I've always found it most sinister, but put it down to the fact EBD clearly knew very little about small children and babies, and was a theoretical traditionalist in terms of childrearing. Also, she never considers, despite the presence of mad Prince Cosimo, the Cochrane parents, Lindley Carrick and the madman from the salt caves in the early books, that adults can be fallible, evil or mentally ill, so that training a child to obey any adult command 'on the word' - without questioning, on the assumption that 'adults know best' - is liable to land you in a situation like Robin happily going off with the madman because it simply never occurred to her that 'it was naughty'. An adult suggested a fun outing, and she could see no reason not to obey him. That should surely have made the CS question such methods!
I do think, in fairness, that EBD tries, slightly clumsily, to reconcile the 'child instant obedience' thing with the transition to adulthood at times, like in Adrienne when Hilda talks to Janet about adolescents resenting restraint or criticism because they're neither child nor adult:
Quote: “Begin with the baby, my dear. You can’t afford to neglect even the first weeks of a baby’s life. I’ve seen that with Mrs Maynard. From the very first her children have learn certain things – obedience among them. The child reaches girlhood – or boyhood – with obedience engrained in its character. By degrees it becomes possible to drop the ‘you must’ attitude. Then one ought to see that any order is reasonable. If a child can see that, so much the better. If not then try to take time to give your reasons for it. Most of us are reasonable folk, Janet, if we’re given the chance. So if you start with all that sort of thing with a baby, certain qualities belong to one’s character and, unless one is a hopeless jellyfish, they won’t give way, even under severe strain.
Of course, this still depends on adults reliably issuing 'reasonable' rather than unreasonable orders to children, and the theory doesn't really get to grips with the fact that a child may have been 'trained' to obey completely wrong-headed commands as second nature - or that there might be different positions as regards what 'correct' behaviour might be, and that you might realise as you grow up that yours was bad or damaging.
But as ever with EBD, she actually creates more challenging and subtle characters and situations than her inflexible theories of proper childrearing allow. It's not just a contrast between 'instant obedience' and a 'never say no' upbringing like Emerence's. Look at Eustacia, who has been trained by two well-educated adults with strong ideas on child education, but not according to CS ideas of proper behaviour, or Thekla, who's absorbed her parents' social exclusiveness as gospel, or even Adrienne, who's terribly obedient, hard-working and well-meaning, but viewed as dangerously close to goody-good and priggish by her peers...? Or, within the Maynards, Mike and Margot, who got Joey's 'perfect' training but are nonetheless firebrands?
I think EBD's actual dramatic situations are much more interesting and humanly messy than her theory!
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. There's so much authority invested in certain male figures, and if one of them had ulterior motives it would be disasterous. Of course, in CS world they never would but still...
it never struck me as particularly sinister. After all, it seems, in the beginning, to be more about the continental girls, which I never really questioned. Yes it seems slightly Victorian now, but I certainly think that there are advantages to it. And as other people have said, in a big place such as a boarding school it would almost have to be enforced to ensure order.
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. My grandad certainly was largely 'mothered' by great grandad's housekeeper, as his mother and both grandmothers died before he was six.