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So my deep love and mild obsession with Haunting of Hill House means I spend time hanging out on message boards and such and one of the things that struck me about reactions to the show were people who felt that Olivia was always a bad mother, etc....It's something I really struggled with until someone mentioned that Olivia was never shown to play with the Crain kids as if it was a mark against her. This struck me as odd because until Olivia lost it her approach to parenting reminded me of my own moher, whom I adore and think is one of the best mothers to ever mother and is the reason that as a writer I will probably never delve into the bad moms trope.
I personally felt like Olivia had a great approach to mothering. She fostered independence, individual thinking and self reflection in her kids and provided IMHO a loving background that made the kids seem confident and well adjusted until they encoutner Hill House. Steve the oldest is a good example of the types of parents Olivia and Hugh are. When the Crains move into Hill House Steve is confident and well read, patient and considerate with the younger kids and happy to look out for them and spend time with them.
She was also attentative to her children and their different personalities recognizing that Theo was attracted to women rather than men and that Shirley always needed her own space, etc....
It dawned on me though that similar comments were made about the relatively absent parents in Stranger Things. Now the Stranger Things Parents are almost like the parents in Charlie Brown a pair legs with nonesense voices unless or until the story calls for it.When that came up many people brought up the fact that that's how parenting was in the 80's and even the early 90's kids were kinda free to roam with their friend with little parental interference. And that of course was my experience as well. Weekends, summer, evenings, I was outside playing until my parents called me in.
Things are very different now in terms of parental involvement, kids not going outside to play, children having a lot of their time structured, etc...I wonder if this simple generational difference is a big contributor to the idea of Olivia always being evil. 80's and early 90's kids seeing her as a warm loving mother able to set clear boundaries and nurture her children's individual identities as spirits. Kids born in the late 90's and the early part of the millenium percieve her as distant, uninvolved and self-absorbed therefore always bad and her desire to protect the children as false or dishonest.
.
I personally felt like Olivia had a great approach to mothering. She fostered independence, individual thinking and self reflection in her kids and provided IMHO a loving background that made the kids seem confident and well adjusted until they encoutner Hill House. Steve the oldest is a good example of the types of parents Olivia and Hugh are. When the Crains move into Hill House Steve is confident and well read, patient and considerate with the younger kids and happy to look out for them and spend time with them.
She was also attentative to her children and their different personalities recognizing that Theo was attracted to women rather than men and that Shirley always needed her own space, etc....
It dawned on me though that similar comments were made about the relatively absent parents in Stranger Things. Now the Stranger Things Parents are almost like the parents in Charlie Brown a pair legs with nonesense voices unless or until the story calls for it.When that came up many people brought up the fact that that's how parenting was in the 80's and even the early 90's kids were kinda free to roam with their friend with little parental interference. And that of course was my experience as well. Weekends, summer, evenings, I was outside playing until my parents called me in.
Things are very different now in terms of parental involvement, kids not going outside to play, children having a lot of their time structured, etc...I wonder if this simple generational difference is a big contributor to the idea of Olivia always being evil. 80's and early 90's kids seeing her as a warm loving mother able to set clear boundaries and nurture her children's individual identities as spirits. Kids born in the late 90's and the early part of the millenium percieve her as distant, uninvolved and self-absorbed therefore always bad and her desire to protect the children as false or dishonest.
.
