly drove a cart in circles all day and then dispensed some wisdom when he got home. I want his job.

Is Bronson Alcott the model for Pa March? Because in the movies, anyway, Pa March comes home from the war*, sits his ass in a chair, and never does a thing for the rest of the movie, except maybe standing around during a wedding and a funeral. I don't know what he's like in the book because I've never been able to get past "It won't seem like Christmas without presents!"

*having been in the war, he's entitled to sit on his ass, I think, but since the war stuff was offscreen it leaves him making very little impression, dad-wise.

[rikibeth]

Bronson Alcott is indeed Pa March except WORSE, because he was moving them to a commune in Concord full of Transcendentalist ideas and NO FOOD and not bringing in any money BEFORE he ever went off to be a Civil War chaplain. Note, chaplain, not combatant.

[icecreamempress]

Bronson Alcott made his daughters pull the ploughs because he didn't want to be cruel to the oxen. Trufax.

[sabotabby]

This post is awesome.

[kate_nepveu]

Heh. I like it.

[browngirl]

Heh, well said. And Happy Mother's Day!

[unhappytriad]

Brilliant!