Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 39

[cahn]

Last post, along with the usual 18th-century suspects, included the Ottonians; changing ideas of conception and women's sexual pleasure; Isabella of Parma (the one who fell in love, and vice versa, with her husband's sister); Henry IV and Bertha (and Henry's second wife divorcing him for "unspeakable sexual acts"). (Okay, Isabella of Parma was 18th century.)

Comments

Re: FW parenting

[cahn]

but he himself was so different from his father that it should have occured to him he wouldn't get a tiny replica with Fritz, either. Possibly the chain of thought was "yes, I was different from my father, but that was because I am a righteous Christian man and my father, with all respect I kept showing him, was not. Clearly, it was God's will I should become King and should do everything correctly. Which means that it can't be God's will to give me a son different from me, because what would be the point?!?

*nods* This makes a lot of sense. I would also though not underestimate people's ability (in general; FW's in particular) to be self-centric enough to understand that they are different from their parents, but not understand that about their own kids. (Source: a) my mom b) often I run into that mindset in myself with respect to my own kids, even knowing that this is a trap!)

Re: FW parenting

[mildred_of_midgard]

Fair! Didn't G2 say something like "In a father-son conflict, the father is always right!" re Fritz of Wales, and then belatedly remember his own conflict with his father, and then go, "But my father was being unreasonable, of course!"?

Regardless, even after FW figured out that Fritz *was* different, he thought it was disrespectful of Fritz to act differently: he said something like (paraphrased), "I know he doesn't think like me" and "If you love your father, you do exactly what he wants, not just when he's around, but all the time" (i.e. no sneaking out of bed to read, Fritz).