The CBB
http://www.the-cbb.co.uk/

soppiness versus stiff upper lip - attitudes toward emotion
http://www.the-cbb.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=7335
Author:  Llywela [ Sat Feb 13, 2010 9:14 pm ]
Post subject:  soppiness versus stiff upper lip - attitudes toward emotion
The other night I watched a Cutting Edge documentary on Channel 4 entitled 'Leaving Home at Eight', which was about four little girls being sent to boarding school for the first time at just eight years of age. The main reason for taking this step with all of the children was that they came from army families and it was hoped that boarding school would provide them with more stability than would be possible at home. Their families agonised over this decision. Upon arrival at school, all of the children struggled with homesickness to a greater or lesser extent - one of them so badly that her parents considered removing her from school altogether.

Watching the way these tearful children were dealt with (and the very modern environment of their school), I couldn't help comparing it to the idealised 1930s-50s boarding school environment depicted in the Chalet School. In particular, I found myself thinking of the very few girls in the series who are shown to suffer badly from homesickness, such as Odette Mercier, who is considered a complete drip for being so weepy. Although the reason for her misery is understood, no one seems to have much sympathy for her, and more often than not she is considered little more than a nuisance for not simply getting over it already. On numerous occasions, new girls are told up front that if they aren't happy at school it will be their own fault, and the general expectation is that being at school should be a wonderful experience for any girl, unless she is silly enough not to appreciate it or fails to make enough effort. Emotions, in general, are given fairly short shrift.

It made me think about how accurately (or not) EBD was portraying the contemporary attitude toward 'soppy' emotions, and how different our culture and society regard such matters even just 50 years later.

Did anyone else see the documentary? What did you think?
Author:  Mrs Redboots [ Sat Feb 13, 2010 9:32 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: soppiness versus stiff upper lip - attitudes toward emotion
I saw part of it - not all. But you see, schools nowadays are very, very different places than they were 40 or 50 years ago. When I went to boarding-school, a few months past my tenth birthday, you were expected not to be homesick, and certainly not to show it if you were. There were no comforts - you could only have 5 objects on your dressing-table, so any family photographs had to be all in one frame so you could keep your toothbrush from mixing it with your undies! Not like the lovely bedrooms those girls slept in.

The books are rather horribly true-to-life in that respect. And, of course, while nowadays staff can't even touch a child, far less give them a friendly hug, their contemporaries can and will give someone a hug who needs one. Not in my day.... (was very amused at a school reunion - yes, I'm sad - the other day that we all hugged and kissed, which we wouldn't have dreamt of doing 40 years ago!).
Author:  julieanne1811 [ Sat Feb 13, 2010 9:34 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: soppiness versus stiff upper lip - attitudes toward emotion
It is interesting how often it's said that if you don't get on in the CS, it's your own fault. There are so many reasons for home-sickness or problems with settling down in a new environment but this is never really addressed in the books.
I did see the the BS programme. In such a production it's difficult to separate what's really going on from what you are seeing because the cameras are there. I'm not saying that people played up to the camera, but I do think that the fact it was there was a constant reminder to the girls and their mothers that this was a programme about leaving home when you're very young.
As a boarding house matron I did encounter home-sickness, of course, but it was rarely a huge proble. The worst case I can recall led to a new boy (and boys are different again) spending several nights on the sofa in my flat (which was located on the second floor of thehouse and was very much part of the building) because at night the home-sickness was worse. In the end the San said that I should not allow this anymore, because he had to learn to go to sleep in his own bed. I told him this and he settled in with no problem.
Thinking of other school stories of the same era, there certainly seems to be the assumption that going to BS is a great adventure which is enjoyed by the vast majority of the characters. I do prefer this way of thinking, myself. I find today's tendancy to 'navel-gaze' rather insular and self-indulgent. Please don't misunderstand me though- I'm talking about normal every-day life, not people who have gone through truly dreadful events.
I find the lack of emotional exploration actually rather refreshing in these books ...
Author:  ChubbyMonkey [ Sat Feb 13, 2010 11:25 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: soppiness versus stiff upper lip - attitudes toward emotion
Your post, Llywela, made me think about the Malory Towers series, and how there Gwen is told quite firmly to shut up when she starts sniffing about being homesick - though IIRC there's the implication that she's at least hamming it up a bit. I think that it would have been fairly taboo, and probably still is today in some cases. I know that it's different, but coming to university I've been horribly homesick on occasion (which is ridiculously silly, because when I'm being sensible I actually prefer the freedom of having my own routine to home, I just miss home comforts and occasional hugs with mum) and I'm sure that other people in the flat have, but none of us discuss it. As I said, I am aware that there is a huge age gap, but I think that it's the same general rule; not least because if you start talking about homesickness to someone, you'll probably make them homesick too.

And of course for people like Joey, the school was home, so it would be rather hard to sympathise...
Author:  Alison H [ Sat Feb 13, 2010 11:50 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: soppiness versus stiff upper lip - attitudes toward emotion
Cultural attitudes to "soppiness" seem to've gone in waves over the past 250 years or so ... I know that sounds silly, but you get Enlightenment rationalism versus Romantic outpourings of emotion (Jane Austen covers it well in Sense and Sensibility), and then you get the stiff upper lip idea, and now things are at the stage where the whole school seems to be offered counselling if one kid falls over and cuts their knee (OK, slight exaggeration there, but you know what I mean).

I think there's more sympathy earlier on - in one of the Tyrol books someone (Vanna?) is appointed prefect for the Juniors, and one of her jobs is to look after new girls who are feeling homesick, and Simone's homesickness is treated with much more sympathy than Odette's is, but by the Swiss books the idea that the CS is the most wonderful place ever is so entrenched that no-one seems able to accept that someone might be unhappy there. Then again, whilst I feel very sorry for Odette and I think the staff should have done more to try to help her, I suppose that from the school's point of view once a girl was at the school she was going to have to get used to it and make the most of it or else be very unhappy :( .
Author:  Mel [ Sun Feb 14, 2010 12:37 am ]
Post subject:  Re: soppiness versus stiff upper lip - attitudes toward emotion
To be honest I would have been less likely to be homesick at the CS than at the boarding school in the documentary. It all seemed a bit bleak. They didn't show much of what the 'great opportunities' actually were. The bedrooms with bunk beds looked OK for an outward bound holiday and there were sports on offer, but otherwise it didn't seem appealing at all. The little boys charging around pretending to be terrorists would have done my head in!
Author:  Sunglass [ Sun Feb 14, 2010 7:20 am ]
Post subject:  Re: soppiness versus stiff upper lip - attitudes toward emotion
I always think, though, that EBD allows, even encourages, certain specific kinds of emotionalism which she clearly doesn't view as soppiness, though it would certainly have been viewed as such in other school series. It comes down to her own preferences, as far as I can see, because sometimes what demarcates off 'allowed emotionalism' from the 'soppy' is fairly arbitrary. Like schoolgirl Simone is continually knocked for her 'sentimentality' about friendship (and her early homesickness), yet EBD gives Marie this statement in New House with no implication it's 'too much':

Quote:
‘Oh,’ she said, her voice quivering with the intensity of her feelings, ‘we have had beautiful school-days here, we four. And we have had a beautiful friendship. Let us try to keep it always like this, even though other things come to us!’


Despite the fact that friendships are just as important at other schools, Malory Towers, St Clare's, Kingscote and Trebizon would now all be making sick noises, I imagine! :)

The other thing about which you are allowed to be emotional in the CS is religion. Despite the fact that EBD tells us on more than one occasion that the girls 'didn't speak of such things, which lay too deep' etc, in fact many CS girls speak freely (and in a way I personally find insufferably saccharine!) about prayer, Jesus and the apostles, St Andrew 'sharing' Jesus, quoting bits from the Psalms about the mountains etc etc (without anyone wanting to push them off... :shock: ). And when Joey collapses after the Passion Play, no one dusts her down and tells her not to be silly and to put her head between her knees - it's seen as an appropriate response.

But on the other hand, emotionalism about friendship is generally frowned on, 'pashes' on mistresses regarded with frank horror, homesickness is viewed as your own fault for not realising what a splendid place the CS is etc.
Author:  Nightwing [ Sun Feb 14, 2010 7:38 am ]
Post subject:  Re: soppiness versus stiff upper lip - attitudes toward emotion
Sunglass wrote:
And when Joey collapses after the Passion Play, no one dusts her down and tells her not to be silly and to put her head between her knees - it's seen as an appropriate response.


And yet when she does the same thing after seeing the ghostly figure of Alixe in New House she is basically told to dry up! While Joey's constant fainting is more than irritating from a reader's point of view, you'd think a more appropriate response from staff would be to try and find out if there was a reason a girl was fainting so much rather than carefully not fussing over her in case it goes to her head :roll:

Odette's treatment always seems particularly awful to me. It's treated as an awful kind of sentimental homesickness, but her mother, whom she was extremely close to and who is her only family, is dying in the San (unless I've got her confused with someone else). I'm not surprised it takes her longer to adjust that most folks.
Author:  Sunglass [ Sun Feb 14, 2010 8:13 am ]
Post subject:  Re: soppiness versus stiff upper lip - attitudes toward emotion
Nightwing wrote:
you'd think a more appropriate response from staff would be to try and find out if there was a reason a girl was fainting so much rather than carefully not fussing over her in case it goes to her head :roll:


You know, that's an interesting point. All the way through EBD's portrayal of highly-strungness or fragility in girls - even in 'bona fide' cases like Joey's, and even at a school that makes a point of its special care for fragile girls - there's still a pervasive suspicion of the effect that 'fussing' over a girl who faints (or whatever) might have. Even though in Joey's case, there's no hint ever that she's putting on her emotionalism to stand out from the crowd or to get special privileges or attention - it's quite curious, when you come to think of it, that there's still a distinct attempt to make the fainter feel ashamed of herself subsequently, so she won't have her head turned by special treatment or something...?
Author:  Llywela [ Sun Feb 14, 2010 8:13 am ]
Post subject:  Re: soppiness versus stiff upper lip - attitudes toward emotion
Mrs Redboots wrote:
But you see, schools nowadays are very, very different places than they were 40 or 50 years ago.

I'm very aware of that - that was the point of my post. It fascinated me to see that difference on screen, and the attitude toward sentiment stood out most strongly as almost the polar opposite of the attitudes that permeate the books, wherein we are told over and over that the school in general has a horror of sentiment. It really drove home the cultural shift we've seen in recent decades.

On the other hand, although the staff at the school in the documentary were very sympathetic toward the homesick children, the general concensus was pretty much the same: that the children are just going to have to get over it and develop coping mechanisms, and no one can help them with that.

Of course, the children in the documentary were much younger than most of the CS pupils, at least the ones we see the most.
Author:  Cosimo's Jackal [ Sun Feb 14, 2010 8:32 am ]
Post subject:  Re: soppiness versus stiff upper lip - attitudes toward emotion
Nightwing wrote:

Odette's treatment always seems particularly awful to me. It's treated as an awful kind of sentimental homesickness, but her mother, whom she was extremely close to and who is her only family, is dying in the San (unless I've got her confused with someone else). I'm not surprised it takes her longer to adjust that most folks.


Yes, Odette simply has a lot of reasons for being unhappy. Whereas Gwen's 'homesickness' in the Malory Towers books is presented as being entirely manufactured, rather than real. Hence, presumably, the other girls' admittedly cruel regular start-of-term prank where they all line up at the windows when Gwen is saying goodbye to her parents and get out their hankies and pretend to cry along.

Mind you, Malory Towers is quite brutal as an anti-sentimental regime in some ways - isn't there a plotline where there are twins, one academically bright, one not, and the bright one is forced to do badly at her work, so she doesn't get promoted to a form above her sister? From what I remember, the brighter one does get a remove to a higher form anyhow, and when the left-behind twin comes hanging around her sister's new dormitory or form room, she is immediately, and quite brutally, thrown out by the entire form, including the twin! But that was actually quite a dark plot, because it was about love, dependence and resentment, even hatred, between twins - too dark for EBD.

The CS does have minor plot points about girls being put in a different form to their best friends, or there's Margot trailing behind Len and Con - but she always assumes the 'weaker' student will rush to catch up. It would have been interesting to see what she would have done with, say, Len or Con doing deliberately badly at school out of loyalty to Margot...

Sorry, a bit OT. Was just thinking about more obviously anti-sentimental school series than the CS, and how the CS would have dealt with darker currents of emotion between siblings...
Author:  Nightwing [ Sun Feb 14, 2010 8:40 am ]
Post subject:  Re: soppiness versus stiff upper lip - attitudes toward emotion
Cosimo's Jackal wrote:
Was just thinking about more obviously anti-sentimental school series than the CS, and how the CS would have dealt with darker currents of emotion between siblings...


Most of EBD's 'bad' sibling storylines tend to run to jealousy, rather than that sort of dark attachment, don't they? There's Maeve's resentment of Peggy (which seems to be solved by her realising that all older sisters are bossy - weird solution, even if there's a hint of truth in it :lol: ) and a few cases of the younger girl being dominated by her elder sister, but that's usually not presented as a bad thing - EBD likes her older sisters responsible and Good Examples!

Have said that, her darkest sibling storyline by far seems to be Margot's resentment of her sisters' friendship; and, I think, this is actually one of her darkest stories by far, at least in the CS series. It's not really shown as a part of sentimentalism, though - but it is possessiveness, one of the darker sides of love, even if EBD probably doesn't see it that way.
Author:  JB [ Sun Feb 14, 2010 12:30 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: soppiness versus stiff upper lip - attitudes toward emotion
Alison H wrote:
Cultural attitudes to "soppiness" seem to've gone in waves over the past 250 years or so ... I know that sounds silly, but you get Enlightenment rationalism versus Romantic outpourings of emotion (Jane Austen covers it well in Sense and Sensibility), and then you get the stiff upper lip idea, and now things are at the stage where the whole school seems to be offered counselling if one kid falls over and cuts their knee (OK, slight exaggeration there, but you know what I mean).


Not that much of an exaggeration, Alison. A couple of years ago, my car wing mirror was broken by someone walking along the pavement, as were several others in the street. I had a letter from the police afterwards giving me a number to call if I needed counselling. :)

I like the idea of the Junior Prefect in the Tyrol books and it fits in with the family atmosphere the school has then. Later on, “sheepdogs” are about practical things rather than giving a new girl the emotional support she might need on starting boarding school and that’s a shame.

I find that EBD can be sentimental or “soppy” in her writing whilst at the same time, telling us, via her characters, that it isn’t acceptable to be sentimental. In A Head Girl’s Difficulties, Rosamund is pulled up harshly by her uncle (another doctor-authority figure) for saying it’s sad that a young pupil at her school has died in a diphtheria epidemic. However, EBD as narrator writes that after the epidemic, various characters are “sleeping in the churchyard”. IMO, Rosamund’s response is natural and EBD's writing is sentimental.

In Oberland, Miss Wilson wants the girls distracted from Mollie Bettany’s illness in case they become “sentimental”:

Quote:
“Girls are given to brooding over such things and that will help no one,” the Head had pointed out to her colleagues. “It only makes them sentimental and I won’t have that. We’ll see what an afternoon in the open air and quite new sights will do for them. By the time we get back, the first shock will have worn off and we may hope that they can take it sensibly.”


I wonder how much this attitude has to do with the sudden death of EBD’s brother and the family’s reaction to it? His death and, even his existence, were hardly mentioned after his death and few of EBD’s friends knew she had a brother. In Behind the Chalet School, Helen McClelland tells of a young family friend whose mother warned her not to mention Henzel Dyer’s death to EBD and her mother. She assumed, from everyone’s attitudes that he had died recently and was surprised to learn that it had happened ten years earlier.
Author:  Cosimo's Jackal [ Sun Feb 14, 2010 1:32 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: soppiness versus stiff upper lip - attitudes toward emotion
Alison H wrote:
Cultural attitudes to "soppiness" seem to've gone in waves over the past 250 years or so ... I know that sounds silly, but you get Enlightenment rationalism versus Romantic outpourings of emotion in Sense and Sensibility


I always think you can see that shift really well if you compare the novel Sense and Sensibility with the Ang Lee/Emma Thompson film from a few years ago. Austen makes it absolutely plain that Elinor's rational, self-controlled behaviour is the correct way for a woman to behave in society, and that Marianne's Romantic emotionalism brings her only pain and suffering - Marianne must learn to be more like her sister in self-control, and then she's 'rewarded' with a safe, consolation prize marriage to a much older man who wears flannel waistcoats, rather than the man she let herself love imprudently.

But the film pushes the balance much further in Marianne's favour, suggesting that Elinor is unnaturally self-controlled and prematurely middle-aged, and that she must learn to express her feelings to get her man - it's only after she breaks down in violent hysterics in front of the man she loves that she is 'rewarded' with him. (And of course, by casting Alan 'Smouldering' Rickman as the dull Col Brandon, and making him a much more attractive character than in the novel, Marianne isn't punished for her excesses anywhere near as much as Austen does!) The film is much more acceptable to 20th/21st century tastes, which believe more strongly in the importance of self-expression than in 'correct' behaviour. It would probably just not have worked as a modern film if ET tried to make modern audiences believe that Marianne was absolutely 100% wrong to show her feelings for Willoughby openly without adequate money and an engagement!

JB wrote:
I find that EBD can be sentimental or “soppy” in her writing whilst at the same time, telling us, via her characters, that it isn’t acceptable to be sentimental....In Oberland, Miss Wilson wants the girls distracted from Mollie Bettany’s illness in case they become “sentimental”


Yes, that's right, isn't it? And sometimes vice versa - EBD tells us CS girls are resolutely unsentimental in their friendships, and are encouraged in this by the authorities, but then you have Marie coming out with flowery statements about the beauty of the Quartette's friendship which are a bit soppy by most standards!
Author:  fraujackson [ Sun Feb 14, 2010 7:28 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: soppiness versus stiff upper lip - attitudes toward emotion
Sunglass wrote:
I always think, though, that EBD allows, even encourages, certain specific kinds of emotionalism which she clearly doesn't view as soppiness, though it would certainly have been viewed as such in other school series. It comes down to her own preferences, as far as I can see, because sometimes what demarcates off 'allowed emotionalism' from the 'soppy' is fairly arbitrary. Like schoolgirl Simone is continually knocked for her 'sentimentality' about friendship (and her early homesickness), yet EBD gives Marie this statement in New House with no implication it's 'too much':

Quote:
‘Oh,’ she said, her voice quivering with the intensity of her feelings, ‘we have had beautiful school-days here, we four. And we have had a beautiful friendship. Let us try to keep it always like this, even though other things come to us!’




I think it's Simone's exclusiveness that's marked out as soppy, rather than deep friendship in general. Marie's talking about 'we four', but Simone wants Joey all to herself - or at least to be regarded as the 'best' friend.

IIRC, in The New House Mistress the Head (or somebody) remarks that it's all to the good that Miss. SoandSo is leaving to get married because the girls are ridiculously sentimental about her (which I always read as 'having a crush on.') I assume that it's that kind of adolescent sexuality that EBD is trying to avoid - she does it really quite overtly in Chalet School and Rosalie(??) when Rosalie Way gets all hot and bothered over Tom. (I remember reading this one and being shocked/curling up with embarrasment when I was about 14) :)

When I was at school there was an unwritten rule against 'particular friendships', and an explicit rule against sharing a dorm for more than 2 terms running with the same girl(s), which were instigated pretty much for the same reasons, I imagine. Having said that, we weren't allowed to evince any interest in men or boys, either !
Author:  Sunglass [ Sun Feb 14, 2010 7:49 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: soppiness versus stiff upper lip - attitudes toward emotion
fraujackson wrote:

I think it's Simone's exclusiveness that's marked out as soppy, rather than deep friendship in general.... When I was at school there was an unwritten rule against 'particular friendships', and an explicit rule against sharing a dorm for more than 2 terms running with the same girl(s), which were instigated pretty much for the same reasons, I imagine.


You're right about the exclusiveness, of course, but in my recollection, Simone is also occasionally accused of 'sentimentality' for reasons entirely unrelated to Joey - though the only one I can actually remember is when Mademoiselle attends one of the fancy dress evenings as France and Simone, who says 'Ah, la belle France', is rebuked by Joey for 'soppiness'!

Laughing inwardly at the idea of deep friendship being OK in groups (and of course you're right on this too). Interesting that the CS, while disapproving of 'exclusive friendships' doesn't have a rule about switching dormitory mates regularly and the like - the implication seems to be that all the 'sensible' CS girls (like Joey, who's embarrassed by Simone's adoration) equally frown on that sort of thing, just as they never have crushes on mistresses. It's a bit like the fact that CS girls never steal - there are clearly some depths to which EBD isn't prepared to stoop!

Is the reason that EBD is a bit vague on precisely how the Quartette came to be particular friends - one minute Joey is just generally friends with everyone, but by the end of their schooldays, we're being told the four have been best friends for years without ever seeing how it came about - because Joey was freaked out by Simone, and looked around to add on some more people to make a group and take the pressure off a one-on-one...?
Author:  Alison H [ Sun Feb 14, 2010 7:52 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: soppiness versus stiff upper lip - attitudes toward emotion
Now that's fascinating: I'd never made that connection before. We get the Anti-Soppists in the Dimsie books, and we get the girls at St Clare's making fun of Alison O'Sullivan (why oh why is the only prominent GO character to be called Alison someone whom everyone's always laughing at :( ?) because of her obsessions with Miss Quentin and Sadie, and there are references in Tom Tackles and Rosalie to Grand Passions being frowned upon at the CS, but I'd never particularly thought of there being a connection between that and the fact that most friendships at the CS involve groups rather than pairs of girls. Sorry, that was a ridiculously long and unwieldy sentence :oops: .

I've always found it quite unrealistic, because IME most schoolgirls tend to have A Best Friend rather than, or at least as well as, being part of a quartette or a quintette or any other larger group. EBD doesn't seem at all keen on the idea of exclusive friendships - doesn't Mary-Lou give someone a lecture on the need to share your friends? - but I'd never particularly thought of there being a link between that and concerns about people getting "too" close. Maybe there wasn't one at the CS, and EBD just genuinely did think that it was better to be part of a big group and to share your friends, but it's certainly an interesting thought.

We get Len, at one point, saying that Joey, Frieda, Marie and Simone'd been a quartette from the word go, which of course they weren't, but I think it was just that at the beginning the school was so small that everyone was friends with everyone else, and then as it grew and was split into different classes then different groups of friends formed.
Author:  Clare [ Sun Feb 14, 2010 11:36 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: soppiness versus stiff upper lip - attitudes toward emotion
Quote:
In Oberland, Miss Wilson wants the girls distracted from Mollie Bettany’s illness in case they become “sentimental”:


I always read that as Miss Wilson didn't want the girls to dwell on the illness and make things far worse in their heads than it needed to be. Last year, one of our students was rushed into hospital (and sadly died), but in the immediate aftermath, we tried to keep the students focussed and quash any rumours before we had mass hysteria.
Author:  Newiegirl [ Mon Feb 15, 2010 1:42 am ]
Post subject:  Re: soppiness versus stiff upper lip - attitudes toward emotion
I think sentimentality or homesickness can also be linked to idleness in the CS. When Kathie Ferrars starts, I think it is mentioned that she is so tired by her activities that she has no time or energy to be homesick, and I think the same may be said of new girls from time to time (Ruey Richardson is, IIRC, so busy with her new life that she doesn't get the chance to think much about how different it is from her old life). So perhaps anyone who has the time/energy to feel down or miss home is failing to be a Real Chalet Girl simply because she is not flat out rushing from one activity to the next?
Author:  JS [ Mon Feb 15, 2010 2:26 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: soppiness versus stiff upper lip - attitudes toward emotion
Sunglass wrote:
Quote:
You're right about the exclusiveness, of course, but in my recollection, Simone is also occasionally accused of 'sentimentality' for reasons entirely unrelated to Joey - though the only one I can actually remember is when Mademoiselle attends one of the fancy dress evenings as France and Simone, who says 'Ah, la belle France', is rebuked by Joey for 'soppiness'!


She also thought Plato was 'romantic' :wink:

I re-read Autumn Term fairly recently and, being so seeped in CS-land, was a bit surprised by Lawrie's crushes, including on the really quite nasty Lois. To be fair, they didn't turn out well...
Author:  MJKB [ Mon Feb 15, 2010 2:54 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: soppiness versus stiff upper lip - attitudes toward emotion
Newiegirl wrote:
I think sentimentality or homesickness can also be linked to idleness in the CS. When Kathie Ferrars starts, I think it is mentioned that she is so tired by her activities that she has no time or energy to be homesick, and I think the same may be said of new girls from time to time (Ruey Richardson is, IIRC, so busy with her new life that she doesn't get the chance to think much about how different it is from her old life). So perhaps anyone who has the time/energy to feel down or miss home is failing to be a Real Chalet Girl simply because she is not flat out rushing from one activity to the next?


That's a good point, and ther's a lot of truth in it. In MT, Darrell, who is the epitome of good sense, flakes out the moment her head touches the pillow. How I envy that!
My daughter absolutely hates school, and isn't sure whether it's school in general or the particular school she goes to. It isn't treated all that sensitively by the teachers in spite of all the anti bullying policies and 'safe psychological environment' talk. I've got to the stage that I have to put abit more pressure on her and go the 'pull up your socks' route. Groups in schools nowadays actually seem to cause far more problems than one on ones. All the kids strive desperately to get into the 'popular' group and suffer real humiliation if they're dropped from it. I'd hateto be back in my school days if the only option was these huge community schools where you're just a number to the staff. I went to a small convent boarding school and while I suffered homesickness, and there were few creature comforts, there was a genuine comaderie among the girls. Some of the things my daughter puts up with from fellow pupils, both girls and boys, saddens me. However, she has to learn to cope and to hone her defence mechanisms and avoid taking things so much to heart. But it's hard seeing your one and only miserable nearly every day.
Author:  trig [ Mon Feb 15, 2010 3:31 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: soppiness versus stiff upper lip - attitudes toward emotion
MJKB wrote

Quote:
My daughter absolutely hates school, and isn't sure whether it's school in general or the particular school she goes to. It isn't treated all that sensitively by the teachers in spite of all the anti bullying policies and 'safe psychological environment' talk. I've got to the stage that I have to put abit more pressure on her and go the 'pull up your socks' route. Groups in schools nowadays actually seem to cause far more problems than one on ones. All the kids strive desperately to get into the 'popular' group and suffer real humiliation if they're dropped from it.


Sorry to hear about your daughter. It may not seem likely to her now, but from my own schooldays experience and a dozen years' teaching, she'll end up far happier not being in the so-called popular group, who are frequently not friends with each other in a genuine way at all. Better to find a couple of like-minded real friends and not care about the shallow ones, but I know how difficult it is for teenagers to resist the allure of popularity and the necessity of fitting in! I teach in a nice rural school, where the students are generally polite and friendly, but not a week goes by in which I don't have to gather little groups of girls together to "make up" after a spate of bitchiness. It's always the girls - my form are 13 and 14 and the boys have not yet matured beyond playfighting and toilet humour :roll: shock:
Author:  JB [ Mon Feb 15, 2010 3:35 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: soppiness versus stiff upper lip - attitudes toward emotion
JS wrote:
I re-read Autumn Term fairly recently and, being so seeped in CS-land, was a bit surprised by Lawrie's crushes, including on the really quite nasty Lois. To be fair, they didn't turn out well...


At Kingscote, they disapprove of "sentimental" crushes too. Lawrie's crush on Lois and Miranda's on Jan Scott are matter of fact admiration of a younger girl but in End of Term, Miranda tells Nicola about a huge row she remembers from when she was a junior and the fourth formers gave flowers, etc to older girls on whom they had a crush. Miranda uses this example to differentiate how she feels about Jan ie she isn't about to do that kind of thing.
Author:  Llywela [ Mon Feb 15, 2010 3:43 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: soppiness versus stiff upper lip - attitudes toward emotion
MJKB wrote:
My daughter absolutely hates school, and isn't sure whether it's school in general or the particular school she goes to. It isn't treated all that sensitively by the teachers in spite of all the anti bullying policies and 'safe psychological environment' talk. I've got to the stage that I have to put abit more pressure on her and go the 'pull up your socks' route. Groups in schools nowadays actually seem to cause far more problems than one on ones. All the kids strive desperately to get into the 'popular' group and suffer real humiliation if they're dropped from it. I'd hateto be back in my school days if the only option was these huge community schools where you're just a number to the staff. I went to a small convent boarding school and while I suffered homesickness, and there were few creature comforts, there was a genuine comaderie among the girls. Some of the things my daughter puts up with from fellow pupils, both girls and boys, saddens me. However, she has to learn to cope and to hone her defence mechanisms and avoid taking things so much to heart. But it's hard seeing your one and only miserable nearly every day.

Your poor daughter. Kids can be so terribly cruel. My sister, who is 13, has a terrible time at school, largely because she struggles so badly with the social dynamics of her peer group. They tend to pinball back and forth between friends like nobody's business, with very few stable friendships in the group, and for an immature and mildly autistic child it is exhausting to cope with. I don't envy the staff trying to cope with them all and resolve their frequent disputes. I wouldn't be a teenager again for all the tea in China!
Author:  Sunglass [ Mon Feb 15, 2010 4:12 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: soppiness versus stiff upper lip - attitudes toward emotion
MJKB wrote:
[ But it's hard seeing your one and only miserable nearly every day.


Sympathy to you both - that's just very hard for her and agony for you. But, as a former school outcast myself, I'd add my voice to those who say we turn out to be better, more interesting, people, who are less liable to suffer from the herd mentality of those who were socialised in the 'popular' groups at 13. I idolised the popular girls from afar in my early teens, and part of me is still astonished, when I visit my parents (who still live in the place where I went to school), to recognise these social goddesses in the dumpy, discontented-looking middle-aged nonentities they've become. And they are just as small-minded as they were aged 13, but now I can see it.

Tell your daughter that the dynamics of school are not the dynamics of the rest of the world - this is not what the rest of her life will be like.

Back OT - I'm never all that sure how AF's Miranda's feeling for Janice Scott differs (apart from its mode of expression) from the girls who got into rows for giving the older girls bouquets and sleeping with their kirbygrips under their pillows! :D She's quite obsessed with her, mildly jealous of Janice's interest in Nicola, desperate to play Ariel opposite her, writes to her in the holidays, wants to give her a present from Italy etc - even though she's prepared to discuss all these things quite openly and rationally, rather than gush. (Mind you, this is also the girl who, according to herself, chooses her best friend based on hair colour!) Likewise, I'm never all that sure how EBD intends us to differentiate Tom Gay's feeling for Daisy from Rosalie Way's feeling for Tom, or even Jack Lambert's possessiveness over Len...? What makes one OK and the other not?
Author:  Llywela [ Mon Feb 15, 2010 4:19 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: soppiness versus stiff upper lip - attitudes toward emotion
Sunglass wrote:
Likewise, I'm never all that sure how EBD intends us to differentiate Tom Gay's feeling for Daisy from Rosalie Way's feeling for Tom, or even Jack Lambert's possessiveness over Len...? What makes one OK and the other not?

I think the main difference is how they express those feelings, isn't it - the fact that although Tom has this great regard for Daisy, she doesn't cling to her the way Rosalie clings to Tom (or Simone to Joey), doesn't resent her friendships with others or make demands on her. For EBD it seems to be perfectly fine to have a particular regard for someone, especially someone who is a positive role model, but taking that regard too far and making demands on that person because of it is a definite no-no.
Author:  MJKB [ Mon Feb 15, 2010 7:26 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: soppiness versus stiff upper lip - attitudes toward emotion
Thank you to Trig, Llywela and Sunglass for your sympathetic comments. I know she'll learn to outride the storm, but it isagony at the time. Sunglass, what you've said about the middle age nonentities strikes a cord with me. When I was in college, one of the 'it' people from school confessed that she and others in that group were on antidepressants at school. I was utterly shocked. In general however, my experiences of school were significantly better than my daughter's.
Author:  Nightwing [ Mon Feb 15, 2010 9:05 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: soppiness versus stiff upper lip - attitudes toward emotion
(((MJKB and daughter)))

Hopefully things will get better as she gets older - I remember by the time I was 16/17 most of that awful cattiness was gone from the kids at school. There were always one or two who were unpleasant to everyone for no reason, but as the rest of us matured they were no longer the people we strove to be friends with. Cold comfort to her at the moment, though :?

On the subject of homesickness - I've always been pretty confused by the whole "too tired to feel homesick" theory! I understand it for maybe the first few weeks at school, but IME homesickness doesn't usually start until you've been away for a little while and the glamor of a new experience has worn off. And being exhausted only makes me more emotional, personally!
Author:  ChubbyMonkey [ Mon Feb 15, 2010 10:12 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: soppiness versus stiff upper lip - attitudes toward emotion
((((MJKB and daughter)))) I shall add to the growing chorus! I was always, always the outcast in school - and the real outcast, without a single friend at all. Then in the first year of my GCSEs I started being paired with another complete outcast, and we have ended up as wonderful friends, and I really don't know where I'd be without her. She's seen me through so much, and I would go through all those years of having nobody again as long as I got her friendship at the end. Though of course I'm very thankful that I don't have to!

Nightwing wrote:
On the subject of homesickness - I've always been pretty confused by the whole "too tired to feel homesick" theory! I understand it for maybe the first few weeks at school, but IME homesickness doesn't usually start until you've been away for a little while and the glamor of a new experience has worn off. And being exhausted only makes me more emotional, personally!


I can definitely empathise with this! Especially the "mid-term dip" when the excitement of seeing everyone and catching up and having your independence again has worn off, but you can't see the time for going home looming again. I think that on the whole there's probably some merit in it, though; especially at the later CS, when the days are so full that I doubt you'd have had time to feel homesick unless you kept yourself to yourself!
Author:  MJKB [ Mon Feb 15, 2010 11:54 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: soppiness versus stiff upper lip - attitudes toward emotion
What kind people you all are! It must be down to still being enthralled by GO literature and children's classics that makes you so genuinely empathic to others. I really don't care that I'm being thoroughly soppy.
Author:  Alison H [ Tue Feb 16, 2010 12:41 am ]
Post subject:  Re: soppiness versus stiff upper lip - attitudes toward emotion
((MJKB and daughter)) - school life can be very difficult, and I think it's even worse now than it was in our day because mobile phones and social networking sites mean there's not that much of a break when you go home. I hope things look up for her: IME the nasty element of things does tend to wear off by 16 or so, as Nightwing said.

One of the nicest things about the CS is the way that there aren't that many people who are outside the groups. When I re-read Malory Towers or St Clare's now I get quite upset when I see the way the in-crowds gang up on certain girls.
Author:  Sunglass [ Tue Feb 16, 2010 8:58 am ]
Post subject:  Re: soppiness versus stiff upper lip - attitudes toward emotion
Alison H wrote:
One of the nicest things about the CS is the way that there aren't that many people who are outside the groups. When I re-read Malory Towers or St Clare's now I get quite upset when I see the way the in-crowds gang up on certain girls.


It's true EB is chock-full of scenes that are essentially mass bullying of an individual, with EB usually approving of it because the individual is being chivvied out of fake homesickness/sibling clinginess/vanity etc etc. and 'getting the nonsense knocked out of her'. And that's leaving out the more insidious things like bloody Belinda at Malory Towers drawing what sound like very cruel caricatures of individuals and pinning them up publicly, and doing it over and over again over a period of months. For what's clearly supposed to be an idealised school, it's quite a brutal place.

AF writes about bullying too, but she does show Nicola, the most sensitive of the in-gang, developing qualms about their behaviour, though she doesn't noticeably modify her behaviour, and there's no reconciliation.
Author:  MJKB [ Tue Feb 16, 2010 11:24 am ]
Post subject:  Re: soppiness versus stiff upper lip - attitudes toward emotion
Sunglass wrote:
AF writes about bullying too, but she does show Nicola, the most sensitive of the in-gang, developing qualms about their behaviour, though she doesn't noticeably modify her behaviour, and there's no reconciliation.

One of the cleverest pieces of writing in the genre is the part where Esther, having chickened out of doing the solo for Nicola, leaves without saying goodbye and takes Daks with her. Nicola's reaction is so realistic, relieved on one level that she doesn't have to continue the friendship, and feeling guilty about that relief. A fantastic portrayal of human relations.
Sunglass wrote:
It's true EB is chock-full of scenes that are essentially mass bullying of an individual, with EB usually approving of it because the individual is being chivvied out of fake homesickness/sibling clinginess/vanity etc etc. and 'getting the nonsense knocked out of her'. And that's leaving out the more insidious things like bloody Belinda at Malory Towers drawing what sound like very cruel caricatures of individuals and pinning them up publicly, and doing it over and over again over a period of months. For what's clearly supposed to be an idealised school, it's quite a brutal place.


The baiting of the gushing but essentially kind Catherine in
Author:  MJKB [ Tue Feb 16, 2010 11:33 am ]
Post subject:  Re: soppiness versus stiff upper lip - attitudes toward emotion
MJKB wrote:
It's true EB is chock-full of scenes that are essentially mass bullying of an individual, with EB usually approving of it because the individual is being chivvied out of fake homesickness/sibling clinginess/vanity etc etc. and 'getting the nonsense knocked out of her'. And that's leaving out the more insidious things like bloody Belinda at Malory Towers drawing what sound like very cruel caricatures of individuals and pinning them up publicly, and doing it over and over again over a period of months. For what's clearly supposed to be an idealised school, it's quite a brutal place.


The baiting of the gushing but essentially kind Catherine in
Sunglass wrote:
AF writes about bullying too, but she does show Nicola, the most sensitive of the in-gang, developing qualms about their behaviour, though she doesn't noticeably modify her behaviour, and there's no reconciliation.

One of the cleverest pieces of writing in the genre is the part where Esther, having chickened out of doing the solo for Nicola, leaves without saying goodbye and takes Daks with her. Nicola's reaction is so realistic, relieved on one level that she doesn't have to continue the friendship, and feeling guilty about that relief. A fantastic portrayal of human relations.
Sunglass wrote:
It's true EB is chock-full of scenes that are essentially mass bullying of an individual, with EB usually approving of it because the individual is being chivvied out of fake homesickness/sibling clinginess/vanity etc etc. and 'getting the nonsense knocked out of her'. And that's leaving out the more insidious things like bloody Belinda at Malory Towers drawing what sound like very cruel caricatures of individuals and pinning them up publicly, and doing it over and over again over a period of months. For what's clearly supposed to be an idealised school, it's quite a brutal place.


The baiting of the gushing but essentially kind Catherine in In the Fifth at Malory Towers has to count as one of the most brutal treatment of any individual in GO literature. As far that awful scene with drippy Maureen, could they havebeen any more cruel? It takes the boyish Bill to show a smidgeen of shame at their appalling behaviour towards her. And to think that it was all approved of and that the perpetraitors were senior girls. I cannot imagine EBD approving of such horrendous bullying.
Author:  julieanne1811 [ Mon Feb 22, 2010 7:45 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: soppiness versus stiff upper lip - attitudes toward emotion
I was reading House-bound last night (by Winifred Peck, a Persephone book), and there was a comment that made me think - it went something like this: 'I don't know why they say we should keep a stiff upper lip. When I'm upset it's always my lower lip that wobbles'.
And it's true - try to make your upper lip be anything but stiff - I haven't done it yet!
Author:  MJKB [ Mon Feb 22, 2010 8:29 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: soppiness versus stiff upper lip - attitudes toward emotion
I'm trying to do it now and it doesn't work!
By the way, to those of you who were so kind in your comments about my daughter's misery at school, I'm delighted to say that things have picked up for her lately. I had to force the issue with her so that she could see clearly for herself that no friends are better than bad friends. She has survived the initial isolation and is begining to make other friends. Please God it'll continue to improve. Thank you all again for your kindness.
Author:  JB [ Mon Feb 22, 2010 9:56 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: soppiness versus stiff upper lip - attitudes toward emotion
Pleased to read this about your daughter. Hope she makes lots of nice friends.
Author:  Alison H [ Mon Feb 22, 2010 10:25 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: soppiness versus stiff upper lip - attitudes toward emotion
Schooldays can be tough. Much as I dislike Jack Lambert, her horrible gang and the way they go around picking on Jane Carew, Margaret Twiss and anyone else they take a dislike to always seem to me to be much more typical of what goes on in real schools than the usual happy friendly classes we get at the CS. So glad to hear that things are picking up for your daughter now, MJKB.
Author:  ChubbyMonkey [ Mon Feb 22, 2010 10:27 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: soppiness versus stiff upper lip - attitudes toward emotion
It's really good to hear that your daughter is happier now - I hope that things continue to improve.
Author:  Llywela [ Tue Feb 23, 2010 4:35 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: soppiness versus stiff upper lip - attitudes toward emotion
MJKB wrote:
I'm trying to do it now and it doesn't work!
By the way, to those of you who were so kind in your comments about my daughter's misery at school, I'm delighted to say that things have picked up for her lately. I had to force the issue with her so that she could see clearly for herself that no friends are better than bad friends. She has survived the initial isolation and is begining to make other friends. Please God it'll continue to improve. Thank you all again for your kindness.

That's brilliant, I'm really pleased to hear it.

My little sister is still struggling, and I suspect always will as she is on the autistic spectrum and finds the social dynamics of her peer group intensely stressful to cope with. She does have sudden fits of maturity, though. She is adopted, you see, and her birth mother is now dead (long story) but just before this half term one of the girls in her class started spreading the very vicious rumour that C had been lying about her mother being dead - which, as you can imagine, was incredibly hurtful for her to have to deal with. Then over the weekend she had a bunch of calls to her mobile from a withheld number that she wouldn't take, but when the person kept calling gave the phone to a friend to answer. There was a girl on the other end saying 'tell C her father is dead now and the funeral is tomorrow'!! :x This, of course, led to another stressful weekend with C worried that she was going to have to face more such maliciousness in school. But when she went back to school yesterday, she actually managed to handle the situation brilliantly. She found out who had made the call and dealt with her with incredibly maturity. The girl claimed that it was only a joke, but C (who finds humour very difficult to understand, which often makes this a useful defence for her tormenters) kept her cool and pointed out that telling someone their father is dead never qualifies as a joke - and also very coolly asked which father the girl had meant anyway, since she has two: her birth father and adoptive father. The birth father hadn't occurred to this girl, it seems, which made C laugh as she'd been with our dad at the time she received the call.

Honestly, children can be incredibly cruel to one another. I'm really proud of C, though, for behaving so maturely in this instance. I just wish it was likely that she'll sustain it! Fat chance of that, though. Ordinarily, at 13, her maturity level is more like that of an 8/9 year old.
Author:  ChubbyMonkey [ Tue Feb 23, 2010 4:42 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: soppiness versus stiff upper lip - attitudes toward emotion
Llywela, that's a horrible story, and well done to your sister for handling it so well! I hope that it gets them to leave her alone. That sort of thing is disgusting, but exactly what happens in every school (we used to have to unplug the phone to stop calls sometimes, when I was a young teen) and she has shown extraordinary maturity in dealing with it. I hope that things get better for her soon.
Author:  Cel [ Tue Feb 23, 2010 6:23 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: soppiness versus stiff upper lip - attitudes toward emotion
I wonder, if we were to poll CBBers, how many of us here remember feeling we were outsiders or slight misfits at school? I'd guess that the number might be higher than the average population. I wonder if this was part of the appeal of the CS books when we were children - that cosy sense of belonging that we didn't always feel in reality.

(By the way, I'm not suggesting that we actually do a poll - I don't want to pry into members' personal lives - it was just an idle thought based on the discussion here).
Author:  MJKB [ Tue Feb 23, 2010 7:25 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: soppiness versus stiff upper lip - attitudes toward emotion
Llywela wrote:
Honestly, children can be incredibly cruel to one another. I'm really proud of C, though, for behaving so maturely in this instance. I just wish it was likely that she'll sustain it! Fat chance of that, though. Ordinarily, at 13, her maturity level is more like that of an 8/9 year old.


Well, in the instance you've just outlined, she shows a maturity level way in advance of most adults. Well done to her! But what makes people, young and old, so horrible to each other? I simply cannot fathom it. When dealing with both bullies and victims in my job I labour the point to both that only somebody who feels inadequate in themselves can stoop to undermine others. If one finds it necessary to put others down in order to feel good about oneself, they expose themselves as lacking real self worth.
Author:  Llywela [ Tue Feb 23, 2010 7:32 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: soppiness versus stiff upper lip - attitudes toward emotion
MJKB wrote:
Well, in the instance you've just outlined, she shows a maturity level way in advance of most adults. Well done to her! But what makes people, young and old, so horrible to each other? I simply cannot fathom it. When dealing with both bullies and victims in my job I labour the point to both that only somebody who feels inadequate in themselves can stoop to undermine others. If one finds it necessary to put others down in order to feel good about oneself, they expose themselves as lacking real self worth.

We've spent years painstakingly teaching her how to respond in such circumstances - and deeply regret that it has been necessary. Sometimes it works and she pulls it off, but too many other times her buttons get pressed, she is unable to translate the lesson of another situation into this particular instance, and a spectacular meltdown is the result. It really is unfathomable how kids can be so cruel to each other - in C's case, she can sometimes say the wrong thing, but she has the excuse of being autistic and genuinely not understanding what is or isn't appropriate in certain situations. The children who bait her so maliciously have no such excuse. They are just being vicious for the sake of hurting her. And each other - there's a whole group of them that pinball back and forth between one another as 'exclusive' friends, and the way they express their friendship with one another is by attacking the girls they have fallen out with. It is beyond me that children of 13/14 haven't learned any better than this yet. Yet bullying has always been a facet of school life, unfortunately.
Author:  MJKB [ Tue Feb 23, 2010 9:30 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: soppiness versus stiff upper lip - attitudes toward emotion
Llywela wrote:
It is beyond me that children of 13/14 haven't learned any better than this yet. Yet bullying has always been a facet of school life, unfortunately.

I think it has got worse in the last few decades. I have heard parents admit that they hope their children will put themselves in pole position in the pecking order, even if this means keeping others down. A friend of mine has a five year old daughter who is very bright but who finds social interaction extremely difficult. She suspects that she may be on the high functioning end of the aspergers' spectrum. Another little girl in her class makes her life miserable by isolating her from the others. It's horrible the way a five year old can play mind games and toy with another child's emotions. The teacher has admitted that the class are completely intimidated by this child, who seems to wield an unhealthy amount of power over the others. Her parents absolutely love it and actively encourage this behaviour.
Author:  trig [ Wed Feb 24, 2010 6:01 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: soppiness versus stiff upper lip - attitudes toward emotion
It may seem like bullying has got a lot worse, but I feel sure it has always been around.Just think of the bullying chapter in Stalky & Co which seemed to me almost barbaric. It isn't, sadly, confined to children as there's plenty of adult bullies in the workplace. What I feel has changed is that it's now constant, with mobiles and facebook etc. Even people who aren't bullies can behave like them sometimes never allowing others any time alone (like one of my ex-bosses!). But even here, like Chubbymonkey said, you can unplug the phone. I do this to avoid having anyone call!
Author:  sealpuppy [ Wed Feb 24, 2010 9:45 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: soppiness versus stiff upper lip - attitudes toward emotion
Horrible situation, Llywela and well done to your sister for handling it so well. One of my grandsons is high functioning aspergers, but at 5 is coping well in Reception. But he's a boy and they seem less prone to this bitchy bullying that girls are so skilled at. My elder granddaughter is 9 and has endless problems with the 'best friend' syndrome. She's a sensible child and would like to be friends with several of the girls, but the two she likes best are very needy (tricky home situations, both of them) and seem to fight over her which occasionally results in one or both flouncing off with the 'you're not my best friend anymore' thrust.

I long for a Miss Annersley to notice what's happening and step in!
All times are UTC + 1 hour
Powered by phpBB © 2000, 2002, 2005, 2007 phpBB Group
http://www.phpbb.com/