Parenting In Pride And Prejudice By Jane Austen

In the novel, Pride and Prejudice, written by Jane Austen, the Bennet's are a large family of mostly girls. The family includes: Mr. and Mrs. Bennet, Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, Kitty, and Lydia. With five girls preparing to marry, I think the Bennet's parenting skills are not the best and have plenty room for improvement. Although I find Mr. Bennet the more favorable parent, he has some issues with parenting skills as well as Mrs. Bennet. For example, when Lydia leaves for Brighton with Mr. Wickham he does not wish to be bothered with complaints about it. Mr. Bennet is a man who fully indulges in books and does not want to deal with life. Anytime anything frantic tends to come up, usually involving Mrs. Bennet, he locks himself into his library. Out of the five girls, Mr. Bennet tends to favor Elizabeth and Jane and has fully given up on Kitty and Lydia.
Bennet assumed that he would eventually be blessed with a baby boy, when he ended up having five girls he lost all hope. So, because he does not have a son that he can leave his fortune to, Mrs. Bennet is continuously nagging about how their daughters need to get married. The Bennet's estate was to be left to Mr. Collins and when Mr. Collins proposes to Elizabeth, Mrs. Bennet becomes over-active. The whole situation causes Lizzy to run out of their home after being forced to stay with Mr. Collins by her mother. Mr. Bennet shows a more attractive side to the Pride and Prejudice readers by saying, “From this day you must be a stranger to one of your parents. -- Your mother will never see you again if you do not marry Mr. Collins, and I will never see you again if you do" (Austen