While getting ready to write this piece, I couldn’t decide what sort of mother to write about. In urban fantasy, which I read a lot (read: way too much of), I couldn’t recall much of a presence of mothers in the titles I’ve read. Kelly Gay’s Charlie Madigan came to mind, of course – she’s a divorced mother of one battling the bad guys and focusing on bringing up her kid. Then there’s Edie Spence, the heroine of Cassie Alexander’s series. In Deadshifted, Edie discovers she’s pregnant and a whole new direction for the series comes about. I couldn’t recall any other, unfortunately.
But, of all the mothers and the reading I’ve done, Mrs Bennet, of Pride and Prejudice still stands tall and stays strong in my memory.
Now, an undetermined amount of years later, Mrs Bennet, I realise, is every mother. She is highly-strung, yes, and her intense determination to marry off her daughters would drive any daughter reading Pride and Prejudice crazy.
Our mothers are products of their generations in which they were brought up, much like Mrs Bennet – my mother was married at 22, and to her first boyfriend, my father. If only everyone could be as lucky, myself included! Like Mrs Bennet, for my mother security comes with marriage for her daughters. As much as I disagree with this loudly, vehemently and often with her, I have to admit this: if my daughter at age 22 came to me and said she wanted to marry her first boyfriend, she and I would loudly, vehemently and often argue about whether she was ready to make a decision at that age.
Mrs Bennet for all her scheming and marriage-talk is dealing with the reality of her time – she has daughters who have no choice but to marry well for they cannot support themselves otherwise. Her husband, while by all appearances the one with the brains in the marriage, failed to put enough aside to take care of his daughters.
It took me far too long to realise that Mrs Bennet wasn’t as bad a mother as I thought she was. I feel a reread of Pride and Prejudice coming up! And when my kid comes to me telling me she wants to marry her first boyfriend, I hope more than anything I can be as open-minded and supportive as my mother has been with me and my sisters.