seems to view
motherhood as though it is a kind of game. She is constantly playing with her kids, but we
rarely see her doing any serious child-rearing or disciplining. The kids seem to spend more time
with their nursemaid than they do with their mother. When the nurse, Anna, returns from outdoors
with the children, Nora says:
Did you have a game of
snowballs? Oh, I wish I'd been there. No; leave them, Anna; I'll take their things off. Oh, yes,
let me do it; it's such fun.
She wishes she'd been there
for their gamea snowball fight. Then, when the nurse goes to take the kids away to remove their
wet things, Nora says that she thinks it is fun to help them take off their clothes.
In other words, she likes to dress and undress them as one might dress and undress
one's dolls. She calls her youngest child, a girl, her "sweet little dolly." Nora even
expresses her wish to her friend, Christine Linde, about being free to "be able to play and
romp about with the children." She does not seem to think of them as actual people but as
playthings. She plays hide and seek with them, calling them "dear little dolly
children," even hiding under the table herself.
Motherhood is a series
of delightful interludes for hera fun gameat least untiltells her how mothers can morally poison
their home and kids.
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