Minding the Unruly: help from books

I was reading Tricia's beautiful Home Made Happy blog the other day and she made reference to parenting wisdom gleaned from parent-characters in her favorite books. I thought, I can totally relate! Is it weird that much of how I try to parent comes from fiction? Do you do that too? Some of my fictional parent heroes:

-Mr. Penderwick: (the Penderwick books are my new favorites). Lots of room for those girls to be independent and free, and he gives them such intellectual riches in their conversations and home life. Sympathetic and funny, yet still a moral compass. And he's so funny (did you read the second book? Marianne Dashwood?)

-Marilla Cuthbert: (Anne of Green Gables) tough love, baby.

-Matthew Cuthbert: (Anne of Green Gables) tough love is great but sometimes you just really need to get your kid some puffed sleeves.

-Mrs. Comstock: (Girl of the Limberlost) She got off to a rough start but it's never too late to make changes. Usually the damage isn't too permanent, nothing that a few great lunch box meals can't fix.

-and of course, we can't even have this conversation without talking about Mrs. Ingalls. On this I will quote an email sent to me by my dear and brilliant friend Alexandra:

"I have developed a mothering ideal based loosely on doing whatever best fits the answer to the question: What would Ma Ingalls do? It falls short often because it is so hard to translate across the century of change, and maybe I just don't have all the data on the psychological health of the kids of that generation, but I tend to think that it was sort of a good thing that Ma was so wrapped up in keeping them all from starving to death, freezing to death or being torn apart by wild animals that she was not able to spend all her day in play with her kids. Probably good, too, that Laura had to help out to keep herself and her family alive. I loved those books as a little girl but when I reread them a few years ago I was struck by two things: 1) they are sort of boring and 2) the purpose of all they did was to survive.

The idea that you live to not die is so foreign to me. I know we cannot replicate that in our homes and it is silly to try to do so, but that doesn't stop me. I was going to end that sentence differently, but the truth got in the way. Ma and Pa were devoted to their kids and talked to them and taught them and spent all sorts of time (Pa didn't have a job, after all, he just hunted for food and then stored it) together. But they didn't dote on their kids. And I don't think they even worried about their feelings or emotions so much as their not-dying or their characters. And I think their characters benefitted from their parents not doing much more than trying to keep them alive and demanding that the kids do their part in ensuring family survival, too.

I think that we love our kids so much and want to give them all we had and more--all the things that went wrong for us or that our parents did wrong we want to do right. Those are natural impulses, but if we go too far with them I think we do ourselves and our kids a disservice. Life is tough sometimes. Other people live here, too, and their feelings and pursuits matter, too. If we are always sacrificing our everything for our kids, how will they learn that they are strong, independent people? How will they learn that the world does not stop for them, or revolve around them? Or, would we want our own kids to entirely drop their skills and interests to cater to their children's schedules and demands? Sometimes it helps to get out of the too-child-centered approach to the world to ask the question that way: would I want my own child to grow up and live like this (in this marriage, job, mothering pattern)?"

...it gets so hard because I don't mean that we shouldn't reach out and do all those hard things (sometimes boring things!) that are caught up in mothering kids. Or that it's okay to waste away the hours on facebook or some other indulgence while the kids stare at the tv. I guess I am just saying that moderation in all things is the wisest and truest sentence I have ever heard. If you find that you are basically always tending towards sacrificing your own needs for your kids or the other way around, you are probably doing something wrong. I think the line on what we need to feel healthy and rejuvenated and in balance is a little different for each person, and I think that we need to resist the temptation to compare our style to someone else's for verification..."

Great food for thought, Alexandra. What would Ma do is my new mantra.

Which book-parents inspire you?