Six girls and a roll of aluminum foil: the Linford girls(minus Alice) manifest the royal within.
I have a question: After becoming a parent of a daughter, how long did it take for you to start worrying about her choice in a mate? What man would ever be good enough? Is she really going to choose her husband herself!
All that.
I think I might have had a peaceful 30 minutes after Nancy was born before that thought occurred to me, and it's been a downward spiral ever since.
When Joanne was born, and I was up to four daughters (8, 6, 2, 0), I decided to take action. What else could I do? I gave my girls a reading list--let them experience the perils of mate selection (good and bad) through literature. Here's the list:
Books I Must Read Before I Can Go on a Date
- Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte), so they can live through Jane's moral strength to run away from what she knew was wrong even when all her happiness (as she supposed) was there. (And, it's the greatest book of all time!)
- Tenant of Wildfell Hall (Anne Bronte), so they can see how a woman will rationalize away the flaws of a man she loves and how that will poison her future.
- Any 2 Jane Austens (preferably P&P and S&S): in the words of Marguerite (when she was 4), . . . "Mom, guess what, Mister Wickham LOOKED like he was a good guy, but ACTUALLY, he was a bad guy. And, Mister Darcey LOOKED like he was a bad guy, but ACTUALLY, he was a good guy." Mission accomplished! (This was one of proudest moments of my life!)
- Anna Karenina (Tolstoy): There are so many reasons to read this book, but most importantly, so they can see how someone, by degrees, can lie herself into doing anything she thinks she wants (the foil to Jane Eyre), and the excuses don't matter.
9 comments:
Sally, I just read a P&P spin-off called "Darcy's Story". That tells the whole thing from Darcy's perspective. It was true in form and style, as well as story line, to the original. It follows his thoughts and feelings and you get to see as his preference for the acidic, snobbish company of Miss Bingley et. all is transformed to prefer Elizabeth and appreciate her better qualities. I don't know if it is the caliber of what you are looking for, but it was fun. You may enjoy it. Katrina
OK - Great Expectations may be too difficult for a kid to read (too many words) but Pip is the kind of boy not to be. He chases after the elusive and flirty Estella, he does not appreciate the constancy of his brother in law or the goodness of a girl who would have loved him - but he was too late.
am i too old for your reading list?? Thank you for the suggestions. I'm kinda excited about Tolstoy.
sally, i love reading your posts. you have a way of writing that connects with both my brain and my heart. may i borrow your reading list for my girls?
Sadly I am 0-5 in the book list. I have gotten close by reading different books by the same author, etc. I'll have to get going on these, I'll start thinking about books for boys.
How sad that when we try to come up with a book with a great male protagonist we draw blanks! Maybe you should just write the kind of book you're looking for and add that to Jonathan's list!
Still pondering Captain Moroni in a novel... but check out my blog... readingrodinos.blogspot.com or Lori's blog at camandlori.blogspot.com for cute pixs of her little girl Aliya...
My mom's comments hit a little close to home. Maybe I shouldn't have obsessed over that story and imitated it in life.
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