Laura Ingalls and Whipping (spin off)

[ECingMama]

When I'm reading the books to my kids, I've skipped over the whipping parts.

Do you think it was far more frequent than mentioned in the books?

Do you think the girls really sat still in church because of the threat of whipping or was it simply that it was the expectation, life wasn't entertaining all the time (cell phones, ipods, Kindles, laptops, tv), or ?

[ValiantJoy07]

I've heard a few things on this. That there was pressure from the editors for the whipping parts to be in there and that the Ingalls were actually very gentle.

I'm currently reading a book about Rose Wilder (it's free on kindleunlimited and it's called "wilder rose" if you're interested). It talks about how Rose Wilder Lane really basically wrote all the Little House books. And a LOT of creative liberties were taken in weaving the stories and times around to make them flow and work and be what they were.

[ECingMama]

Originally Posted by ValiantJoy07

I've heard a few things on this. That there was pressure from the editors for the whipping parts to be in there and that the Ingalls were actually very gentle.

I'm currently reading a book about Rose Wilder (it's free on kindleunlimited and it's called "wilder rose" if you're interested). It talks about how Rose Wilder really basically wrote all the Little House books. And a LOT of creative liberties were taken in weaving the stories and times around to make them flow and work and be what they were.

OH! Fascinating!

What was that other series you mentioned that people read instead of?

[ValiantJoy07]

Originally Posted by ECingMama

OH! Fascinating!

What was that other series you mentioned that people read instead of?

I'm not sure I understand your question, instead of Little House?

I have mentioned elsewhere that we were supposed to read Little House In the Big Woods for school but we're reading All Of A Kind Family right now, it is fantastic!! The kids are loving it. The parents are so gentle and creative (the Mama of 5 solves whining issues by playful parenting). We are LOVING the first book so far (I read it growing up but it's been at least 20 years!).

Maybe that's not what you meant though.

---------- Post added at 05:35 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:28 PM ----------

Originally Posted by ECingMama

When I'm reading the books to my kids, I've skipped over the whipping parts.

Do you think it was far more frequent than mentioned in the books?

Do you think the girls really sat still in church because of the threat of whipping or was it simply that it was the expectation, life wasn't entertaining all the time (cell phones, ipods, Kindles, laptops, tv), or ?

My kids sit in services and behave. They dance and sing along during the worship time, they sit on the floor or in a seat with magnadoodles or at the Children's Table at the back of the sanctuary (they have busy books and crayons available if the kids prefer a table to work at). They don't sit like Laura and Mary (or at least what we hear of children of this time) did, but they are quiet and generally well behaved.

I have wondered about this, the story in Little House in the Big Woods about the whipping seemed so out of place with the rest of the gentleness of the book. I really do tend to lean towards the 1930's editor saying "we need the firm hand in here, this story is too sissy..." kind of deal.

From what I know of Rose Wilder Lane she was a very talented, interesting person with ideas along the Libertarian Vein, she'd seen the world and she had a lot of gentle-leaning ideals...I wonder if she made Ma and Pa so gentle and amazing because that is what she wanted in her ideal vision of that time and place and story.

[ECingMama]

The books are historical fiction and are at least loosely based on real stories. The places they lived can be visited.

I feel like the whippings were out of place with the rest of the book when I've read them. Fascinating theory on why that might be the case!

My kids have also sat in church without the threat of whipping. I was surprised when that came up in the other thread.

YES! That was the book(s) I was thinking of. I've never heard of them. Need to check the libray/amazon! Thanks! We're going to finish Little House this year.

[Elibellamiah]

As far as how much it's in the books, I've read them somewhat recently with my kids. In the first book there is the story of Pa getting a "good thrashing" when he was a boy for playing when he was supposed to be getting the cows and Laura gets whipped for hitting her sister. Maybe also in the first book Laura complains about having to sit still on Sunday and Pa calls her too him and she "knows she deserves a spanking" but doesn't get one. There is a story about her grandfather when he was a boy going out sledding on a Sunday and getting caught and I think it said his father "tanned his hide" I think that same term was used about the cousin who won't help and ends up getting stung by lots of bees, Pa said he would tan his hid if it was his boy. However I remember it being mentioned in one of the later books that he turned out ok even though his parents spared the rod and spoiled their child. Overall it's not a lot in the stories about Laura. The father in Farmer Boy comes across as abusive to me though.

---------- Post added at 02:15 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:06 PM ----------

One thing that made me wonder if they weren't hit more was in the book where they live in Indian country when Laura and Mary are left with the tied up dog and they consider letting him lose on the Indian. They mention this idea to Pa later and he asks very seriously if they had thought of disobeying him. They seemed terrified at even the thought of doing such a thing. Maybe it was more shame than the threat of physical punishment, I'm not sure, but their reaction seemed extreme to me for just having had a thought of doing something they was told not to. I should go back and try to find what it said.
- Ok, going back and looking at it it's not quite like I remembered. Pa asks in a terrible voice if they even thought of letting Jack loose. Laura bows her head and whispers "yes, pa". Pa says "after I told you not to?" In an a more dreadful voice and Laura can't speak and Mary chokes out "yes, Pa" and he asks them a couple more questions in a dreadful voice and they whisper their answers.
Maybe they were just afraid because of how severe his reaction was.

[Aerynne]

Those books are classified as fiction.

As I mentioned in the other thread, my kids sit still in church without any threat of whipping or honestly without any threat of anything. It's something we do as a family, we've done it since they were born, they know they are expected to sit still so they do. I don't see that it would be any different with the Ingalls family. They seemed like very involved parents who knew how to guide their children. But you have to consider these books basically fiction, and talk about these people as fictional characters. If we're talking about the real people, we know basically nothing about the real people, so we have nothing to go on. But we can discuss them as literary characters.

I really don't remember much about whipping in the books anyway, at least not about the Ingalls whipping their daughters. There was some whipping in Farmer Boy, IIRC, and one story that Pa told the girls about when he was a boy. Is there any account of Pa or Ma whipping their kids?

[ShepherdsWife]

I've read Laura's books and many of Rose's books as well. I believe that her parents were probably strong believers in whippings yet would have been gentler than some in that day.
I do believe that pioneer children had less possibilities for getting trouble than kids in our day do. We've created a world that is not very child friendly. No cars, no electronics, no malls and shopping sprees, no over abundance of toys, not really any sweets, etc. I know my two year old can work in the field and the corral all day happily with few issues. When we go to town, restaurants, or get around modern things the problems increase drastically. A wide open prairie would have been much simpler for a growing child's mind.


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[CelticJourney]

I have a hard time believing that they publishers wanted it 'toughened up' considering they removed episodes of domestic violence (not in Laura's family) and attempted assault, etc Their's was not an easy life.

[Zooey]

Rose Wilder Lane wad a superb writer, herself, and had great success. Her writing is easily distinguished from her mother's writing. I'd have to see really hard evidence that Rose did anything other than offer constructive criticism to the Little House books. The reason The First Four Years read so differently than the previous books is that, after Manly died, Laura didn't have the heart to finish editing

I agree. When Rose wrote her own stories about the same period, they were completely different in style from Laura's books.

Any how.....I actually wanted to say that Laura gave many interviews to magazines, & on radio, and one of the things she told about, was the fact that she only was spanked once & that was the time in the book. She also said that her mother didn't believe in spanking, & never, not even once did she hit any of the children.
She had never intended to put that one incident in the book, but both her editors & Rose told her that no one would ever believe that she had never been spanked, so she reluctantly put it in. After that, she refused to make up more whippings because she wasn't going to lie about it.

---------- Post added at 02:28 AM ---------- Previous post was at 02:16 AM ----------

Originally Posted by Joyanne

You know, as an adult reading them, I saw Caroline's feelings towards the Indians as just flat out sheer terror. She was terrified of being scalped, massacred etc b/c of the stories in the newspapers, told by friends, neighbors, etc.

This. Caroline's own parents had been quite friendly with the Indians, according to what I have read, but I wonder if there wasn't an untold story
about a scary experience later in her life. She seems to have had a real phobia about Indians. There must have been an explanation somewhere...
I heard a TV interview I heard as a small child, with a former British prime minister, & he said that his American mother (raised in the old West) had gone all the way around the house, inside & out, checking for "hostile Indians", & he would always say, "But, Mother, this is London!" She wouldn't tell the children any stories about Indians at all, but lived in terror till the end of her life. Kind of like Caroline.

[Sparrow]

It's been so long since I've read it - the life of Laura Ingalls wilder by zochert but I believe after Caroline's father was lost at sea her mother would not have survived the winter without the help of Indians.

I also though she was absolutely terrified of massacre. It was a very real threat when they were (illegally) in Indian territory. And the stories. Maybe much like how some people are afraid of Muslims? There is some blatant racism that doesn't sit well with me.

[Soliloquy]

Originally Posted by Zooey

I agree. When Rose wrote her own stories about the same period, they were completely different in style from Laura's books.

Any how.....I actually wanted to say that Laura gave many interviews to magazines, & on radio, and one of the things she told about, was the fact that she only was spanked once & that was the time in the book. She also said that her mother didn't believe in spanking, & never, not even once did she hit any of the children.
She had never intended to put that one incident in the book, but both her editors & Rose told her that no one would ever believe that she had never been spanked, so she reluctantly put it in. After that, she refused to make up more whippings because she wasn't going to lie about it.

Yet Carrie suggested she have Mr Brewster whip Clarence as he deserved. . Maybe because he was a teenager.

[FlyingBlueKiwi]

Originally Posted by Zooey

I actually wanted to say that Laura gave many interviews to magazines, & on radio, and one of the things she told about, was the fact that she only was spanked once & that was the time in the book. She also said that her mother didn't believe in spanking, & never, not even once did she hit any of the children.
She had never intended to put that one incident in the book, but both her editors & Rose told her that no one would ever believe that she had never been spanked, so she reluctantly put it in. After that, she refused to make up more whippings because she wasn't going to lie about it.

That's very interesting, as it's on direct opposition to her original draft "Pioneer Girl." This was the original, shorter version, before the editors other than Rose got their hands on it. I just today finished a story of where Caroline and Aunt Martha were annoyed with the kids making too much noise. Aunt Martha told Caroline to go up and spank all the kids, then if they would not quiet down, she (Martha) would go up and spank them again. Caroline went up and spanked all of them, including Mary and one other girl cousin who hadn't really been doing anything.

Anyway, here is the Amazon listing for the book. I would suggest the library, though, as this book is a HUGE hardcover. About 90% of it is notes and annotations from the research that was done separately from the manuscript. I would strongly recommend it to anyone who wants to learn more about Laura's *real* background. Apparently even most of the true stories were edited/fictionalized/moved around in time for better dramatic effect.

[Elibellamiah]

I wonder if she's making a distinction between being whipped with an object and a spanking. She had to have been spanked more than just once because she wouldn't have known she "deserved a spanking" for throwing a fit about sitting quietly on Sunday if spanking wasn't a normal thing for her. But it could be that the time when she hit her sister was the only time she was whipped.

[mamaKristin]

Iirc, wasn't Cousin Charlie not only a boy? But a bit older. The expectations would probably be different for both of those cases. Often in farming situations, and homesteading, not obeying and goofing off was serious business. I have friends my age who have been through farm accidents - thankfully no career or life ending ones.

Farmer Boy had lots more corporal punishment. For sure.

I remember when my kids were small, in our previous church, we ran up against some serious old school attitudes about children and their in church behaviour. We flatly told the church that we would not do what had been done to please other church attenders We were warned that threatening our children with pain was the only way to get compliance...and then we asked them how many of THEIR children still attended church Quite a few admitted that their kids had next to no happy memories of being in church


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