To wonder why MNHQ still haven't given us our Chalet School topic?

[TheObligatoryNotQuiteSoNewGirl]

Because we probably shouldn't still be hanging out in AIBU, four (or is it five?) threads later.

I've been reading all the lovely transcripts, and although I started Prefects yesterday, I don't want to finish it, because it's the last one! :-(

In the interests of fairness, I should add that I think Grizel is also someone who could be genuinely lovely to her own children, or people she liked and cared about, without being able to extend that treatment to anyone who might need it. I adore Grizel, and I'm happy to accept these (fairly major) personal limitations of hers because I can understand where they come from and because it's never suggested that she is perfect, or even just especially kind or maternal. I know Grizel wouldn't open her home to anyone who needed one. But Jo is presented as being these things.

YY agree.

I love the flaws in Grizels character. I have met Grizels but never met a Joey, thank God,

It's the universal adoration of her that's so annoying, even her teenage triplets worship at the font. Goes to show EDB never had teenage girls herself.

Jock was a banker as that's the second favourite male occupation after a great doctor.

I always thought that would be a good topic for debate. Was Joey a good mother... Discuss!

I personally think she liked babies and older girls but everything in between not so much...Not saying that she didn't like them she just didn't have as much time for them

Gruss Gott Gandages frauleins!

I'm having a transcript emergency! Does anyone have Mary-Lou, Genius and Excitements??? Please, pretty please with sparkling slabs of sugar and featherbeds of cream on top?

I hope you are all well, although with this wet weather you're either all in San or up to your usual monkey tricks, no doubt!

I don't think she was a good mother, esp given the amount of support she had. I think she never really seems to put her children's interests ahead of her own, and her children grow up to treat her as a semi-invalid just as Jack does - "we mustn't worry mamma". It's the wrong way round.
But it is also v normal and of its time in that respect I think, so perhaps unfair to criticise her for it. She is too involved in her daughters' lives, and clearly loves them, which must count for something.

EBD is usually keen to blame girls' perceived faults on their parenting - eg Eustacia, Emerence, Yseult, even Sybil - but somehow Margot's badness and Len's overdeveloped sense of responsibility are not Jo's fault.

But then we also see how she sees her children as her most important duty (how furious she is when Miss Bubb stops her going to Stephen in Gay) and she seems to take responsibility for night wakings. And she protests the idea of Margot going away to Canada - I can never decide if this is eventually about her not protesting enough, or Jack being too delightfully alpha male to care what she thinks, but either way it irks me.

I can't imagine much worse than being an older teenager at Freudesheim, though - no freedom, no privacy, no escape. Perhaps this is/was not uncommon but it makes me shudder.

Lonny I have (PB) books of Mary-Lou and Excitements and if no better solution presents itself before then, I'm happy to type up both in the latter half of Sept.

To join the Joey debate, much as I loathed the Chalet Girls Grow Up I think she had Joey's character spot-on - basically, she's a bit of a narcissist who is only interested in drama (when it's about her and if it's not about her she'll make it about her); very tiny children (all about her) and grown-up children who have learned not to challenge her.

Not just that Nells but the older teenager has all the responsibilities for the younger ones. The triplets are often expected to help/ do the packing for the boys, they do the household chores... yes probably expected for the time but why can't Stephen do his own packing, make his own bed etc?

Oh thanks Nell but hopefully someone will have them...

Oh chalet girls grow up. I was traumatised after that.

However yes thinking about it Joey is really portrayed well.

Too tragic about Len though.

Agree about being a teenager there, fancy having a bath list at home ffs and the looking after
and good example set to the younger ones.

Len rebels over a, wait for it, bloody ponytail.

Len should have gone to stop with the Bakers and met Vic Coles brother.

The boys were too busy doing man things in work rooms or strolling around the lake.

Or learning medicine, banking and Afrikaans...

Or clock golf

In fairness I think Joey did warm to Verity after a while. She refused to mother her because she said it would be like trying to mother her own grandmother; but when she saw her standing at the door saying goodbye to Mary Lou at half term she 'kissed her with motherly tenderness' Aaaaaw!

I grew up in Ireland in the 70s when large families were very common and it was very usual for the older girls in the family to take on a lot of responsibility for the younger children, so I found that bit believable. In fact, as a child I couldn't understand all the fuss and excitement about the large families in the Russell/Bettany/Maynard households as, until Joey was reaching her 9th and 10th children, the familiies seemed quite a normal size to me.

I do agree though that Joey's gloating over her large family and constant attempts to out do everyone else come across as childish and self obsessed and actually dilute her image as a maternal person. I think Madge comes across as more genuinely motherly.

I have to say, I feel really sorry for poor Daisy who seems to be treated like a parcel to be handed around between Madge and Joey, whenever it suits them. In Tom... which I'm reading at the moment Madge says that Daisy will be going back to live with her once Peggy and Bride depart to their parents, because she's really Jem's ward and Joey has enough responsibility of her own and naturally would never agree to relinquish Robin. It sounded a bit sad, I thought - particularly as Robin had left school at this point and was no longer living permanently with Joey anymore. Surely she could have spared a bit of time and affection for Daisy?

Yes so agree about lovely Daisy. Why is she shifted around so much?

Like to think it's because both Jo and Madge want her but it doesn't come across well and she's seen more as joeys help with the trips than a child in her own right.

Also where's prim when she's at joeys? They are split up.

take the point about big families and joeys pride in hers is a but daft as Gisela and Marie have loads too.

Obviously kids were shifted around during the war years and the empire days so maybe we are projecting today's norms here.

I think it's fascinating (and usually v sad) to try to work out the permanence of the adoptive families. How much truth there really was in Sybs' "me and David belong" jibe. Daisy never seems to me as closely 'family' as Rob, in spite (because?) of her actual blood connection. And I don't know what happens to Prim. It seems fairly easy for stray children to be absorbed into the "Chalet School family" but hard to see where that responsibility ends.

I think because Primula was "delicate" Jem wanted to keep watch on her so she was always part of the Russell household.

Daisy was bullied by Sybil so wanted to go to Joeys which also made sense as the rest of the children in the Russell house were so much younger than her. It was nice for her to have me as an older sister (if I do say so myself). Then if I have left home it makes sense for Daisy to go back to the Russells as there is nobody to be a companion for Daisy at the Maynards and then Daisy can be with her sister again.

So it does kind of make sense that Daisy is passed around so much

Wouldn't Prim have been equally carefully watched living with Jack, though? Or is it because Jack is away during the war whilst Jem remains at home?
It kind of makes sense but I can't help but think how much nicer it might have been for Prim, who has no other family left, to be able to live with her big sister. :( (Totally get how much more normal this separation must have been then, but I can't seem to lose my modern-day perspective on it.)

I suppose if you see The Russell/Maynard/Bettany clan as one entity you can see why it was ok to shift the children between them all.

I suppose too if you go to boarding school the concept of home is a bit shifting too. No idea though as never went.

I far prefer Madge and Daisy to Len and Jo etc.

It also pissed me off that Margot's behaviour isn't put down to bad parenting when every other badly behaved child's is!

I just read a drabble where Len runs away to become a governess which has some very good bits about how neglected Jo's boys are. No-one ever comes to visit them at school etc.

I did go to boarding school the body as my father worked for the foreign office, and the idea was that boarding school have you some stability when your parents moved every few years. Luckily Joey didn't love next door to my school, and I was allowed home in the holidays target than farmed out as a random ward!

I love the letter Bride writes to her parents begging them to come back, I've never met the twins and now they're 8...

I hear you Stokey yes you never hear about Joey visiting the boys schools for speech days etc.

Did you have to visit the random mother of a school friend for English tea while you were at boarding school? I wonder how they would be seen now with a view to safeguarding.

I love the story someone linked to further up this thread that gives Margots feelings about being sent to Canada. It was very realistic. Of all the many things that happen in the book that make me want to slap someone usually Joey I hate everyones reaction to Madge inviting Joey out to Canada around the time of the triplets birthday

I feel sorry for Margot - partly because of the sending away thing, and partly because of the 'naughty' label she's saddled with pretty much from birth. I also liked the story linked. Tbh I feel sorry for at least Margot and Len, and if I thought about it long enough I'm sure I could find a reason to feel sorry for Con too.

What is that reaction, Robin? It's not ringing any bells for me.

M-L says that she can't possibly go away as Len and Con would (can't remember the exact phrase used) be very upset that she would miss their birthday. No thought for the poor absent Margot who isn't able to see her mother at all never mind about her mum missing her birthday.

If I was Hilda I wouldn't allow the trips to be holding birthday parties at home - no other girl (at least not in term time) is able to so why the constant allowances for the golden family?

Poor Margot and Mike labelled bad... I mean it is never stated that he had been banned from climbing the cliffs to collect eggs

Absolutely Robin, if he was Kester Bellever it would be regarded as a good wholesome activity! Bill having a go at him for blowing a whistle at a Sale when he was 5 also seemed a bit over the top.