Why does Elsie keep trying to please her father? Can't she see that this man is a psychopath? Any even vaguely normal child would at the very least resent him, but she keeps trying and trying to get even the tiniest little bit of approval from him. If he smiles at her at breakfast, she's happy all day; and if he ignores her, she spends all day trying to find some way to be a very very good girl so that maybe he'll love her. And he's enforcing this -- he demands complete obedience, won't let her visit her friends, won't let her do the stuff that all the other kids in the house do, and generally just keeps on narrowing her world until his approval is the only reward she can get, and she's desperate for it. Why the hell would anyone write this stuff in a book for kids?

I was once given a "boys" book from the 20's or 30's. It featured a boy/adventurer character with photos of the actor who played him in film serials doing his daily dozens. The particular book feature the boy/adventurer visiting an island where a few white men ruled over dark skinned natives who were "so lazy they had to to be whipped to make them work". Boy adventurer is key in suppressing a revolt by the natives, who apparently are not too lazy to fight for their freedom. However, with help from the boy adventurer, the white men are able to put down the result and whip the natives back to work. And again, this was from the 20's or 30's. Why I did not hang on to the book is obvious. but now I wish I'd kept it. I'm pretty sure a lot people who write on the history of racism would be interested.

Hil, I think the idea was to get young people - especially girls - convinced that it was their duty to obey their parents - especially their fathers - regardless of any kind of rationality. This was a time when breaking a child's spirit was regarded as a good thing - that they were wild beasts that needed to be tamed.

Can I tell you how grateful I am that it's the 21st century?

Until I'd read this, the weirdest scene that I'd seen in an old kids book, from a gender perspective, was in the first Bobbsey Twins book, where a girl faints while jump roping, and every says that the doctor warned her mother about that, that jumping is far too strenuous for a girl.

I've read other kids books from this same period, and never seen anything that even approached this.

I think where you might find something comparable from the same period is in temperance literature. (There was a lot of children's stuff being published at that time against the evils of drink,)

The Vision Forum sells these books in their Beautiful Girlhood collection. [link]

Over the last several years, I have heard hundreds of reports from homeschoolers and Christian families about the blessings these books have been in their lives. Elsie raises the standard of godly womanhood to new heights. Feminists will not be happy with Elsie. She is a God-honoring young woman who strives to solve problems while working through biblical authority structures.

Hil, is there a reason you're putting yourself through this?

Oh, dear. Elsie's father's sister Adelaide just told him that he's being way too strict, and that Elsie will respond just as well to a soft word of rebuke as to a stern one. He tells her to mind her own business. And then,

All that Adelaide had said was true; yet Elsie never complained, never blamed her father, even in her heart; but, in her deep humility, thought it was all because she was "so very naughty or careless;" and she was continually making resolutions to be "oh! _so_ careful always to do just right, and please dear papa, so that some day he might learn to love her."

But, alas! that hope was daily growing fainter and fainter; his cold and distant manner to her and his often repeated reproofs had so increased her natural timidity and sensitiveness that she was now very constrained in her approaches to him, and seldom ventured to move or speak in his presence; and he would not see that this timidity and embarrassment were the natural results of his treatment, but attributed it all to want of affection. He saw that she feared him, and to that feeling alone he gave credit for her uniform obedience to his commands, while he had no conception of the intense, but now almost despairing love for him that burned in that little heart, and made the young life one longing, earnest desire and effort to gain his affection.

This is so disturbing.

Hil, is there a reason you're putting yourself through this?

Well, I started it out of a sort of morbid curiosity. And now I kind of want to finish it, because it just keeps getting worse, and I just keep wondering what on earth this author will do next.

Last night I was fumbling with some fast food and the following exchange occurred.

Me: Hey there's a taco in here!

D: what?

Me: I just put my taco on top of your taco.

D: That's what she said... to her!