18th-Century Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 35

[cahn]

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?

Comments

Re: Backlog Reading - Wilhelmine and Fredersdorf

[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.