Melanie Bettinelli Yes, it sounds like her father had some...
· Comment — Archer T. Ships replied to his own comment. · View on Facebook · Markdown source
Melanie Bettinelli Yes, it sounds like her father had some old-fashioned views about the role of men and women. But he was a child of the 40's and 50's. Do you think landlubbers of a similar background didn't have similar views? Yes, she was expected to work at the family business. Note she doesn't say what her brother was expected to do. Do you think he was just lounging on the deck? He was probably expected to do more physically demanding and more dangerous jobs than she was (like setting/ pulling anchors, untangling lines, rowing the tender, etc). Yes, the quarters were cramped. Space is at a premium on a boat, and you sometimes have to share living quarters. But it's only with the relative wealth following the industrial revolution that families stopped living in a single rooms together, sometimes in the same bed (to conserve warmth, and bed cost). Not going to a formal school doesn't mean she didn't have the opportunity to learn. You think there were no bookstores in the cities they visited? Everything related to math and science curriculum through the end of high school can fit in a single milk crate. I note in the picture of her studying, there is a row of books on the shelf behind her. And it's not like she would get a better education in a typical school. Most kids in government schools sit silently doing busywork while a bored government employee drones at them. They get an hour or so to play. As many homeschoolers discover, kids can learn everything government schools can teach in a small fraction of the time. Her parents probably thought--rightfully so--that they could teach her everything a government schoolteacher could teach her up to age 13. And who paid for the correspondence courses? Do you think they are free? And note when her parents let her and her brother get off the boat and live alone by themselves. (Which I would've been thrilled to do at that age.) Was she grateful? No, she whined about that too.