Classical Child Rearing: Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre On Parenting

The second in an occasional blog post on classic books that provide insights into parenting.

I first encountered Jane Eyre as an eighth-grader, and promptly fell in love with the heroine. Who wouldn’t love a girl who overcame adversity to become a governess, and then followed her conscious instead of her heart when faced with such a test?

Throughout the years, I’ve revisited Jane and found her to be as delightful and thought-provoking as ever. When a new film version of Jane Eyre came out in 2011, I wrote an article about Jane entitled “The Enduring Legacy of Jane Eyre.”

But I never thought about what Charlotte Bronte in Jane Eyre said about parenting until recently. To me, the most striking thing is Bronte’s eye for how terrible a spoiled child can be.

In the first chapter, we meet 10-year-old Jane, who has been excluded from the company of her widowed aunt, Mrs. Reed, and her cousins, Eliza, John and Georgiana. Jane, happy to be on her own, finds a solace in books and retreats to a secluded window seat.

It is there that John, a lad of 14, finds her, and we’re treated to this description: “He gorged himself habitually at table, which made him bilious, and gave him a dim and bleared eye and flabby cheeks. … Mr. Miles, the [school]master, affirmed that he would do very well if he had fewer cakes and sweetmeats sent him from home, but the mother’s heart turned form an opinion so harsh.”

We quickly learn that John has “not much affection for his mother and sisters” and “Mrs. Reed was blind and deaf on the subject” of his abuse of Jane and the servants. Jane is banished to Lowood and then finds a governess position at Thornwood Hall. Jane returns to Mrs. Reed, when the latter is on her deathbed, and hears of how tormented the woman has been over her son’s behavior (John has recently died). “Oh, I wish he would cease tormenting me with letters for money! I have no more money to give him: we are getting poor.”

From Mrs. Reed, we learn how terrible it is to spoil a child. There are several reasons for why the sentence brought upon the parents and the child is so awful:

• A selfish, spoiled child has no regard for others, parent or siblings, only himself.
• A selfish, spoiled child cannot learn from others because of his own high regard for himself and his well being.
• A selfish, spoiled child will drive away friends and family with his behavior.
• A selfish, spoiled child will have no regard for his parents, and will always expect to be supported and catered to by his family.

Mrs. Reed could have avoided her fate, abandoned by her son, brought to financial ruin by her son, if she had avoided overprotection and overindulgence when dealing with her son as a child. By turning his attention away from himself, by teaching him how to exercise self control, she would have helped him grow up to be a responsible and resilient child.

But the sad result of her neglect of his proper upbringing brought ruin to herself and her daughters, as well as heartache, which eventually killed her.

So we need to take care that as parents we avoid creating little selfish monsters in our children and focus instead of character traits that matter most.

Until next time,

Sarah

Classical Child Rearing: Jane Austen On Parenting

The first in an occasional blog post on classic books that provide insights into parenting.

That Jane Austen has commented on parenting shouldn’t be too much of a surprise. After all, she’s famous for her skewering of society in novels like Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion. Austen never married—and therefore never had children—which might lead some to say she couldn’t have had anything to say about child rearing.

A closer view of her body of works would find that she has a lot to say about parenting. For example, in Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth Bennett tries in vain to convince her father to not let younger sister Lydia accompany the Forsters to Brighton, foreseeing some of the disaster that did happen.

Elizabeth went to Mr. Bennett in secret to beg him not to give his permission for the trip. His reply demonstrates that he knows his youngest daughter, but that he’s oblivious to the real danger: “‘Lydia will never be easy till she has exposed herself in some public place or other, and we can never expect her to do it with so little expense or inconvenience to her family as under the present circumstances.’”

Mr. Bennett reveals that his main concern is a quiet house: “We shall have no peace at Longbourn if Lydia does not go to Brighton.” His willingness to have peace at all costs—and to fob off to someone else the responsibility of a daughter whose behavior he himself had failed to check—shows that he has abdicated his role as head of the house when it comes to child rearing.

Throughout Pride and Prejudice, Austen shows a keen understanding of how parents ought not to act with her portrayal of the Bennetts. Mrs. Bennett’s desire to be popular with her daughters renders her an ineffective mentor in the girls’ teenage years. Mr. Bennett’s desire for peace and quiet makes him ineffectual as a guiding figure in their lives as well.

Austen also subtly points out that such parenting doesn’t necessarily produce flighty offspring. While the three younger Bennett girls lack manners and impulse control, the two elder (Jane and Elizabeth) turn out well despite their parents. Austen shows us in fiction form the truth that parenting does not produce the child. The child produces the child.

What can we as parents learn from Pride and Prejudice? Two things come to mind:

• To do the right thing as parents even when that is not popular with our kids.
• To not shrink from correcting our children when necessary, even when it disturbs our peace.

The next time you read or watch Pride and Prejudice, watch the parents—and learn from their mistakes.

Until next time,

Sarah