How Louisa May Alcott’s Mother Encouraged Her Early Writing / Gardner McFall

Every daughter intimately knows the abiding power of her mother. She thrives on her praise, and can wither under her censoring eye. Nancy Friday has written in My Mother/Myself: The Daughter’s Search for Identity: “My mother . . . was my first and most lasting model . . . whatever else happens to us in relationships to father, peers, teachers—the tie to the mother is the one constant, a kind of lens through which all that follows is seen.” Born to Dorothy Sewell May and Colonel Joseph May, Abigail May Alcott—known as “Abby” or “Abba” to her husband and brother and “Marmee” to her four daughters—grew up in a liberal, aristocratic Boston family that valued moral virtue and education. According to Sanford Salyer’s early biography of Abigail May Alcott (Marmee: The Mother of Little Women), her own mother was “a power behind the scenes, a gentle, pervading influence. She knew how to get inside the minds of her children, studied their failings and possibilities, and guided them with a calm wisdom.” Two of Abba’s favorite maxims were: “Love your duty and you will be happy” and “Hope, and Keep busy,” an instruction she tucked in Louisa’s journal in 1845 and which the March sisters adopt as their motto in a moment of family crisis in Little Women. ... [mehr]  https://lithub.com/how-louisa-may-alcotts-mother-encouraged-her-early-writing/

Louisa May Alcott und ihre Mutter