cahn

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In the previous post Charles II found AITA:

Look, I, m, believe in live and let live. (And in not going on my travels again. Had enough of that to last a life time.) Why can't everyone else around me be more chill? Instead, my wife refuses to employ my girlfriend, my girlfriend won't budge and accept another office, my brother is set on a course to piss off everyone (he WILL go on his travels again), and my oldest kid shows signs of wanting my job which is just not on, sorry to say. And don't get me started about Mom (thank God she's living abroad). What am I doing wrong? AITA?

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From:

selenak

Well, I must admit I'm not that keen on the second half myself, but it does contain a lot of interesting stuff, including the eight months Berlin visit from hell, and since I'm Franconian, Wilhelmine's constant digs at the new neigborhood amuse me.

I thought I knew SD was bad, but man, she was worse. Now I really understand why during the Wusterhausen argument, everyone voted for the parent they had to spend the most time with. Poor kids.

Yep. BTW, I found it interesting that you have a great many FW apologists among historians past and present who insist that Wilhelmine must be exaggarating or is unfair or what not about him in general and his parenting methods in particular, but even the author who has an hate-on for Wilhelmine, whose SD biography I read and told about several issues back, Karin Feuerstein-Prasser, isn't to my recollection doing much of "SD would never". The one thing she doubted was that Wilhelmine was made to show her naked back to a couple of English and Hannover ladies to prove she wasn't humpbacked, but her argument there was more "that's certainly a typical exaggaration by Wilhelmine because no one would humiliate a King's daughter like this. Which, well, no.

Incidentally, in the case of Wilhelmine and SD we do have non-Wilhelmine sources, for example, Manteuffel and Seckendorff the younger in his secret diary, to testify to the fact that SD in the early and mid thirties (i.e. post marriage with BayreuthFriedrich) was extremely negative about her oldest daughter in public, and I think one of the other envoys mentions it as well, so historians going "surely that never happened" would have been pointless, but then again, that never stopped anyone re: Gundling's funeral. I think it's also because SD's verbal put downs and general obsession with English marriage/making her daughter(s) live life she'd have wanted didn't come across as abusive to them the way they do to us - as opposed to FW's physical violence - , they were seen as more or less as acceptable parenting for the era, or even as slightly comic a la Mrs. Bennet trying to get her daughters married.

Fahlenkamp: I liked the thematic grouping - though whether I would have appreciated it if I hadn't already read the letters in chronological order, I don't know - and the medical background (which is his expertise), plus of course the photos. Also, Fahlenkamp has a sense of humor. But of course in terms of academic reliability Richter is better, no homo'ing not withstanding.

From:

cahn

I think it's also because SD's verbal put downs and general obsession with English marriage/making her daughter(s) live life she'd have wanted didn't come across as abusive to them the way they do to us - as opposed to FW's physical violence

*nods* Yeah, that's interesting -- it seems very recent that verbal abuse has been seen as definitely a bad thing -- even when I was growing up, I feel like there was a perception it wasn't as "real" as physical abuse. And to be honest I would feel like the English marriage thing was kind of hilarious too if I hadn't known how miserable Fritz and Wilhelmine were, not least from these memoirs. Anyway, it makes sense to me what you said -- that if one doesn't think it's objectionable, it's less of a priority to argue it couldn't have happened the way she said.