Harriet questions Elizabeth’s “que será, será approach to parenting.” Do you think she was truly as hands-off as Harriet supposes? What do you think of the way she raised Madeline?
She seemed to be a remarkably empathetic, loving parent. Don’t forget she also had Six-thirty to help her protect Madeline.
I think Elizabeth was a loving Mom. She had a close and warm relationship with
Madeleine. She had to enlist the support of her neighbor and her doctor to get the real truth about the challenges of parenthood. She encouraged her daughter to be honest, despite attempts by all around her to lie to her for varying and interesting reasons. Madeline seemed to unmask them all. The only person who was acutely unsettled by Madeline’s honestly and relentless pursuit of the truth was her teacher, Miss Mudford. Her refusal ro accept Madeline’s point of view stemmed from her own insecurity. Elizabeth had great intentions when it came to her role as a Mom. She had to modify constantly and feared doing this important job wrong. That’s parenting!!!
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It’s probably good that I never had kids. I think I would have been a very paranoid mom who would have seen danger for my child at every turn. I sometimes think that any child I might have had wouldn’t have been permitted to leave the house until they were 25.
Elizabeth had so much anxiety about parenting when Mad was a newborn but also quickly understood that Mad had enormous capabilities. I don’t totally agree with Elizabeth’s allowing Mad as much freedom as she did but I think parents today don’t allow enough freedom- I see moms who see danger at every turn and don’t seem to understand that making mistakes is the way we learn to think and improve. Kids need to have relatively unsupervised play when they figure out how to negotiate arguments and how to make friends. Life is always a balance between risk and reward.
I think where other parents criticized Elizabeth’s parenting overlooked that Mad was extremely smart and ahead of her age developmentally.