Parenting In Margaret Atwood's The Wind And The Willows

Through out the book The Wind and The Willows, we see how different kinds of parents from the nineteenth century took care of their children, in a different way than how we would in today's world. Many of the children that we see in this book are disobedient, spoiled, and throw fits to get what they want. These children did not have parents that wanted to be around them, and because of that it affected the children negativity. One child in the book, has a mother that loves him, takes care of him, and makes sure he is out on the Moor playing. While the children all go outside together they start to change. They become less mean, and they start to care about others, more than themselves. Mary was a spoiled, disobedient child that always got

His mother loved him very much, and even though she had many children. His mother made sure that he will well fed, and was out playing on the Moor. Since being outside was good for the children, Dickon would play in the Moor everyday with his animals. Dickon was like a God to Mary and Colin because was able to talk to the animals and he knew so much about gardening. Mary would run to help Dickon in the secret garden everyday. Towards the end of the book, Dickon's mother Mrs. Sowerby comes and sees the garden, and all the children agree they can let her in on the secret of it, because she is trustworthy. Both Mary and Colin look up to the mother. Mrs. Sowerby meets both Colin and Mary and once talks with them she 'adopts' them as her own. She talks with both of them like they are her own children and that is something that both Mary and Colin needed, a mother. “Colin walked on one side of her and Mary on the other. Each of them kept looking up at her comfortable rosy face, secretly cautious about the delightful feeling she gave them- a sort of warm, supported feeling. It seemed as if she understood them as Dickon understood his 'creatures'” (205-206). Since both their mother's had died, Colin only had his father who wouldn't look at him, and Mary did not have anyone. She is nurturing and loving which is what any child needs, and she was able to give that to Dickon and her many other children, which is why her