Little House on the Prairie shaped my love of Family Drama!
Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Salutations, bibliophiles!
Today, I’m very excited to bring you
.Rebecca writes
, where she discusses the things she’s watching, reading and wearing, as she looks for the mystery in the mundane each week.Here, Rebecca brings that observance to the book that made her — Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Enjoy!
It occurred to me that my love of family drama might have been born when I was 9 reading Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Oh, how I loved the series. The trials and tribulations of the Ingalls family. How tight they were. Pa, Ma, Laura, Mary and baby Carrie. How exciting it was to watch their new house on the prairie take shape. Pa didn’t even need nails! (I'm sure it impacted my penchant for a minimalist style—Scandinavian chic anyone?)
I also loved how they tackled obstacles. Often, Charles had to go solve a “big” problem out on the plains, leaving the family to pace the homestead and navigate their own dynamics. Would he come back? Would he save the cattle? And in the meantime, what would happen between Laura and Mary? Someone had pulled the head off the doll in anger and needed to take responsibility. Ahem, Laura. Not to mention the Christmas meal. Would they have all the trimmings? (Am I getting confused with Little Women now?)
In general, the chapters that followed Charles though negotiating the price of cattle alone with another man were less interesting. I instinctively recoiled from the male hero story line. I wanted the dynamics in the kitchen. The women engaged in their domestic duties—making jam, bread—but chatting the whole way through. Usually solving the ways of the world as they went.
The dynamics of mealtimes were also a favourite, where everyone would reunite and debrief their days. I'm sure it’s the reason I love dinner scenes even today. Families sitting around the dinner table being forced to talk (Young Sheldon) or better yet stuck in a wagon! Or car (Little Miss Sunshine). How much story comes out when you’re not facing the same direction and don’t have to look each other in the eyes?
It’s not that the Ingalls were saying that much in those mealtime events. There wasn’t a dramatic revelation every dinner, but the events still evoked in me the suggestion of a family that could navigate conflict. Life was hard on the prairie, but they kept coming together and figuring it out.
I remember an acutely painful birthday dinner in my own childhood where my dad had failed to get a thoughtful present for my mom. We hurried to the mall to make it up to her. We needed to make our family right before dinner. When I look back on that moment, I note my personal takeaway: it was a terribly messy birthday dinner, but we still came to the table.
That's what I learned from the Ingalls: loving dysfuction.
I’m writing a movie right now—about a family on a road trip. The lead is a mycologist who has to return to her family home to save her career after a dalliance with a student. A Laura Ingalls type. The Laura who might have been if she were born in 2024 to a narcissistic Charles. She is spontaneous, foibled (like Laura) and can’t keep her mouth shut. She leans into terrible choices, a little too focused on her own success. The brother in my story is my version of Mary Ingalls. The older sister. The measured one. Then there's my mother character--à la Caroline. With an interior life that she does not reveal until the end. See how they make the perfect dysfunctional family? Which is all family.
At the core of this trope is a family that stays together. They will always return to the dinner table no matter how far they wander out into the plains. Yes, perhaps this dream is also a shackle. Sometimes one needs to escape one’s family. But not in the worldview I imbibed from Little House on the Prairie. Family is something that sticks.
Zadie Smith writes: “I do think every family home is an emotionally violent place, full of suppressed rage, struck through with profound individual disappointments. It’s in the nature of the beast that no one gets out of a family unit whole or with everything they want.” It’s a beast all right, but the Ingalls showed us one possible way through the familial experience.
Can you picture them together? Out for a family walk with the cattle. The sun is setting and the sky is pink. Maybe Laura starts a game of tag. Charles evades. So does Caroline until she falls into the grass laughing (I hope there are no ticks). When she gets back up a breeze sweeps across the prairie blowing everyone's dresses delightfully high. Baby Carrie screams: “I love you, wind,” but really what she’s screaming for...is the arms of her family.
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Can't wait to read it with my daughter.
I also loved this series as a child and appreciate the emphasis the stories have on family mealtime conversations. It's also the series that taught me the meaning of supper vs. dinner. Funny the things that stick with you from books!