Alcott and the Ideal Parent

Throughout Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, parental figures are often shown in a positive, or, at the very least, well-meaning light. They are framed as both caregivers and advisors for their children, providing them the food and lessons they need. However, the teaching styles adopted by parental figures in the story vary greatly in their methods, lessons, and successes. Alcott shows the effectiveness of the parents’ mentoring styles and their effects through the contrasting styles of Mrs. March and Aunt March.

Mrs. March’s parenting style displays the idea that children often need to learn their lessons for themselves, and that directly moralizing to her children will only be met with resistance. After all, “people want to be amused, not preached at” (Alcott 347). Following this motto, Mrs. March permits her daughters to do various things she disapproves of, knowing that they will learn their lesson once they are done. For example, when the girls decide to take a break from their lessons and chores and relax Mrs. March accepts this, but knowingly states that “you will find that all play, and no work, is as bad as all work, and no play” (109). The girls excitedly begin their experiment but soon find that they are completely bored. Then, to teach them what happens when one shirks their responsibilities, Mrs. March takes a day to rest, later telling them that she “can’t worry about things at home,” leaving them to do the work for the day (113). They start their chores, initially wondering “why servants ever talked about hard work,” before realizing that, in fact, housework is very hard (111). As the chapter ends, the girls talk about how “dreadful” and “uncomfortable” their day has been and Mrs. March tells them that she wanted them to see “how the comfort of all depends on each doing their share faithfully” and what happens when “every one thinks only of herself” (117). By allowing the girls to do their experiment and see how it turns out for themselves, Mrs. March lets them come to their own moral conclusion without forcing it on them.

Mrs. March’s style of parenting contrasts strongly with Aunt March’s style, which is to often force lessons on her grandnieces, to whom she acts as a pseudo-parental figure. Aunt March takes a very ‘my way or the highway’ approach to her lessons and enforces her moral views and desires on the March sisters through threats and bribes. For example, she attempts to get Meg to reject Mr. Brooke’s proposal in order to get her to “marry well,” as that is, in Aunt March’s eye, her “duty” (230). She threatens not to help Meg when she is married to try and make her change her mind, but this enforcement of her will on Meg rouses “the spirit of opposition” and makes Meg willing to reject her lesson (230). Alcott uses the contrast between Mrs. March’s 'learn from the experience' approach to parenting and Aunt March’s stricter parenting to highlight the effectiveness of the former and the ineffectiveness of the latter, showing her view of how the ideal parent should be.