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Showing results for tags 'little house on the prarie'.
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I was reading a book documenting the real Laura Ingalls experience. I was aware on some level of the poverty the Ingalls endured but it still surprised me to read about the real Laura Ingalls Wilder. I think the Little House series is how fundies (and many social conservatives) view our past. That was how people "used" to live....wholesome family, helpful neighbors, brave Christian small farmers/businessmen working without gov't assistance to eek out a successful life. The reality is how I always thought about our past. Laura Ingalls led a life of deprivation well into adulthood. Growing up, her family moved multiple times, including once when they fled under the cover of darkness leaving a boatload of debt (tsk tsk Pa Ingalls). It appears that Pa Ingalls also purposely settled (illegally) into Indian Territory, probably hoping that the gov't will eventually force the Indians out giving them the land. That actually upset me as it reminds me of the illegal Jewish settlers who encroach on disputed territory. The family continued to suffer multiple crop failures before Pa took a job running a hotel. That was a period in her life she glossed over because it was such a dark time for the family. Laura was deprived of the happy homelife she paints in her books....there was just a tired Ma and an unavailable Pa and nonexistent Christmas and the death of her brother. Laura's detailed description of food in her books was because moments of abundant food stood out for her. In adult hood, Laura and her husband endured crop failures, illness and financial poverty. Rose Wilder remembered her mother putting on a brave face as their family faced poverty after her husband's health was destroyed by diphtheria. So it seems the good ol' days were times when people lived in abject poverty, where hard work did not mean prosperity, where a husband's illness could financially ruin a family. How interesting that fundies still hold up the 19th century as the pinnacle of societal perfection and moral value? That was a time when children died, sick husbands leave families destitute, and hard work only provides more debt. The government didn't offer the much aid but I bet those desperate families could have liked to ensure their children were fed every night. It makes me wonder how anyone could gloss over so much of this and want to go back to those days?