FW really thinks he is God and created his offspring in his image.
I think this is also why he had an easier time with the girls other than Wilhelmine (once it was clear she and Fritz were indivisible and she sided with SD in the big marriage battle). In as much as he paid any attention to them at all, that is, but he did write affectione letters to Charlotte and Friederike once they were married. (Of course, they from him pov did everything right - married without arguing whom they were supposed to, produced grandchildren.) Daughters were a different species and he never expected them to be like himself. It also explains why he initially took to AW, thereby creating a positive loop instead of a negative one, despite the fact that AW in the end wasn't much like FW. AW as toddler had just enough similarities for FW to believe that this was finally the kid he'd wanted to have all along, to wit, he enjoyed playing with soldiers and canons, he liked sports - to overlook that actually, their tempers couldn't be more differently. (Tiny Terror FW beats up cousin George, swallows golden shoelaces in protest and makes his teachers cry, kid AW's policy when interacting with adults seems to be to charm them, and far from being jealeous of other children, he's delighted about sharing rooms with Heinrich.
(I'm still not over adult AW in 1744, writing his "my life so far" retrospective for his newborn son, regarding four years old Heinrich moving in with him as the big event of 1730.)
Now granted, Tiny Terror FW was an only child (and as the one and only heir a very precious one in every sense) whereas AW was the spare to the heir and one of many siblings when he was born, but still, they were both given the "apple of the eye" treatment by the most powerful adults around them, and FW was raised with his cousins in a sibling-like situation for a while. (Resulting in him beating them up, where AW took to Heinrich and then Ferdinand with joy.)
All of which goes to show: FW had expectations of his kids but he also saw what he wanted to see. Unfortunately, it was clear early on that little Fritz' interests were not his interests, while the mere fact little AW liked some of the same things he'd done was enough to further the (for AW fortunate) misunderstanding that they were alike and he'd finally gotten his replica.
If Sophie Charlotte had lived: Hmm. Could he have kept Fritz mostly away from her? How far does filial obedience to a legally powerless mother extend?
Good question. The 19th century Prussian historians think he didn't like his mother ("not a good Christian"), as he despised all she loved and through his life rejected what she had valued, but Barbara Beuys does reproduce enough letters and actions from young FW to demonstrate that's not exactly true. His grandmother may have noticably gone from "OMG how cute tiny FW is!" (in the ballet when he was six) to "his father adores him" (when FW was twelve) in her letters, but young FW when visiting Brussels for the first time took the trouble to hunt down some paintings for his mother and to describe others to her which he'd seen because he knew she loved them. These were baroque opulent paintings with pagan subjects, not religious stuff. Bear in mind that even at F1's court, where the militarisation hadn't happened yet and where the genders weren't that strictly separated, young FW still had no reason to interact with his mother on more than official court occasions once he was a teenager, and yet he still sought out her company. (Mind you, of course Sophie Charlotte hadn't done any more hands-on raising than the other princesses of the era - that had been Madame de Roucoulles.)
There's also my old speculation that FW accepting SD kicking him out of bed instead of committing outright marital rape, and taking the punch from Frau von Pannewitz instead of either forcing her or punishing her for her rjection might have had to do with the fact his mother had been a strong-willed lady who got to set the rules in her own marriage. (F1 famously was only allowed to come to Charlottenburg - once he'd given her the place - if she explicitly invited him to, and he abided by that. )
And FW really was sentimental about the whole family concept, perhaps precisely because h'd been an only child. He wanted an adoring wife and many children surrounding him. So I don't think he'd been emotionally capable of, say, practically banishing his mother if Sophie Charlotte had lived, or forbidding his children to visit her. Assuming she wouldn't have moved back to Hannover (or gone to England) after F1's death, but would have stayed in Prussia, and would have maintained her own little court at Charlottenburg, I really have no idea how he'd have responded to her encouraging the grandkids culturally. Because as opposed to his wife, him trying to forbid her to do this would presumably just have resulted in a raised eyebrow and her doing it anyway. She definitely would not have felt threatened or intimdated, because he had no social power over her.
Another question is: what would SD have done? Because she wasn't a good mother-in-law even when it was no question of her oldest daughter-in-law being her rival, even when Fritz had made it clear from the get go she was the true first lady of Prussia. This was not a woman easily putting up with competition for the Queen spot. And Sophie Charlotte wouldn't just have been any Queen Mother. She had been one of the most praised queens of Europe in her time, despite of her kingdom being thought of as little more than a joke. Both when she was on the marriage market and after, her beauty was heralded. She was praised for making Berlin "Athens on the Spree" long before Fritz' time. The great Leipniz raved about her intellect. Young Sophie Charlotte had been to Versailles, even, while SD despite her English marriage fixation had never seen more than Hannover and Brandenburg. In short, it would be like competing with royal glamour personified, while simultanously your husband starts his austerity program.
Re: AW readthrough
I think this is also why he had an easier time with the girls other than Wilhelmine (once it was clear she and Fritz were indivisible and she sided with SD in the big marriage battle). In as much as he paid any attention to them at all, that is, but he did write affectione letters to Charlotte and Friederike once they were married. (Of course, they from him pov did everything right - married without arguing whom they were supposed to, produced grandchildren.) Daughters were a different species and he never expected them to be like himself. It also explains why he initially took to AW, thereby creating a positive loop instead of a negative one, despite the fact that AW in the end wasn't much like FW. AW as toddler had just enough similarities for FW to believe that this was finally the kid he'd wanted to have all along, to wit, he enjoyed playing with soldiers and canons, he liked sports - to overlook that actually, their tempers couldn't be more differently. (Tiny Terror FW beats up cousin George, swallows golden shoelaces in protest and makes his teachers cry, kid AW's policy when interacting with adults seems to be to charm them, and far from being jealeous of other children, he's delighted about sharing rooms with Heinrich.
(I'm still not over adult AW in 1744, writing his "my life so far" retrospective for his newborn son, regarding four years old Heinrich moving in with him as the big event of 1730.)
Now granted, Tiny Terror FW was an only child (and as the one and only heir a very precious one in every sense) whereas AW was the spare to the heir and one of many siblings when he was born, but still, they were both given the "apple of the eye" treatment by the most powerful adults around them, and FW was raised with his cousins in a sibling-like situation for a while. (Resulting in him beating them up, where AW took to Heinrich and then Ferdinand with joy.)
All of which goes to show: FW had expectations of his kids but he also saw what he wanted to see. Unfortunately, it was clear early on that little Fritz' interests were not his interests, while the mere fact little AW liked some of the same things he'd done was enough to further the (for AW fortunate) misunderstanding that they were alike and he'd finally gotten his replica.
If Sophie Charlotte had lived: Hmm. Could he have kept Fritz mostly away from her? How far does filial obedience to a legally powerless mother extend?
Good question. The 19th century Prussian historians think he didn't like his mother ("not a good Christian"), as he despised all she loved and through his life rejected what she had valued, but Barbara Beuys does reproduce enough letters and actions from young FW to demonstrate that's not exactly true. His grandmother may have noticably gone from "OMG how cute tiny FW is!" (in the ballet when he was six) to "his father adores him" (when FW was twelve) in her letters, but young FW when visiting Brussels for the first time took the trouble to hunt down some paintings for his mother and to describe others to her which he'd seen because he knew she loved them. These were baroque opulent paintings with pagan subjects, not religious stuff. Bear in mind that even at F1's court, where the militarisation hadn't happened yet and where the genders weren't that strictly separated, young FW still had no reason to interact with his mother on more than official court occasions once he was a teenager, and yet he still sought out her company. (Mind you, of course Sophie Charlotte hadn't done any more hands-on raising than the other princesses of the era - that had been Madame de Roucoulles.)
There's also my old speculation that FW accepting SD kicking him out of bed instead of committing outright marital rape, and taking the punch from Frau von Pannewitz instead of either forcing her or punishing her for her rjection might have had to do with the fact his mother had been a strong-willed lady who got to set the rules in her own marriage. (F1 famously was only allowed to come to Charlottenburg - once he'd given her the place - if she explicitly invited him to, and he abided by that. )
And FW really was sentimental about the whole family concept, perhaps precisely because h'd been an only child. He wanted an adoring wife and many children surrounding him. So I don't think he'd been emotionally capable of, say, practically banishing his mother if Sophie Charlotte had lived, or forbidding his children to visit her. Assuming she wouldn't have moved back to Hannover (or gone to England) after F1's death, but would have stayed in Prussia, and would have maintained her own little court at Charlottenburg, I really have no idea how he'd have responded to her encouraging the grandkids culturally. Because as opposed to his wife, him trying to forbid her to do this would presumably just have resulted in a raised eyebrow and her doing it anyway. She definitely would not have felt threatened or intimdated, because he had no social power over her.
Another question is: what would SD have done? Because she wasn't a good mother-in-law even when it was no question of her oldest daughter-in-law being her rival, even when Fritz had made it clear from the get go she was the true first lady of Prussia. This was not a woman easily putting up with competition for the Queen spot. And Sophie Charlotte wouldn't just have been any Queen Mother. She had been one of the most praised queens of Europe in her time, despite of her kingdom being thought of as little more than a joke. Both when she was on the marriage market and after, her beauty was heralded. She was praised for making Berlin "Athens on the Spree" long before Fritz' time. The great Leipniz raved about her intellect. Young Sophie Charlotte had been to Versailles, even, while SD despite her English marriage fixation had never seen more than Hannover and Brandenburg. In short, it would be like competing with royal glamour personified, while simultanously your husband starts his austerity program.