Commonplace 159 George & Children PART ONE
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Follower of the Master of the Dangolsheim Madonna,
South German, Virgin and Child, late 15th–early 16th century, |
What was George thinking of when he fathered two children? He didn't ever want to be a man encumbered by dependents of any age or capability, and he was never in love with his second wife, Edith, so bringing two defenceless mites into that hot mess of anger and resentment is bordering on the psychotic. As he was the one (he) considered to have the brains in the relationship, the blame lays fairly and squarely at his door.
First son, Walter, came along nine months after the wedding day - of course. George complained, during their 'courting' days Edith was not amenable to 'living in sin', and he put this down to her conservative nature. Did he really have the cheek to ask her to? I doubt that very much - I expect he raised the topic obliquely and she leapt back in horror. His wooing of her was low-key and raised no hope of romance or passion - it was to be a practical arrangement based on Edith understanding he was the boss, the one with his hands on the financial reins, and all she had to do was cooperate and he would drag her out of the social slime of Camden Town from where she was spawned. He must have promised things he didn't/couldn't deliver in order to trick her into it. He, rightly, realised she didn't have too many options in her life, and marriage to a chap of a slightly higher social class who was not in trade was a step up in life for her. I presume Kate Middleton was on the receiving end of similar counsel haha.
Anyhoo, it's clear from his letters and Diaries that George was not ecstatic or in celebratory mood at the thought of impending fatherhood, although the paucity of information in the Diaries (heavily edited by George, etc) doesn't allow for a true reflection - May 4th 1891, a visit from the doctor, presumably to see Edith, may refer to the pregnancy diagnosis. If he had come to see George, more would have been made of it! By May 11th, the phrase he uses is 'Edith's illness'. By the time of the birth:
So, the poor girl's misery is over, and she has what she earnestly desired'. In fact, her troubles were just beginning. And the fact she had what she 'earnestly desired' would eventually be used against her
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| Ushering In Banality by Jeff Koons 1888 |
George was not best pleased at the amount of disruption the infant caused his daily routine. Even for George, a man who could have moaned for England if that had been an Olympic sport, the amount of droning on about how put out he was by the new infant, the added fussing from servants and the needs of an ailing wife, pissed him off just as much as having to shell out for the medical bills and staff wages. The noise of the crying baby, the coming and going of inadequate domestic help, and with Edith too ill to supervise - in fact, her attempts were seen by George as interfering - got in the way of the reading. His unreasonable unreasonableness is a sign of how self-centred he was - his attitude was that of one who thought of bringing a child into the world should not have been more than a blip on his radar.
Although he does mention the level of suffering his wife endured during childbirth, and he acknowledges that she really wanted to be a mother (presumably she assumed that role would fill her life with the love she missed out on as a wife), his first impressions of his first born were dire. For a start, the child had a conspicuous birthmark on his face:
The baby has a very ugly dark patch over right eye, Don't know the meaning of it.
Now, as we know, George often mulled over the works of the dreaded eugenicists (see Commonplace 101). Perhaps the shock of seeing the fruit of his loins in some way blemished was a shock, and may have caused him some sort of negative reaction based on what he saw as the boy being genetically inferior. After all, his own claim at being 'aristocratic' was based on innate superiority, so having a child who was less than perfect will have been seen by George as... Edith's fault. Obviously she being working class - though her father ran his own business much like George's father, who ran a shop - would carry the taint, never George, the intrinsically superior special one he always considered himself to be.
Did giving birth to a faulty child signal the end of Edith? Though George didn't know her that well - whirlwind courtship (NOT romance!) and nine months together in Exeter making a new life for themselves with George insisting she leave all her family behind. Much to George's dismay, one of Edith's family members turned up cold calling on April 18th 1891 to find out if Edith was still alive and kicking, so long had it been since she had been in touch with her family - hardly secure footings for a lifelong union.
Hopefully, son Walter never read the Diaries and uncovered what his father really thought of him, because at one point, George says the neighbours are scared of him when he is taken out in his pram.
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| A Girl by Ron Mueck 2006 |
George's own childhood was reasonably comfortable, with domestic servants to do the skivvying, a reasonable education, and a typically distant Victorian set of parents. His mother was a fan of child abuse - as in corporal punishment - for transgressions against her rules. Presumably, being headstrong, defiant and ever resentful of constrictions imposed by those he considered his intellectual inferiors, George must have been on the receiving end of that sort of correction. He described himself as being in need of discipline so we can assume he was somewhat indulged and allowed a certain amount of freedom to please himself with his spare time, then beaten when he stepped out of line. You need opportunities to be bad in order to earn punishment, and George saw himself as a natural leader of the gang, but playing out and making friends with the local children was never on the cards. Henry Hick, a childhood friend from Wakefield, once said George and the Gissing children rarely mixed with their peers. It is difficult to see George playing conkers and swapping marbles or chalking a hopscotch court to use with others over a shared bag of bullseyes (the sweet, not the animal organs haha).
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| Minty bullseyes - yum! |
So, when the little nipper with the blemish turned up, his mother exhausted, his father inadequate to the task, he was farmed out (for the first but not the last time) to a family of strangers. Things were different then so maybe it didn't seem so counter-productive to get others to raise your child out in some country backwater instead of in the bosom of its secure loving family. George realised he couldn't cope with two rivals for his time - Edith was suffering post-partum, and Walter was a sickly babe with complex nursing needs. Instead of George stepping up and offering his fatherly services as childminder and chief carer, precious bonding time was wasted both for the parent-child relationship, and for the wife/husband thing. They should have set out in their family adventure as a little group, with their capable leader - George! - at the head of the team.
JOIN ME IN PART TWO TO EXPLORE GEORGE'S PESSIMISM ABOUT CHILDREN - WHOM HE DID NOT SEE AS 'THE FUTURE'.
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