A Therapist's Perspective on Little House on the Prairie

Family Friday

My kids and I love reading together, and our shared books have included current hits like the Harry Potter series, as well as books from earlier decades.  I am finding, however, that many of my childhood favorites sound startlingly different through adult ears.

For instance, we are about halfway through the Little House on the Prairie books by Laura Ingalls Wilder.  This semi-autobiographical but fictionalized series focuses on the adventures of a bright and observant young girl (Laura) and her pioneer family (Ma, Pa, and sisters) out West during the late 1800s.  (And no, I am not referring to the weepy television melodrama starring Michael Landon and his perm - any resemblance between the television and book series is strictly coincidental).  Despite my general anti-censorship stance, I find myself tempted to edit some of the passages as I read them out loud.

I certainly hadn't remembered this, but the first book, Little House in the Big Woods, provides some rather excruciating detail regarding what exactly is done to pigs, cows, and bears when turning them into meat.  For a few minutes, I felt like I'd inadvertently switched on a horror movie.  I plowed on though, reading the passages as written, and surprisingly, the kids didn't react much.

The next book, Little House on the Prairie, centers on the family's interactions with Native Americans in the "Indian Territory" that was to become Kansas.  I winced whenever Ma popped out comments like "The only good Indian is a dead Indian."  Again, I read the lines as written, but tried to use the opportunity to promote discussion.  

My son then said that Ma is really stupid.  But I pointed out that people are often frightened by the unfamiliar, and they react to this fear by showing prejudice.  Ma never knew any Native Americans and had heard only negative stories about them.  Our protagonist Laura, however, notes that the family has encountered friendly Native Americans who have helped them.  Despite Ma's disapproval, Laura is interested in them and feels sad when the government ultimately drives out the local tribes.

My kids have noted how different their modern lives are from the lives of kids from 150 years ago.   In fact, I've heard that Wilder wrote the books to document how much and how quickly society changed.  My kids have bristled at the frequently-mentioned old-fashioned "children should be seen and not heard at the dinner table" rule.  (Given the extreme verbosity of all of our children, my husband and I have often fantasized about imposing this).

What strikes my adult self most about the series, however, is something much more difficult to simply edit out.  A pervasive theme throughout is Laura's seemingly constant feelings of shame and guilt, which result not so much from her behavior, but from her thoughts and feelings.  Feeling jealous of her sister’s pretty hair, or wishing she could play outside instead of sitting and reading the Bible, or fantasizing about being a Native American: all of these scenarios seem to prompt a copious amount of guilt.  And when Laura has an opinion that conflicts with her parents', she keeps it to herself, yet still feels guilty about "contradicting" them inside her own head.

Particularly baffling to my kids is the complete moral injunction on crying.  Very typical throughout the series are phrases like "Laura knew it was shameful to cry, so she didn't, but she continued to feel very wicked inside…" or "Even Carrie, at only three years old, knew crying was shameful."  In contrast, my five-year-old daughter bursts into tears when one of her kindergarten boyfriends refuses to push her on the tire swing.  How long would she have lasted in the wilderness?

And some bad stuff happened to these folks.  Grasshoppers eat the entire harvest; the whole family almost dies of malaria; Ma's foot gets crushed by a log (while building her own house); one sister goes blind…yet no one is supposed to cry or complain.

Keep in mind that such stoicism was likely highly adaptive for this time and place.  If you didn't shake it off and pull yourself up, you would die.  And if you whined too much, your neighbors might be less inclined to rescue you from a wolf or bear attack, or check on you when you were sick.

(Oddly, one of the ironies of the Little House television show was that the characters did little but cry – and Michael Landon's Pa cried more than anyone!  When nineteenth-century pioneer stoicism met 1970s let-it-all-hang-out Hollywood, the results were pretty bizarre).

Just as with prejudice, the Little House series has prompted discussion with my kids about the appropriateness of crying and other displays of emotion.  My daughter has started to realize, at least in part through our discussions, that her waterworks are not getting her anywhere.  She herself brought up that one of her boyfriends leveled with her recently, telling her that nobody likes her anymore due to all her whining and crying.

I believe that the truth lies (as it does for so many, many things) somewhere in the middle between the extreme stoicism displayed in the book series, and my daughter's frequent hysterics and Michael Landon's Technicolor emoting.  Tears do serve a legitimate physiological purpose – they can literally flush out toxins and make it easier to cope with life, which is far preferable to keeping negative feelings bottled up.  The trick is to figure out where and when crying is appropriate.

One related point: as both a therapist and parent, I want to emphasize that shame and guilt can play a role in your children's development, but should relate only to their actions, not their thoughts or feelings.  Therefore, children should never be told, "Don't you feel bad for wanting this?" or "Aren't you ashamed that you got so upset?"  Instead, focus on what children choose to do with those feelings.

By Jenny Douglas Vidas

Comments

[Sarah]

Very interesting! There are similar themes of guilt about feelings and imagined bad behavior in Lewis Carroll's diaries (c. 1860 to 1895 or so). At one point these were thought to be possible "proof" that LC really was a pedophile. :-( However, several LC scholars have pointed out that this "praying for forgiveness" theme in diaries and letters was extremely common for the time period across all social classes. So it must have been an aspect of the Anglo-Christian culture, as well as a survival tactic.

[Katherine]

What an interesting perspective - it shows us how much times have changed that it used to be guilt-inducing to think bad things and now people feel free to act out the worst human impulses without any shame whatsoever. As you say, when it doubt, use it as a teachable moment!

[Lyn]

"“I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on the frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond words. When I was a boy, we were taught to be discrete and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly wise and impatient of restraint.”" - attributed to Hesiod, 8th century.

[Walnut Grove]

Therapist-

Please do send us your bill when you discern that fine line between Stoicism and your own child's tantrums.