Dickensian parenting

Charles Dickens was a weird sort of chap. According to his new biography he was quite unhappily married to Catherine, whom he blamed for burdening him with 10 children. He had OCD which lent itself well to some rather peculiar ideas on parenting. He would inspect his children’s bedrooms each morning and leave formal letters to show his dissatisfaction at the God awful mess.
Although we have a mere three children, they make the noise and the mess of triple that number. Since nothing else gets through to them, I thought I’d have the husband try a Dickensian approach with them – obviously without the outside toilet and bleak weather.
This letter was written by candlelight on parchment and left pinned to their door.

Sirs,
On inspection of your quarters I find a number of glaring irregularities, which I must insist you address forthwith. I implore you to take a reasonable degree of pride in the appearance of yourself, your rooms, your home and your gardens as I, along with your long-suffering, even-tempered mother, am weary from talking to myself. My meaning is – maintain the following rules or your elderly, eccentric Aunt Jemima could be acquiring herself two new small but noisy tenants.

The expression, sirs, of your artistic abilities should be at all times confined to paper. Walls, doors, windows, faces and canines do not a fine canvas make. Desist with this behaviour immediately.

I shall continue to maintain that you gentlemen have an abundance of fine leisure equipment for which to pass the time. There is scant need to excavate the garden. I urge you both to steer carefully off this path of destruction. Poor Mrs Pickwick needed a large dose of Dr Foster’s sedating tonic after falling waist deep into a muddy hole while admiring the Rhododendrons. This behaviour will not serve.

There can be no good reason to place the bodies of recently deceased insects under the pillows or in the teacups of your kind and gentle mother. On more than one occasion your actions caused her to scream aloud, use unladylike language and exhibit many afflicting symptoms and expressions of terror and distress – most unattractive in a lady I find.

I find the volume of your collective voices most unnerving and much reminiscent of a ship’s fog warning horn. I must insist that you speak more gentlemanly whilst in company and desist from using language more fitting to a gutter-mouthed dockhand. I must also ask that you refrain from shouting the chorus of Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ persistently and educate yourself on the remaining lyrics so as not to drive us to distraction.

I hope this correspondence finds you both in good health

Your Father