Holmes and ‘Typical Victorian upbringing’

[mightymads]

Continuing to read The Victorian House: Domestic Life from Childbirth to Deathbed by Judith Flanders. The chapter about nursery touches upon child-rearing, and it’s pointed out that society and, as a consequence, family were adult-oriented, so children were to be out of the way. It seems that a vast distance between the parents and the children was the norm across the classes:

There is no question that, however much the Victorians loved their children, they spoke of them, and thought of them, in a very different way than we have come to expect today. How much was manner, how much representative of actual distance, needs to be considered. For it appears that some parents might have been not merely ignorant of their children’s daily routines and needs, but proud of such ignorance. Initially this might be thought of as a purely upper-class trait, fostered by large numbers of servants, yet it occurred across the social spectrum. Molly Hughes was the child of a London stockbroker who died in a road accident in 1879, at the age of forty, leaving his family perilously near to tipping down into the lower middle class. As a young woman, Molly had to go out to work as a schoolteacher. However, when she was married and able to leave paid employment, she was careful to note in her autobiography that she knew little about children, and relied for information on her servant. [...]

The higher up the social scale, the more open about this distance from their children the parents were. Ursula Bloom’s grandmother, at least in family legend, forgot to take her baby when leaving its grandparents’ in the country: ‘She had never cared too much for children,’ said her granddaughter, perhaps unnecessarily. Those lower down the ladder reflected the same views in smaller ways. Georgiana Burne-Jones, the wife of the then-struggling Pre-Raphaelite painter Edward Burne-Jones, referred to their first child as ‘the small stranger within our gates’.

It very much coincides with Jeremy Brett’s headcanon about the way Holmes was raised:

He was tied very tight as a child in the cot—as they used to do in those days to keep them quiet. Children were seen but not heard—especially in the Holmes household, which I’ve always placed in my mind in Cornwall... very remote. A bleak house. Never knew his father at all until he was 21. Saw him but never spoke to him. [...] They were kissed by their mother on her way down to dinner, but that’s all. Isolation from a very early age. Typical Victorian upbringing.

But let’s consider for a moment an idea that the Holmes household was not a conventional one. Given that both Mycroft and Sherlock defied convention, this trait might easily come from the family. What if, contrary to the contemporary norm, their parents were greatly involved in Mycroft’s and Sherlock’s upbringing and saw to development of their talents from an early age? Having such a different background from their peers, no wonder both brothers felt isolated afterwards. My personal headcanon is that the Holmes brothers were close with their parents but orphaned while still children.

In March there was a discussion of Holmes’s education, and colebaltblue shared the following view which I absolutely agree with:

I have immense respect for Jeremy Brett's interpretation of Holmes. Immense, so I'm just going to set that aside and think of it as Jeremy Brett's interpretation of Holmes that informed his portrayal of the character. [...] However, I take exception to the thought that Holmes's character was shaped by such negative experiences as Brett describes. Holmes is bright and full of light - kind and energetic and excitable and thoughtful. Holmes's eccentricities were part of his deep core values - they were fundamental to who he was as a person and he embraced them with only apologies to those who were unjustly harmed by them. I think he formed these early and strongly in his life and made no apologies for who he was. I also don't think that this is possible without having people in your life that love, support, and believe in you. And not just one either.

Comments

[laurajv]

I wonder if there's a third option. I think, often, of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "The Children's Hour": https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44628/the-childrens-hour-56d223ca55069

HWL is American, but some of the same practices were in place. The poem has always seemed to imply that he spends ONLY that time with his children -- a short piece each evening -- but it's also full of such affection and care that it doesn't also imply a distant relationship.

[mightymads]

Considering that fathers were often virtually absent from their children’s rearing, this children’s hour could be exactly the case of the Holmes father, who was most probably busy managing the estate but devoted some time in the evenings to his sons. The book by Judith Flanders mentioned mothers who, contrary to the convention, were actively present in their children’s lives, feeding them, washing them, playing with them—i.e. doing the things a nanny or maid was supposed to do. It was frowned upon. Perhaps the Holmes mother was one of those unconventional mothers :)

[laurajv]

It's entirely possible! We know so little about them, except for their warm (but not intensively-maintained) canon relationship and their rather unsociable approach to convention. It'd be fun to see 24238 versions in fic, for sure......

[mightymads]

Oh yes!

[orchid314]

I tend to subscribe to the Jeremy Brett view, but I'll read any well-written depiction of Holmes's childhood.

Are there any fics that reference this period in his life that you particularly recommend? Even if it's not the main subject of the story?

[mightymads]

I haven’t read any so far, so I’m with you asking for recs. I plan to write one sometime, but I don’t know when it’s going to happen :)

[orchid314]

Oh, I'm looking forward to reading your story when it's read.

This post caught my eye because the fic I'm working on will have a few references to Holmes's childhood. But I shouldn't even mention this, because I'm afraid the Muse will jinx me for getting ahead of myself. :)

[mightymads]

Looking forward to your story too! And good luck :)

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

I love Flanders book. It's my go-to reference (because it's comprehensive and readily available at my library) for Mrs. Hudson's kitchen and the 221b bathroom.

[mightymads]

Yes, it’s very informative. There’s another one by Judith Flanders on my reading list, The Invention of Murder: How the Victorians Revelled in Death and Detection and Created Modern Crime. There seems to be a lot of details about crime investigations and people’s fascination with gory things to the extent that there were excursions to murder scenes.

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

I've read that! Not as interesting as I hoped, but still lively in bits. I could not get through The Victorian City. It was too dense. I even tried her fiction but nah. But I still go back to the The Victorian House.