cahn | Frederick the Great, discussion post 16

We have slowed down a lot, but are still (sporadically) going! And somehow filled up the last post while I wasn't looking!

...I was asked to start a new thread so that STDs could be discussed. Really! :D

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From:

selenak

:) Given Voltaire's crack in the anonymous pamphlet about Wilhelm only learning how to read and write when Fritz became King, he'd be glad to hear it!

More seriously, it has to be said that the "children need to learn to obey unquestioningly" part wasn't just FW, that was the general conviction of the era until Rousseau. Which is why the Mozart family biographer has a point when he says that Leopold Mozart might come across as the ultimate overbearing, micomanaging Dad to us, but in terms of his contemporaries, he was downright revolutionary as long as his children were still children. Also if you compare him with the teachers of other musical prodigies. (Looking at you, Herr Schmeling.) Hitting/spanking children was normal; Leopold never did, and in his "Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule" had firm opinions on how musical instruments should be taught, with the pupil understanding, not blindly obeying, being key. Also with all the travelling and teaching them he spent much more time with Wolfgang and Nannerl (until puberty struck, poor girl) than fathers were used to do at the era.

(Leopold as a parent to adult children is another matter, but there his favourite tactic was emotional blackmail of the "I remember when you kissed me on the nose as a little boy and promised you'd always take care of me in my old age, and now you'r hanging out with the Webers and giving them money which we gave you for your journey instead of moving on to Paris to conquer the musical scene there? SERIOUSLY? I am heartbroken!" type rather than FW style "you wretch, kiss my feet if you want to live!")

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Yeah, the most unusual part about FW isn't that he was brutal to his kids, it's that he was brutal to his kids for doing what most other noble/royal parents wanted their kids to do.

Normal kid: *doesn't want to study Latin*
Normal kid: *gets beaten*
Fritz: *eager to study Latin*
Fritz: *gets beaten*
Most parents: *would die to have bb!Fritz*

Btw,

cahn, I was rereading Zenna Henderson's short stories this week, and watching even the nicest teachers paddle the kids for misbehaving in the 1950s was a definite moment of "Oh, right, you could *do* that then."

From:

cahn

Yeah, and obviously what I already know about FW is coloring my response, but at least the translation says he was trying to break him, which I feel like might be a little less common? (Or maybe I'm just having flashbacks to fic discussion --

selenak, the bit about FW breaking his son in "Survived" was the product of several earlier drafts where mildred said I wasn't getting that part quite right. :) ) Of course that particular bit was Ziebura speaking, not FW himself, and she clearly is not exactly FW's biggest fan either.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

at least the translation says he was trying to break him, which I feel like might be a little less common?...Of course that particular bit was Ziebura speaking, not FW himself

No, "broken" was FW speaking. Eigenhändig (in his own hand) to boot!

6. Weil er auch einen Kopf hat, wie die Kinder alle haben, so muss dieser beizeiten gebrochen werden.

He also used "broken" to describe the desired state of Fritz's heart in the minutes immediately following Katte's execution. (Broken and therefore hopefully susceptible to being guided back onto the proper religious path by the preacher who was to be standing by at the execution.)

And yes, *that*, even at the time, was weird. Pace Preuss, FW wasn't a typical "deutscher Hausvater", either in his goals or in his methods. Here's how I think 18th century fathers stacked up:

- Expecting blind obedience beyond what we would consider healthy now: normal.

- Corporal punishment: varied.

- Micromanaging your kid's life and trying to break his will so that he never does anything he wants even when you're not around: weird.

- Threatening to kill your kid: WTF???

- Actually killing your kid: Peter the Great.

the bit about FW breaking his son in "Survived" was the product of several earlier drafts where mildred said I wasn't getting that part quite right. :)

With this part, I think it was less about not getting it right and more about me trying to help with the arc of the story. Since Fredersdorf has heard about the execution and met Fritz during the imprisonment, he can't exactly think everything is sunshine and roses between FW and Fritz. But the point of writing the first Christmas was for him to experience the dysfunction at close hand and realize just how bad it really is. And there are little things like SD ranting in front of the servants and FW keeping track of candle usage, but it occurred to me that a good major realization for Fredersdorf to have would be to go from believing that things were bad between FW and Fritz, but that a bunch of the conflicts were one-offs, the product of FW's temper--Fredersdorf giving him the benefit of the doubt and believing he does things he regrets--to Fredersdorf realizing that FW is actually trying to break Fritz: that hurting his oldest son isn't a bug, but a feature. And that's where Fredersdorf starts having second thoughts about whether this is what he signed up for.

The one where I felt maybe we needed to acknowledge FW's parenting wasn't as abnormal then as it is now was when you had the kids not speaking unless spoken to at the table, and Fredersdorf taking that as a sign something was wrong. Whereas to me, especially when your parents are monarchs, that feels way more normal.

Actually, you've read Farmer's Boy, right? I think Almanzo's father makes a good contrast with FW here.

The children have to do an adult's work on the farm at the age of 8 or whatever.

They get whipped for infractions.

They're not allowed to speak at the table unless spoken to.

Remember the last scene? Almanzo's father actually asks him what he thinks about being apprenticed and what kind of career he wants for himself, and Almanzo's shocked that he gets to have an opinion about his own future.

We find out in later books and/or Laura's letters that Almanzo's dad had the right to keep him on the farm and collect all his earnings until he was twenty-one, but Mr. Wilder actually gave his sons their independence at age 18 and let them take jobs, move out, keep their own money, etc.

And, Almanzo and his father have a good rapport.

Now, how this played out in real life, who knows. Laura clearly glamorized Pa and made Ma look worse in at least some respects than she was. But the point is that corporal punishment, "children should be seen and not heard," and children's futures being decided by their parents might have been normal then, but the kind of fear and hatred you get between Fritz and FW, or, say, Bullet and John Tillerman, isn't inevitable. Because Mr. Wilder on the one hand is capable of saying, "Everyone gets up at 5 am to go out to the fields, and you work diligently until I say it's time to eat," to his children, but also, "If Almanzo's heart's not in it, there's no point in forcing him into a career as a farmer. Let him go apprentice in the city," to his wife. Which is not an FW thing to do!

Or, from (totally fictional) Outlander, Jamie speaking: "My father whipped me as often as he thought I needed it, and a lot oftener than I thought I did. But I didna cower when he spoke to me. And I dinna think young Rabbie will lie in bed with his wife one day and laugh about it.

“He’s right; the lad’s his own son, he can do as he likes. And I’m not God; only the laird, and that’s a good bit lower down. Still…”

So that's why I think when the Hohenzollern kids are actively cringing around their parents in "Survived", it's a good clear signal of abusiveness even by the standards of the time.

And Fritz not saying *anything* during that one historical meal where he had to cut the meat is a bit different, in that it's a larger gathering of 21 people, where many different conversations would have been happening as everyone talked to the people sitting next to them (like Fritz and Suhm during the infamous forced intoxication episode). In contrast to a family-only meal, where I assume the adults talk and the kids wait to be addressed.

selenak, tell me if you disagree with any of my take on this. I speculate and extrapolate a lot in my betaing of historical mores.

Edited Date: 2020-08-30 12:27 am (UTC)

From:

selenak

Here's how I think 18th century fathers stacked up:

I agree with your examples but would add some (marked in bold):

- Expecting blind obedience beyond what we would consider healthy now: normal.

- Corporal punishment: varied.

- Micromanaging your kid's life and trying to break his will so that he never does anything he wants even when you're not around: weird.

- leaving your kid for fourteen years elsewhere without visits: a bit cold, but the weather is nicer in Hannover anyway?

- openly rooting for your fave to inherit instead of your oldest kid: when combined with:

- Threatening to kill your kid: WTF???

(...but okay if you do it via spreading rumors your oldest kid is impotent)

- having sex with your kid (according to gossip): you're clearly either August(us) the Strong or Philippe d'Orleans the Younger

- participating in orgiastic parties at the same time your daughter does and being on board with your daughter having an active sex life with other people in general: you're DEFINITELY August(us) the Strong or Philippe d'Orleans the Younger

- Actually killing your kid: Peter the Great.

"Do not speak unless spoken to": imo in general more a 19th century thing. If guests are present, you're certainly supposed to show you can carry a conversation if you're a prince or princess. Other Seckendorff in his diary notes with disapproval young Aw fainting in the tobacco parliament, and with approval later that on another occasion kid Ferdinand (future menace) cheeked Grumbkow about passing him some dish by enganging in a joke with him about Grumbkow being a field marshal now, so he an be gracious like a King.

Of course, the problem with judging as to whether or not children were expected to talk during family only meals is that most of the reports we have are from family and other people meals, by necessity. The one example that popped immediately in my mind about a royal family meal with no other people present is from one of Liselotte's letters (to aunt Sophie of Hannover, as it happens) about a moment of levity chez Orleans, where the people present are she, Philippe the older and Philippe the Younger, and then one of them farts and the others join in for a laugh. But not only is this two generals pre Fritz and FW, I also think Philippe the Younger was at least a teenager by then.

Oh, just remembered: if I recall Horowitz correctly, one of the complaints about Fritz of Wales from his family was that after he joined them after fourteen years alone in Hannover, he hardly spoke to any of them unless spoken to. Given the circumstances, this is hardly surprising, but it does show he was expected to talk during family meals, not wait for his parents to adress him.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Hmm, interesting. I could very well be mis-extrapolating! However, I would point out that even in the 19th century and well into the 20th centuries, I would fully expect Fritz of Wales, who was 21 when he went to England, to be treated like an adult at the dinner table, not a child! But Heinrich was like 6 in 1732, and that's what I was thinking of--not the adult or nearly-adult children. In which case, maybe I'm wrong and the 6-year-old could pipe up with his opinions whenever he wanted to, but "the adults are talking about things of interest to them while expecting the 6-year-old to be quiet" wouldn't necessarily strike me as a red flag for abuse.

"The adults and nearly-adults are talking about the future queen's alleged fistulas at dinner" does strike me as a very very dysfunctional family at best. :P

And the Tobacco Parliament was explicitly supposed to be etiquette-free, right? I doubt anyone for a moment forgot that FW was their monarch in terms of *what* they said, but as they drank and smoked and played practical jokes, I imagine he got spontaneously interrupted in the middle of a sentence during a lively discussion and was pleased rather than otherwise by the casualness.

But maybe even the little kids did always get to pipe up at will this century. I will keep that in mind, thank you. (When doing the servant research, I did initially project late 18th and early 19th century mores back in time, only to find out that the 18th century was a transitional period, with the early part of the century looking different than the latter, and the transition happening at different rates in different regions, so that travelers to other countries were shocked by the local customs. So that's when I started pulling my hair out at "I don't know what expectations of servants were like in 1732 Prussia, much less the weirdo court where FW wants to be a German burgher and SD wants to be a French queen! It was probably different on different days, depending on whether he was in residence or not.")

From:

selenak

, and watching even the nicest teachers paddle the kids for misbehaving in the 1950s was a definite moment of "Oh, right, you could *do* that then.

My parents (born in 1945 and 1947 respectively) still had their fingers hit by rulers by their teachers in school, so definitely still a thing in Germany in the 1960s, too.

(Whereas my generation was safe from this in school, though parents spanking their children was still considered an okay punishment. I mean, I wasn't, but a lot of people my age were.)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

My mother (born 1957) went to a school where there was a paddle hanging up in the classroom, but it was only for really *really* bad misbehavior, and she, like the majority of kids (I gather), made it through her entire schooling without ever experiencing any corporal punishment.

Whereas my generation was safe from this in school, though parents spanking their children was still considered an okay punishment. I mean, I wasn't, but a lot of people my age were.

Same, no corporal punishment in schools, but parents could do it. Mine did, in the 80s and 90s, but quite mildly. It was more of a shame punishment than a pain one. I remember one occasion when I was 5 and got spanked, and I actually protested, "But that didn't even hurt!" when my mother was done and told me to go stand and face the wall.

And she rolled her eyes, said, "All right, come back here," and then administered a couple more swats that actually stung for a few seconds. As I walked off to my time-out, I felt satisfied that at least she had done it right.

Which tells you how little it hurt! And also that it was intended to, just a little.

I'm not saying I would endorse this, but FW it was not.

From:

cahn

Me too. No corporal punishment in school, totally seen as OK for parents to do. I got spanked a couple of times, I think it probably stung but it wasn't a big deal. I should ask my parents what it was like for them in Korea, I have no idea (and they probably don't remember much at this point either).