Fatima wrote: |
There are lots of expat workers here, from places like the Philippines, who come to work in Qatar as housemaids, school assistants, whatever, and who leave their children behind. Their husbands remain in the Philippines and care for the children. Some of these ladies are very well qualified, lawyers, teachers etc, but they have to take on menial jobs here in order to support their family. It's very difficult to understand how they can do it, and must be so upsetting for the whole family, but it makes me thankful that I can work and live with my family. It's quite acceptable in the Philippines for women to do this, though; as it was in England at that time. I guess that doesn't always make it easier for people to understand, though. |
Kathy_S wrote: |
The Bettany situation did seem to be a social norm, as strange as it may seem to us now. It certainly wasn't invented by EBD! |
Tara wrote: |
What has often struck me is how these 'abandoned' children are, nonetheless, expected to relate immediately and wholeheartedly to their biological parents, whom they haven't seen for many years, and are castigated as unnatural if they exhibit distress at being taken away from the carers who have brought them up. |
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Like her brother and sister, ... had been born in India; but, unlike them, had come home at the early age of seven months. The frail baby who had never known her mother or father had thriven in the soft Cornish air of their home till she was four years old. |
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...knew very well that Madge had set her heart on this project, and that he had neither the strength of will nor the authority to turn her from her purpose. They were twins, and all their lives long she had been the one to plan for them both. If she had determined to start this school, nothing he could say or do could prevent her. |
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Children were often, of course, farmed out, for financial reasons, to other, possibly childless, members of the family to bring up, again hoping to give them a better life. |
Rachel wrote: |
It is one of those things that I think you need to have been around at the time for it to seem in any way reasonable! To our way of thinking, it is completely horrendous to contemplate having kids and then handing them over to other people for several years (although there are days when...) but at the time EBD started writing, that's just the way it was. |
Katherine wrote: |
I did wonder how the Russells, particularly Jem, felt about it, but then they probably felt it was their duty and just got on with it. |
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Ireland in the 1920s was in the midst of partition from the UK, and there was plenty of violence around in the aftermath of civil war, I think. So, Austria probably was the safer option. |
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‘Then where were you thinking of?’ he demanded, not unreasonably. ‘Ireland? Shouldn’t advise that! You might wake up one morning to find yourself burnt out!’ |
Karry wrote: |
Doesnt it mention that Bride is called Bridget after the sister who died - and then in Bride leads, Auntie Bridget comes to look after Mollie? |
Michelle wrote: | ||
But I bet it's just another EBDism. I don't think Aunt Bridget is the only character to come back from the dead. |
Tiffany wrote: |
Maybe Mollie's sister Bridget died, and when another sister was born she, too, was named after the dead Bridget? But it's odd the living one wasn't mntioned in connection with Bride's name... |
moonlitsparkle wrote: |
Because most of my childhood books were stories like the Chalets, The Secret Garden, A Little Princess etc I was really under the impression that the Empire still existed (this in the early nineties) and wondered why none of my relatives were off in India! It seems to play a big part in children's stories of that era. |
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