Ritchie’s efforts to reintegrate at school were quickly undermined by his well-meaning but overprotective mother. Elsie, who “doted on him and was very lenient” to begin with, allowed him to sit out the rest of the year which put him so far behind in his academic development that it became impossible for him to catch up.
Bob Spitz in The Beatles: The Biography
Fucking Hell. One of the things that I just will never get over in all the beatles books is the male writers just judging the women who mothered beatles. They do it shamelessly, and I'd love to think it's changing, but it won't change. You can watch and the words will change, and the judgement will still be there behind it all. Because judgement of mothering is some of the most pernicious misogyny there is. Look at that. How fucking patronising do you have to be to write that? Well-meaning, what a wanker. Overprotective! Her son just spent nearly a YEAR in a hospital bed. He's shy and small and one of the youngest in his class. He's been through something truly traumatic and he's EIGHT YEARS OLD and she didn't send him back to school for like the last two months of a school year he's missed out on????? But yes, we can definitely be sure it wasn't the months in hospital that put him behind, it was just Elsie being soft and 'well-meaning'. I hate men.
That attitude runs through the whole chapter - I've not read the rest of the book, but if he's anything like other beatle authors then other beatle mothers will get the same treatment.
Soft soft women ruining their sons by loving them too much (elsie) or not enough (mimi) or by abandoning them (julia) or stealing them (mimi) by wanting them to do well (mary) or not pushing them hard enough (elsie), by wanting children too much (elsie) or not enough (julia) or by being too strict (mimi) or too lenient (elsie) or by the MILLION AND TEN OTHER THINGS that women will do wrong in raising children because of their weak emotional hearts.
