Mitford sisters' world, The

Radical Society, Apr 2002 by Levy, Lisa

III. Mitford Family Values

Though all of the Mitford girls married except Unity, who became a near-vegetable after a suicide attempt at the beginning of World War II, none seem to have made great or devoted mothers (again, with the exception of Debo). Lovell defends Sydney's mothering, which both Decca and Nancy criticized in their writings, scolding them for a "portrayal of her as a dilettante mother leaving the upbringing of her children to nannies," but she admits the older children especially saw little of Muv. Neither biographer nor daughters, though, dispute Muv's fetish for household economy: in addition to the napkins, there were no doctors for the children except in the direst of circumstances, a peculiar diet (like the prejudice against doctors, ideas inherited from her father), and the girls' home schooling. Nancy and Pam had no children, Diana had four in total, two with Guinness and two with Mosley (Diana's children were in Pam's charge during her prison years), and Decca had two daughters with Romilly (one of whom died in infancy) and two sons (one of whom died in an automobile accident) with her second husband, Oakland civil rights attorney Robert Treuhaft. Decca's children, though by no means neglected, were not the first priority for her and Bob: their family was the Party until they left in 1955, and even after that her work took precedence. None of the sisters attempted to recreate with their own children the English country life Lovell so admires. As Debo remembered, "We either laughed so uproariously that it drove the grown-ups mad, or else it was a frightful row which ended in one of us bouncing out of the room in floods of tears, banging the door as loud as possible." As a parent, perhaps neither option seemed very appealing.

As much as they clearly enjoyed each other's company, the Mitford sisters as imparted by Lovell have a definite sense of being birds in a gilded cage. This was especially pronounced once the older sisters, Nancy and Diana, had flown the family coop and Tom had gone off to school. The younger three sisters' secret societies feel like a reaction against being abandoned. Large families like the Mitfords have a paradoxical effect on personality: the children seem to emerge pre-socialized, used to being around others and demanding their share of recognition, yet they also seem needier of this attention than other people. To wit, in one of Nancy's later novels, The Blessing (1951), a spoiled boy with a French father and British mother plots to keep his estranged parents separated since it considerably enriched his circumstances; here and elsewhere, Nancy's fantasy of remaining an only child seems apparent. There's little testimony from the other Mitfords on this point, save Decca, who is said to have remarked once in the schoolroom, "Oliver Twist was so lucky to live in a fascinating orphanage." Furthermore, when a London reporter asked Nancy in 1966 for a comment about sisters, she said, "Sisters stand between one and life's cruel circumstances." Decca, interviewed by the same reporter, was .startled into saying that to me, sisters-and especially Nancy-were life's cruel circumstances, a remark that did not find favor with her when it appeared in print." As the oldest, Nancy was anointed "Queen of the Teasers" by Decca. She certainly had "an uncanny ability to ferret out one's weaknesses," as she instructed the others by example in how to cajole younger siblings and get a laugh to ease the sting of the insult.