Elizabeth Barett Browning and Robert Browning had one son, Pen in Italy. Pen was the light of Elizabeth's life. She spoiled him outrageously. He was schooled at home by Elizabeth and Robert. While not interested in clothes herself, she bought elaborate expensive outfits for the boy. Elizabeth had very definite ideas about raising children and those ideas were an integral part of her ideas on feminism and women's rights. She saw men and women as equal and saw no need for distinctly femine and masculine clothes, especially for children. Robert did not agree with her on much of this, particularly when it concerned Pen. Elizabeth was kept in dresses with the same flair as her romantic poetry even at 9 years of age and at 11 wore a tunic with lacey pantalettes. Until Elizabeth's untimely death, Pen wore long carefully curled hair. Pen did not object as a younger boy, enjoying the attention and compliments from his mother's friends. As an older boy he began to object, but with little success in the face of his strong opinioned mother who had very definite ideas on the subject.

Robert Wiedeman--Pen--Arrives

A baby boy

The Brownings while in Italy had a son Robert Wiedeman Barrett Browning, who she called "Pen". The boy was born March 9, 1849. Bearing a son put no stop to her enterprise. She writes in 1850,

As for poetry, I hope to do better things in it yet, though I have a child to Ôstand in my sunshine,' as you suppose he must; but he only makes the sunbeams brighter with his curls, little darling.

Motherhood

Pen was the delight of her life. She devoted her self to his upbringing. That first year Elizabeth was engrossed in her baby, although never to the point of neglecting Robert. Her letters, once full of Flush's [who is Flush?] antics, were now full of Pen's. At 6 months she reported he had to be restrained from walking and that his grip and attempts to stand up were prodigious.

The New Parents

Elizabeth's ideas on child raising

Already, she was putting into effect theories about the upbringing of children which she had held since brothers Sette and Occy were born. She had very definite ideas on how children should be dressed. She had always thought it nonsense, for example, that at a set age boys should be suddenly shorn of their curls and put into supposedly "masculine" attire. But she had no desire to make her son girlish, nor was she trying to pretend he was a girl because she wanted one (as people have alleged ever since). Some hundred years ahead of her time, she was rejecting accepted concepts of what was feminine and what was masculine. She also had other unconventional ideas on the upbringing of children, such as her belief in freedom of movement.

Disagreeents about Pen

Elizabeth and Robert discussed their son's upbringing at great length. They did not always agree, in fact they often disagreed. Many Victorian husbands would have simply put their foot down and insisted on their point of view. Others Victorian husbands did not take an interest and left it to their wives. Robert had strong opinions, but could not bear to make Elizabeth unhappy by insisting on his point of view. Thus it was Elizabeth who determined how Pen was raised. While Ribert did not insist on his opinion, he did try to convince Elizabeth. There were frequent, often heated discussions on the subject of Pen's upbringing.

Freedom

Elizabeth was determined that Pen as a baby should have freedom of movement. She did not want his to be restru=icted or confined. She would place him on the floor or ground and be delighted by his movement. Robert thought them too "boisterous". On one occassion Pen just a baby banged his head. He chided Elizabeth, "really Ba I can't trust you". Elizabeth did not take it seriously, laughed, and insited that babies' heads were not constructed of "Venetian glass." The subject took on grater importance as Pen learned to walk. Soon he was everywhere. Elizabeth in contrast to the prevailing custom did not want to exile him to the nursery. She was determined to involve Pen in the family's social life. Here he and Robert also disagreed. Elizabeth wrote to Henrietta on some detail about this. Robert apparently objected in particular to beinging Pen with them when they visited friends. She told Herietta that she thought this absued as was "in revolt". She saw Pen as "a fairy King of a child - and is intended to be looked at accordingly"! To a degree Elizabeth could have these opinions because of her maid Wilson that she had brought with her from Whimpole Street. When ever she needed a break from Penn or wanted some qyiet time, she simply handed him over to Wilson. Here Penndid not mind because he was very closed to Wilson who had cared for him from the very beginning.

Language

Another area of disagreement was language. They had different opinions about what language they should speak to Pen. Elizabeth decided to use Italian to him as they were in Italy. She concluded it confusing for Pen to learn two languages all at once. Robert had a very different opinion about this. Robert was a romantiv poet, he also was a very proud Englishman. He thought it essential that Pen learn English as his primary language. Language became quite an interesting matter as Pen got older. His confused English and Italian was further complicated when the family moved to france. On outings, heads would turn when Pen would speak. The effect was further complicatedby a mild lisp. After arriving in England, there were disapproving comments. Elizabeth made not ereal attem to help sort out Pen's languge. She may even have encoraged him because she found it charming how Pen attempted to deal with the three lnguges. She also noted that Pen refused to use pronouns, something that she also did for some reason at his age. She loved to puzzle out what Pen said and her letters were full of what she considered amusing incidemts.

Elizabeth endulges Pen

Elizabeth endulged Pen in a way that was uncommon in Victorian England. She adored more every day and Robert had to ask her to try not to be so "offensive maternal". She spoiled her son shamelessly, and acknowledged she did but even then queried what so called "spoiling" meant. She would admit only that Pen lacked discipline, and she commented to Miss Mitford that the root of this lay in her fear and Robert's of being the unpopular one.~ "Robert and I contend who shall NOT cross him in any of his wishes." Yet, so far as she could judge, this did Pen little harm. He had a "sweet sunshiney temper", and was a delight to play with.

The idea of spoiling Pen was of no real concern to the adoring mother. The only doubt in Elizabeth's mind about the licence she allowed Pen remained over the tricky question of permitted excitements. She had to admit that there was growing evidence that Robert and Wilson were right: Pen did get over-excited and then became ill. When they moved to Paris, the sounds of the city, from his mother's alarmed description, seemed to cause a series of slight fits. As a consequence, Elizabeth conceded that perhaps Pen should lead a quiet life, a little more like that of the conventional child's (though only a little) and keep more suitable hours. Wilson was relieved. She had long believed Pen would profit from a more mundane and stable routine.

Robert and fatherhood

Robert while chiding Elizabeth gently for being so consumed with motherhood, took delight in his new role as a father. Elizabeth wrote to her sister Henrietta once that "Robert spent the whole of last Sunday morning between breakfast and church time in learning to spin a top". She herself stood and watched him desperately trying to get it to work, saying he considered it his "religious duty" to make it do so. The sheer fun they had buying toys and then playing with them speaks for itself about how obsessed both of them were with parenthood.
<

References

Forster, Margaret. Elizabeth Barrett Browning: A Biography (Doubleday: New York, 1989), 400p.

Navigate the Boys' Historical Clothing Web Site:
[Introduction] [Activities] [Biographies] [Chronology] [Cloth and textiles] [Clothing styles] [Countries] [Topics]
[Bibliographies] [Contributions] [FAQs] [Glossaries] [Satellite sites] [Tools]
[Boys' Clothing Home]

Created: September 8, 1998
Last updated: September 10 1998