The CBB :: View topic - Families: The Lucys

Josette and Len write to each other in the holidays but we don't really see them together at school, and none of the other seem to be particularly close to their cousins.

I like the closeness between the Lucys that's shown in - er whichever book it is that Julie has appendicitis.

I've NEVER heard of Viola as a name before!!

It's in Bride, JayB. I'm having a re-read around there to refresh my memory about Hilda's cousin Edgar.

Just one puzzle...for years I couldn't pronounce Vi's name...was it "Vih" or "Vee" or what?? I thought Vee Lucy meshed much better than Vih Lucy!! Plus, I've NEVER heard of Viola as a name before!!

How do people pronounce the musical instrument? I have heard both vee and vih

I think it is very sad that Janie and Julien don't share a bed. Joey and Jack certainly do, so why not?

Miss Di wrote:
I think it is very sad that Janie and Julien don't share a bed. Joey and Jack certainly do, so why not?

Maybe Janie wasn't quite so keen as Joey on the idea of ending up with 11 children :wink:

I'm intrigued. How do you know they don't share a bed?

Maybe Janie wasn't quite so keen as Joey on the idea of ending up with 11 children .

'Janie has no idea what a tyrant a small person can become, even if she is only Juliet’s age...

‘What good children!’ Nan said, looking after them wonderingly. [...]
Janie laughed. ‘Oh, they’re obedient. I’ll give you that much. Their father insists that a word must suffice.

He turned and left the room without further ado, much to the amazement of Nan, who knew that Toby and her other young cousins would not have been so amenable.
Janie caught the look and chuckled richly. ‘Poor lamb! Their father has insisted from the very first that once a thing is forbidden it’s forbidden. He allows no disobedience.

'I certainly never knew such obedient children.’
Janie sat back on her heels. ‘[...]Oh, they’re obedient and we certainly haven’t spoiled them. Julian has always insisted that they obey on the word and without any fuss.

The emphasis on extremely small children being 'good' and 'behaving beautifully' I find deeply unpleasant, though I know it's of its era

The emphasis on extremely small children being 'good' and 'behaving beautifully' I find deeply unpleasant, though I know it's of its era - there seems a real sense that children need to be kept down and disciplined from infancy.

I find it hard to imagine real people having such instantaneously obedient children. As a childless person, and a teacher :twisted:

, EBD probably wished children were like this rather than knowing they were from experience...

I also find the portrayal of angry, fully-grown men beating toddlers - and being seen as entirely correct to do so - really hard to take, like when a furious Julian spanks three-year old Billy for tearing the wallpaper till he 'screamed like a steam-engine, but his screams brought him no mitigation of his punishment'.

Like others, though, I have problems with some of the ideas about child discipline. One thing that particularly struck me is during the 'Bad Bill and the Wallpaper' incident, when Janie berates Pauline for giving Bill such a 'stupid' punishment as making him stand facing the wall for half an hour after misbehaving - she says something about it being a silly punishment for a child like him. Yet this is exactly the sort of punishment that most childcare experts nowadays would recommend for children who are acting out - remove them from whatever they are doing, put them somewhere where they have no stimulation and ignore them for a short time. An early version of the 'Naughty Step', in fact. Yet Janie would prefer he got a harsh beating...

It was amazing how almost the entire group supported smacking a child and said the law was ridiculous. Someone gave the example of a child running out onto a road and smacking them sometimes was the only way to teach them not to when they did it and they didn't like the alternative of the child being hit by a car. But I don't think people realise exactly how hard you would have to hit a child to leave welts or bruises on their hand or bottom.

‘He’s said he’s sorry, Julian,’ Janie protested.
‘He’ll be just a little sorrier before I’ve finished with him. It’s no use trying to beg him off, J. That boy’s exploits are getting beyond a joke and it’s time he was brought to his senses. I won’t have him spoilt.’
Janie said no more. She knew what a certain look about her husband’s beautiful mouth meant.

‘And mind this,’ Julian said, surveying the boy severely, ‘you’ll get exactly the same if you ever do such a thing again. Understand?’ Gulping down his sobs, John nodded. It was his first spanking and it had been a horrid shock that Daddy could hurt him so much on purpose!

I suppose, at the time, and until fairly recently, it was legal for teachers to corporeally punish their pupils, both girls and boys.

I think EBD's portrayal of corporal punishment is pretty typical of her time. Some people were totally opposed, some were strenuous advocates, and most people seemed to think it was fine under the right circumstances.

There are some opinions on child psychology that say that physical punishment, provided it is minimal, is in fact less damaging that long periods of isolation. Young children below the age of around 5 have no concept of time and I imagine half an hour must have seemed like for ever.

There is a bit in one of the later Anne books, maybe Rainbow Valley, where one of the vicarage children does something bad and the father even though he doesn't want to knows that his duty is to give him a whipping as a punishment. (With a bit of tree!) There's a whole long angsty scene where he builds himself up to it and reminds himself that it's his duty as a father.

And I find the bit where Julian spanks John for painting skeletons on the sea-wall in Janie Steps In quite disturbing. It's different to the Bill and the wallpaper situation, because it's premeditated - Julian has known about the incident since the previous day, so he's not losing his temper on the spur of the moment. There's the usual EBD scenario where the father tells the 'spoiling' mother not to try to mitigate his plans to punish the child:

Loryat wrote:

LM Alcott most certainly does not approve of corporal punishment, even for boys. Julian Lucey in the incident referred to by Loryat compares most unfavourably with John Brooke's treatment of Demi in Good Wives. When Demi refuses to go to bed and Meg is giving into him, John, very wisely imho, overrules her. He insists on Demi obeying his mother's orders but he handles the boy with admirable patience and love. It's a beautful scene between a dutiful father and a wilful son.

The bit about Julian's "beautiful mouth" creeps me out in this context - it seems so incongruous, as though Janie is suddenly so distracted by his beauty that whatever he is planning to do to John doesn't matter! I know EBD didn't mean anything like this, but that's how I feel when I read it.

Re boys' vs girls' spankings - I know we get references to the fact that girls can be spanked or caned (all those prefect and staff moments when someone says 'Oh, for a cane and the right to use it!') but while EBD shows us quite a few spankings of boys - Mario Balbini, Tony Barrass, Billy and John in the La Rochelle books etc - she never actually shows us a single spanking of a girl that I can think of, even though she doesn't seem to disapprove of it in theory... And I don't mean girls of an age to be at the CS, but any of the many pre-CS-age girls in the series.

Twice before, he had caned her for a similar offence when he found that talking seemed to do no good. The last time, the punishment had been so severe that her hands had been sore for days.

“If you were a boy,” he said slowly while his unhappy daughter squirmed inwardly and wished herself a thousand miles away, “I’d give you such a flogging as you’d remember to the last day of your life. How dare you defy me like this?”

I would find it hard to smack a small child, I'd feel so guilty, but I think that that school of psychology may have a point. The odd smack, particularly from a mother, is very different to premeditated, ritualistic spanking - that really gives me the creeps. I tried the 'time out' thing with my daughter when she was in the throes of the terrible twos. I put her in her room, on her own and closed the door. The punishment lasted less than two minutes because she howled at the top of her voice and I simply couldn't bare the thought of her being really frightened.

I can accept the idea of a little smack, but I find the sort of prolonged beating that Julian gives Bill, who is only very young at the time, quite shocking even bearing in mind that times were different then.

That's the crux of the matter. A rare smack or slap administered to a child on the spur of the moment is very human and forgiveable; it's the premeditated spanking or beating of children that has abusive connotations, imho. The former may anger or shock the child in the short term, the latter can have serious, lasting effects because it often involves the deliberate humiliation of the child. EBD may advocate its use in certain circumstances, and, as many have pointed out, primarily for boys, but I very much doubt she could have carried it out herself.

Bear in mind though Bill screaming and still getting smacked doesn't automatically mean that it was a really hard (or prolonged) smacking. He may have starting screaming knowing it was going to happen and then continued through the 5 smacks.

Same goes for one of them knowing Daddy could hurt them on purpose - suggests that it doesn't happen normally, so may have been a single hard smack

Author:	Róisín [ Thu Apr 09, 2009 9:49 am ]
Post subject:	Families: The Lucys
Janie Temple married Julian Lucy and they produced Julie, John, Betsy, Vi, Barney and Kitten. Julie and John are seen as small children; Barney and Kitten don't feature much in the books at all; Julie, Betsy and Vi all play strong roles in the School. But what do you think of the Lucys as a family? Janie and Julian have some ideas about parenting which are demonstrated when Julie and John are very little. Do Julie, Betsy and Vi exhibit a particularly sisterly bond while they are in School? Is this a family to rival the Maynards? Please join in the discussion below

Author:	MJKB [ Thu Apr 09, 2009 3:11 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Families: The Lucys
I haven't yet read the La Rochelle series, which, I think features the Temples, Chesters and Lucys. I like what I see of the Lucy girls in the CS, especially Vi, though I wish she'd challenged Mary Lou a bit. Beth is 'charming' though surprisingly unmarried before her 20's - I jest, the only thing that annoys me slightly about her is her use of 'auntie' for Joey. Daisy who is her contemporary, dispenses with the title years before.

Author:	Alison H [ Thu Apr 09, 2009 3:27 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Families: The Lucys
I think that Julian and Janie come across as better parents than the Ozannes, who seem content to let Vanna and Nella mess about and do no work, or the Chesters whom I feel are very unfair to Beth - they let other relatives pay for the boys' education but not for hers (apparently on the grounds that it's OK to accept money from an uncle who is also a godparent but not from an uncle who isn't a godparent). One thing that I like about the whole family is the bonds between the cousins - Julie and Nancy are very close, as are Vi and Barbara. We don't really see that with the MBR clan's girls. Josette and Len write to each other in the holidays but we don't really see them together at school, and none of the other seem to be particularly close to their cousins. Admittedly that's because of the age differences between the children (and the fact that they all age at different rates - Primula was originally the same age as Bride but left school a year after her, and I think Maeve was originally older than Josette but ended up being younger than her), but it'd've been nice to get more of a sense of extended family bonds. Julie and Betsy did start establishing a rival dynasty of head girls, didn't they ? Shame that Vi had to be in the same year as Mary-Lou!

Author:	JayB [ Thu Apr 09, 2009 6:40 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Families: The Lucys
I like the closeness between the Lucys that's shown in - er whichever book it is that Julie has appendicitis. Betsy comforts Vi when they're worried, and they look forward to seeing their mother who is flying over from Guernsey. Janie seems like a nice mother to have - fun and friendly without wanting to be her daughters' best friend as well as their mother. Julian has a few authoritarian tendencies, but not as bad as Jem or Jack - presumably because he isn't a doctor! I think we first meet Julian in Maids, don't we, when he's just a schoolboy they happen to know slightly. I wonder if EBD meant him for Janie from the start. Quote: Josette and Len write to each other in the holidays but we don't really see them together at school, and none of the other seem to be particularly close to their cousins. Josette was only a year older than the triplets, wasn't she? She and Margot might have become close in the year they were in Canada without Len and Con, but I suppose they were too different in character to be close friends. With the triplets always being in forms ahead of their age, they might have ended up in form with Josette, but I think EBD pushed Josette on ahead of her age too, so it never happened.

Author:	MaryR [ Thu Apr 09, 2009 8:55 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Families: The Lucys
JayB wrote: I like the closeness between the Lucys that's shown in - er whichever book it is that Julie has appendicitis. It's in Bride, JayB. I'm having a re-read around there to refresh my memory about Hilda's cousin Edgar.

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Families: The Lucys http://www.the-cbb.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=5927

Author:	JB [ Fri Apr 10, 2009 9:37 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Families: The Lucys
I like the Lucys and the La Rochelle books are among my favourite comfort reads. Janie is kind and fun, but also firm when she needs to be - with the children and with other people in the family. I love Janie Steps In where Nan Blakeney becomes Janie's adopted sister. There are elements of Joey in Janie - she too has that schoolgirl sense of fun but she's also a more capable adult. Although she was also motherless and brought up by her sisters, she doesn't take the younger sister role as an adult. I can't imagine Joey speaking to Madge in the way that Janie speaks to Anne about her behaviour to Beth. The closeness of the Janie, Elizabeth and Anne continues with their children and that's lovely. The children have grown up together and they all live within a short drive of each other. To be fair to the MBR clan, they don't live close together and couldn't have that same relationship. There's also an informality about the Guernsey crowd which we don't see with the Russells or Maynards. I wish we'd seen more of them in the Chalet series.

Author:	blanchgirl [ Sat Apr 11, 2009 11:00 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Families: The Lucys
I LOVE the Lucys! From the first time Janie met Jo in Guernsey I thought she was lovely. The kids are lovely too...Julie and Betsy were great head girls ...pity Vi couldn't be too! Just one puzzle...for years I couldn't pronounce Vi's name...was it "Vih" or "Vee" or what?? I thought Vee Lucy meshed much better than Vih Lucy!! Plus, I've NEVER heard of Viola as a name before!!

Author:	JayB [ Sat Apr 11, 2009 12:25 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Families: The Lucys
Quote: I've NEVER heard of Viola as a name before!! It's from Shakespeare - a character from Twelfth Night. (Julie is really Juliet, isn't she, but I think that's after Julian's mother, not a specifically Shakespearean choice.) I've always pronounced Vi in my head as 'Vye' to rhyme with high, but I suppose it depends on whether they pronounce Viola as 'Vye-ola', as in 'Violet' or 'Vee-ola'. Either way I think it's a very pretty name and it's a shame she didn't use it. Quote: It's in Bride, JayB. I'm having a re-read around there to refresh my memory about Hilda's cousin Edgar. Thank you, Mary. I knew it was in one of the last few St Briavel's books, but couldn't remember which - thought it might have been Shocks.

Author:	jennifer [ Mon Apr 13, 2009 6:49 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Families: The Lucys
In some ways, I think Janie and Julian were a trial model for Joey and Jack, particularly Janie with her youthfulness, love of fun, and empathy (plus the 'puckish' looks). I find them a more healthy family model, however - they don't have the habit of slotting their kids into moulds, Julian doesn't show a nasty temper like Jack or Jem, and Janie, while young and fun-loving, seems more fully grounded in reality and her adult responsibilities than adult Joey, and doesn't share her need to have the most children/wards. With Janie and Julian, we see their early days setting up house and establishing themselves as a married couple - something we don't see with Joey and Jack. I love some of the scenes with the young Lucy kids in the last La Rochelle book. Janie and Julian are obviously working hard at raising their kids properly, but have a sense of humour and proportion about their misdeeds. Their welcome of Nan is lovely too; welcoming and caring without being pushy. And they do contrast nicely with the Ozannes, who spoil their kids, have one boy who is wild and headed for trouble, and two girls who have no sense of work ethic and are allowed to drift through life enjoying themselves. And the Chesters, who through a sense of misplaced pride, manage to nearly ruin Beth by convincing her that they don't love her, and are only saved from spoiling Barbara rotten by her natural good nature.

Author:	Jennie [ Mon Apr 13, 2009 2:09 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Families: The Lucys
I think that Janie and Julian are better-grounded than Jack and Jo, simply because of their backgrounds. The Temple sisters were very much shielded from the world when they were young girls, but had to learn to cope when their father died and they were left in poverty. Janie had to learn that she could not have things for the asking, so she she spent some of her teenage years learning how to make a little go a long way, even though she had everything that she needed, and learned how to make friends and have fun cheaply. I think she was also more tactful than Jo ever became. Julian had to live as boy with the knowledge that his mother might die at any time from heart disease, so he had to think before doing anything on impulse. As well, we see Julian and Janie establishing themselves as a young married couple in Guernsey whilst still having a great deal of fun. In addition to that, we also see that they have a strong network of family and friends and often look outwards beyond the island, whilst Jo, perhaps because she has only Madge, Jem, Dick and Mollie as family, appears to be far more insular in her outlook, what EBD refers to as 'clannish'. They seem,as well, to take a far more balanced view of their children. Janie says that she asks Julie to do little jobs for her, but never seems to expect Julie or John to be responsible for their younger siblings in the way that Len and Stephen are expected to do so. I think that in spite of Jo's determination to keep her children young, the Lucy children have a better childhood because they are not weighed down with responsibilities.

Author:	Cat C [ Mon Apr 13, 2009 2:26 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Families: The Lucys
I always liked the Lucys - if I were choosing a CS family to be a part of, I think that would be the one I'd choose! In terms of comparing Lucys Ozannes and Chesters though, it does seem as though EBD had a bit of a Goldilocks approach to family money: Too much and the kids can be lazy as there'll be no need for them to work (Ozannes), too little and you risk ruining them (Chesters), but have just the right amount and everything is lovely (Lucys).

Author:	tiffinata [ Wed Apr 15, 2009 12:00 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Families: The Lucys
blanchgirl wrote: Just one puzzle...for years I couldn't pronounce Vi's name...was it "Vih" or "Vee" or what?? I thought Vee Lucy meshed much better than Vih Lucy!! Plus, I've NEVER heard of Viola as a name before!! It's also the Botanical name of the Pansy and Violet. We pronounce it Vih-oh-la, so I have always done it that way. And I had an auntie Violet. Quite an old fashioned name and a trend at the time to name girls after flowers. Many of those names are making a comback! How do people pronounce the musical instrument? I have heard both vee and vih

Author:	Miss Di [ Wed Apr 15, 2009 4:16 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Families: The Lucys
I think it is very sad that Janie and Julien don't share a bed. Joey and Jack certainly do, so why not?

Author:	Margaret [ Wed Apr 15, 2009 8:46 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Families: The Lucys
Tiffinata wrote: [/quote]How do people pronounce the musical instrument? I have heard both vee and vih[/quote] Normally pronounced vee-oh-la with the stress on the second syllable. However my dictionary suggests that the flower has a long i as in Diana. Funnily enough I recently met a baby named Viola, the first I had ever met outside a CS book, too, and asked if parents were CS fans, and got a blank "What?", most disappointing.

Author:	Elbee [ Wed Apr 15, 2009 12:39 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Families: The Lucys
tiffinata wrote: How do people pronounce the musical instrument? I have heard both vee and vih In my 30+ years of playing I have always called it Vee-oh-la and most of my fellow viola players say the same. I have very rarely heard it pronounced the other way.

Author:	Loryat [ Fri Jun 05, 2009 9:03 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Families: The Lucys
Lol I always call it a 'vye-oh-lah' how emabarrassing! With Vi I always thought of her name being pronounced 'vee-oh-lah', but her nickname as 'vye' which I know makes no sense!

Author:	Alison H [ Fri Jun 05, 2009 9:43 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Families: The Lucys
Miss Di wrote: I think it is very sad that Janie and Julien don't share a bed. Joey and Jack certainly do, so why not? Maybe Janie wasn't quite so keen as Joey on the idea of ending up with 11 children .

Author:	MJKB [ Fri Jun 05, 2009 11:55 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Families: The Lucys
Alison H wrote: Miss Di wrote: I think it is very sad that Janie and Julien don't share a bed. Joey and Jack certainly do, so why not? Maybe Janie wasn't quite so keen as Joey on the idea of ending up with 11 children . I'm intrigued. How do you know they don't share a bed? On the subject of bed sharing, I was quite shocked in Rescue when we are given a glimpse into Joey and Jack's bedroom and they shamelessly in bed together!

Author:	Sunglass [ Sat Jun 06, 2009 10:48 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Families: The Lucys
MJKB wrote: I'm intrigued. How do you know they don't share a bed? The bit I can remember that specifically says they have separate beds is at the Shottery, when Honey plays tricks on them by putting brushes in Julian's bed and sewing up Janie's pyjamas - Julian turns down his sheets first, sees the brushes and says something like 'Better check your bed'. Though, come to think of it, I have a faint memory that when their newly decorated bedroom at La Rochelle is being described before they marry, we're told that the beds are not yet made up, so it looks like their usual practice. Presumably customary at the period, though?

Author:	JB [ Sat Jun 06, 2009 10:50 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Families: The Lucys
We're told in Maids of La Rochelle and Janie Steps In that they sleep in separate beds- via descriptions of the bedrooms natch.

Author:	Tor [ Sun Jun 07, 2009 11:26 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Families: The Lucys
Quote: Maybe Janie wasn't quite so keen as Joey on the idea of ending up with 11 children . Actually, I am now thinking that Janie and Julian are more boring than I had previously thought, putting this together with their 'prohibitionist' attitude!

Author:	Sunglass [ Sun Jun 07, 2009 2:57 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Families: The Lucys
Being terribly ill-read in the non-CS books, I've only just read Janie of La Rochelle and Janie Steps in lately. I was pleasantly surprised by how frank the portrayal of Janie and Julian's engagement and honeymoon were - in fact, being used to the 'skipped courtship' in the CS books, I was completely taken aback to be given detailed descriptions of an unmarried J and J alone in their bedroom-to-be talking about bedclothes, and then actually going on honeymoon and into their honeymoon bedroom with them! In EBD terms, this is definitely racy! So I thought all that was disarming and rather lovely, and that they are a very likeable couple of young marrieds, but I found the Lucy clan's parenting as a whole fairly problematic, and at times brutal. The emphasis on extremely small children being 'good' and 'behaving beautifully' I find deeply unpleasant, though I know it's of its era - there seems a real sense that children need to be kept down and disciplined from infancy. Like we're told that Peter Chester won't agree to sending the child Beth to school, because she's the kind of child who needs to be 'kept back', as she has too high an opinion of herself (aged four!). Or when Julian (like Jem) enforces on Janie that their newborn daughter not be picked up when she cries, because Quote: 'Janie has no idea what a tyrant a small person can become, even if she is only Juliet’s age... Even though the children are also Janie's, by the time there are four of them, she always presents the requirement of instant obedience as being Julian's. Quote: ‘What good children!’ Nan said, looking after them wonderingly. [...] Janie laughed. ‘Oh, they’re obedient. I’ll give you that much. Their father insists that a word must suffice. Quote: He turned and left the room without further ado, much to the amazement of Nan, who knew that Toby and her other young cousins would not have been so amenable. Janie caught the look and chuckled richly. ‘Poor lamb! Their father has insisted from the very first that once a thing is forbidden it’s forbidden. He allows no disobedience. Quote: 'I certainly never knew such obedient children.’ Janie sat back on her heels. ‘[...]Oh, they’re obedient and we certainly haven’t spoiled them. Julian has always insisted that they obey on the word and without any fuss. I also find the portrayal of angry, fully-grown men beating toddlers - and being seen as entirely correct to do so - really hard to take, like when a furious Julian spanks three-year old Billy for tearing the wallpaper till he 'screamed like a steam-engine, but his screams brought him no mitigation of his punishment'. And, after Billy is sent, still weeping and screaming, to bed for the day, Janie then blames Billy's entirely blameless five year old brother for not stopping him even though there was an adult in the room all the time, and, I think unforgivably, threatens not to take them with her to see their mother and newly-born twin sisters - also no one has thought to tell either child till now that they have new sisters born the day before! There's quite a lot of keeping of information from children - Rosamund Willoughby and Julie deliberately hide from Nan Blakeney (to the point of having a servant pack her belongings secretly) that she's being sent to Les Arbres not, as she thinks, for a week or two, but permanently - which seems to me a brutal thing to do in secret to a grieving, insecure girl only eight months after her mother is killed and her father crippled, especially when the reason she wants to stay with Rosamund is that she reminds her of her dead mother. I have to say I'm delighted that sparky little John Lucy has worked out a clever way of dealing with his parents 'instant obedience' theories of childcare and nightly confessions - by confessing to his misdeeds in the middle of his prayers and telling God he's sorry, which appears to mean to his mother that he can't then be punished for them! Go John, I say! On the good side, Janie intervening on Beth Chester's behalf is wonderful, and I do find the way that EBD explores Beth's mother's resentment of her, and vice versa, very interesting and believable - and quite dark for EBD! And Janie's response to David Willoughby's proposal to Nan is exactly how Joey should have responded to Reg and Len! It strikes me Janie is a better 'mother' to people who aren't actually her biological children...

Author:	trig [ Sun Jun 07, 2009 5:17 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Families: The Lucys
Sunglass wrote Quote: The emphasis on extremely small children being 'good' and 'behaving beautifully' I find deeply unpleasant, though I know it's of its era I think that in reality both children and adults in the period behaved much differently than this, certainly from the memories of my own relatives and friends. There was more corporal punishment, admittedly, some of which was probably brutal, but most wasn't and I find it hard to imagine real people having such instantaneously obedient children. As a childless person, and a teacher , EBD probably wished children were like this rather than knowing they were from experience...

Author:	MJKB [ Sun Jun 07, 2009 8:46 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Families: The Lucys
Sunglass wrote: The emphasis on extremely small children being 'good' and 'behaving beautifully' I find deeply unpleasant, though I know it's of its era - there seems a real sense that children need to be kept down and disciplined from infancy. I agree, Sunglass, although as you say yourself, it was of its time. Interestingly,there wasn't such emphasis on 'instant obedience' in the North American children's books. In Little Women, for example, the child rearing is much nearer a 21st century model than anything written by EBD. There's an explicit condemnation of corporal punishment too, which shows that the idea of children's rights existed one hundred and fifty years ago.

Author:	Cel [ Sun Jun 07, 2009 10:08 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Families: The Lucys
I've just recently read the three La Rochelle books that are on the transcripts site, and really enjoyed them - the younger Janie is a very appealing character. Like others, though, I have problems with some of the ideas about child discipline. One thing that particularly struck me is during the 'Bad Bill and the Wallpaper' incident, when Janie berates Pauline for giving Bill such a 'stupid' punishment as making him stand facing the wall for half an hour after misbehaving - she says something about it being a silly punishment for a child like him. Yet this is exactly the sort of punishment that most childcare experts nowadays would recommend for children who are acting out - remove them from whatever they are doing, put them somewhere where they have no stimulation and ignore them for a short time. An early version of the 'Naughty Step', in fact. Yet Janie would prefer he got a harsh beating...

Author:	Sunglass [ Mon Jun 08, 2009 4:36 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Families: The Lucys
trig wrote: I find it hard to imagine real people having such instantaneously obedient children. As a childless person, and a teacher , EBD probably wished children were like this rather than knowing they were from experience... Oh sure. I just find it interesting to look at what EBD herself considers ideal parenting, regardless of its relationship to any kind of historical reality. It strikes me that she goes to a lot of trouble to present Janie and Julian as a very modern couple in their breezy, informal, egalitarian relationship to one another, but their parenting seems to come from a much more old-fashioned, authoritarian place - a different generation, even, with Julian 'interviewing' very young miscreants in his library, and regularly doling out what sound like quite violent spankings! I know we keep being told that the punishment isn't 'too heavy' for the age of the children involved, but that tends to make me ask 'who decides?' There are so many classic girls' stories where a gentle, idealistic young woman doesn't believe in corporal punishment but ends up whipping a child - like Anne Shirley caning Anthony Pye and feeling desperately guilty, even though it transforms his behaviour and makes him like her! - but Janie, even before she has even one child of her own, is quite decided that anything other than corporal punishment is 'silly' for three-year-old Billy. I can understand her being furious that her wallpaper has been damaged, but in fairness, that was partly the fault of the adult who made a three-year-old stand in a corner for half an hour anyway. (Questioning friends who use Naughty Step methods elicits the information that one minute per year of the child's age is now considered normal...?) I also find the Lucy system of 'forbids' funny. As I understand it, once something is specifically forbidden, the children won't do it, but it has to be a specific 'forbid', and on the other hand, the parents are afraid to be too specific, in case the children think 'OK, forbidden to draw on the bedroom walls with chalk, but no one said anything about crayons! Hurray!' I thought it was a bit weird too that when Julie apparently disobeys a direct 'forbid' not to leave the garden without an older person, her parents seem more relieved that she turns out not to have disobeyed a direct forbid (she was with a slightly older child) than that she hasn't grasped the principle that she shouldn't just disappear without warning or an adult present! It sounds a bit like training your children to obey extremely specific rules without getting them to understand the general principles of safety and danger etc.

Author:	MJKB [ Tue Jun 09, 2009 6:57 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Families: The Lucys
Sunglass wrote: I also find the portrayal of angry, fully-grown men beating toddlers - and being seen as entirely correct to do so - really hard to take, like when a furious Julian spanks three-year old Billy for tearing the wallpaper till he 'screamed like a steam-engine, but his screams brought him no mitigation of his punishment'. It's chilling to think that, while today this type of parenting is regarded by some as abusive, fifty years ago it was perfectly acceptable. I find it hard to understand how a normal, kindly father could inflict that punishment on a baby.

Author:	Fiona Mc [ Fri Jun 12, 2009 11:01 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Families: The Lucys
Cel wrote: Like others, though, I have problems with some of the ideas about child discipline. One thing that particularly struck me is during the 'Bad Bill and the Wallpaper' incident, when Janie berates Pauline for giving Bill such a 'stupid' punishment as making him stand facing the wall for half an hour after misbehaving - she says something about it being a silly punishment for a child like him. Yet this is exactly the sort of punishment that most childcare experts nowadays would recommend for children who are acting out - remove them from whatever they are doing, put them somewhere where they have no stimulation and ignore them for a short time. An early version of the 'Naughty Step', in fact. Yet Janie would prefer he got a harsh beating... And yet in all my experiences as a Nanny/au pair, I found time outs worked the best for most kids. Most of them hated being seperated from the others and would behave often with just the threat of a time out whereas being spanked by parents had no effect what so ever. And most parents seem to smack/spank their child when they are angry rather than waiting to when they cool down and then think about the punishment. The other thing, it amazing here how many still consider spanking to be all right. SLOC is studying Social Work and the question came up in regards to the new law that no one is allowed to smack/spank a child to leave a mark. It was amazing how almost the entire group supported smacking a child and said the law was ridiculous. Someone gave the example of a child running out onto a road and smacking them sometimes was the only way to teach them not to when they did it and they didn't like the alternative of the child being hit by a car. But I don't think people realise exactly how hard you would have to hit a child to leave welts or bruises on their hand or bottom.

Author:	MJKB [ Fri Jun 12, 2009 2:00 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Families: The Lucys
Fiona Mc wrote: It was amazing how almost the entire group supported smacking a child and said the law was ridiculous. Someone gave the example of a child running out onto a road and smacking them sometimes was the only way to teach them not to when they did it and they didn't like the alternative of the child being hit by a car. But I don't think people realise exactly how hard you would have to hit a child to leave welts or bruises on their hand or bottom. 7 I was reading an article recently which claimed a link between excessive corporal punishment and other forms of abuse. What I find very disturbing is the almost ritualistic smacking/spanking of small children which is often advocated in GO literature. To me it's got alot too much to do with control rather than discipline.

Author:	Alison H [ Fri Jun 12, 2009 2:10 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Families: The Lucys
I think there's a difference between a little smack/clip round the earhole and the sort of walloping that Julian gave Billy - who was only 3 years old at the time - or that Jem took it upon himself to give Mario Balbini.

Author:	Mel [ Fri Jun 12, 2009 2:19 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Families: The Lucys
I'm never quite sure what EBD's view is. Jo does not really approve of corporal punishment and even Jack tells Margot in Rescue that they do not have spanking in their family as a rule. Yet it seems OK for boys, presumably because it is what they expect at public school. It sits oddly on the otherwise thinking, kindly, caring Lucys.

Author:	Sunglass [ Fri Jun 12, 2009 2:23 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Families: The Lucys
It does sit oddly with the kindly Lucys! Even though Janie ridicules the standing in the corner punishment, and then sees the torn wallpaper as evidence of its stupidity, I think the only thing wrong with it was that it was for too long a period. A three-year-old can't be expected to face the wall in silence and stillness for a full half hour - an adult would find that hard! - and it's hardly surprising he got bored and disruptive. Especially as he was punished in the first place because he's an energetic three-year-old bored from being kept indoors in bad weather, in a room of fragile things he wasn't allowed to touch. (It occurs to me that in the EBD world where small children spend large amounts of their time in nurseries in a separate part of the house, the rest of the house is probably a lot less child-friendly (and child-proofed) than our modern houses, where the children and their toys etc are in every room - no modern family with small children is going to have a living room with Janie's fragile vase of pot-pourri within reaching distance, for example. But of course Janie doesn't have children yet at this point, so there was presumably nursery and no place within the house where a child could play in a boisterous way...) And I find the bit where Julian spanks John for painting skeletons on the sea-wall in Janie Steps In quite disturbing. It's different to the Bill and the wallpaper situation, because it's premeditated - Julian has known about the incident since the previous day, so he's not losing his temper on the spur of the moment. There's the usual EBD scenario where the father tells the 'spoiling' mother not to try to mitigate his plans to punish the child: Quote: ‘He’s said he’s sorry, Julian,’ Janie protested. ‘He’ll be just a little sorrier before I’ve finished with him. It’s no use trying to beg him off, J. That boy’s exploits are getting beyond a joke and it’s time he was brought to his senses. I won’t have him spoilt.’ Janie said no more. She knew what a certain look about her husband’s beautiful mouth meant. Then, afterwards: Quote: ‘And mind this,’ Julian said, surveying the boy severely, ‘you’ll get exactly the same if you ever do such a thing again. Understand?’ Gulping down his sobs, John nodded. It was his first spanking and it had been a horrid shock that Daddy could hurt him so much on purpose! That's about much more than the fabled 'smack to teach them not to run out into the road'! A five year old has learned that his father is prepared to hurt him on purpose, and prepared to go on doing so. That's a point, though, about the gendered double standard - we hear in theory about girls being caned or spanked, but does EBD ever actually tell us a girl is spanked/caned?

Author:	Loryat [ Fri Jun 12, 2009 3:02 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Families: The Lucys
I think Norah Fitzgerald is caned after running off with her dads prize horse or something? And there's a bit where a dad (maybe Colonel Christie, though for some reason I have an idea it's Primrose Day's dad?) says Miss A should cane Emerence, and Miss A says no, if Emerence had been brought up properly she'd deserve it but as it is her parents are the ones really at fault. I suppose, at the time, and until fairly recently, it was legal for teachers to corporeally punish their pupils, both girls and boys. There is a bit in one of the later Anne books, maybe Rainbow Valley, where one of the vicarage children does something bad and the father even though he doesn't want to knows that his duty is to give him a whipping as a punishment. (With a bit of tree!) There's a whole long angsty scene where he builds himself up to it and reminds himself that it's his duty as a father.

Author:	trig [ Fri Jun 12, 2009 5:38 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Families: The Lucys
Loryat wrote Quote: I suppose, at the time, and until fairly recently, it was legal for teachers to corporeally punish their pupils, both girls and boys. Where I went to school students got caned regularly (and still do - it was on the Isle of Man where they have their own laws about just about everything (some offences still get the death penalty but the Home Secretary always steps in...)) for offences like smoking or skipping school. If that was true at my school now there would be a queue round the school like in that John Cleese film Clockwork... I don't think it had any effect on the students' behaviour as the same students were always getting caned. My siblings and I were regularly hit by a wooden spoon by my mother when we were young and we now look back at it as something to laugh about. I can't say whether it has damaged us in some way There are some opinions on child psychology that say that physical punishment, provided it is minimal, is in fact less damaging that long periods of isolation. Young children below the age of around 5 have no concept of time and I imagine half an hour must have seemed like for ever.