After reading The Awakening by Kate Chopin, I was left to wonder about many things, was Edna a good mother, was Edna a good wife, did Edna truly act like a child and many more. The main one I kept thinking about was, was Edna a good mother to Etienne and Raoul? Throughout the book in our class discussions there was a lot of back and forth about this question, she seems like she only cares for herself and neglects them, or she seems like she cares a lot about them but wants them to grow up and be their own person.
I believe that Edna was a good mother, multiple times in the book she is seen taking care of her kids and doing things to help them. An example of this is when Edna comes home and Etienne hasn’t been able to sleep or calm down so she picks him up and consoles him till he is sleeping, another example is when her kids are playing in the sun and she moves them to the shade and gets upset with the maid for letting them in the sun for so long. At the end of the book when she is trying to make all of her final decisions she kept repeating to herself “To-day it is Arobin; to-morrow it will be someone else, it makes no difference to me, it doesn’t matter about Leonce Pontellier—but Raoul and Etienne!” (p.136). I don’t think that Edna didn’t want her kids or marriage, she didn’t want the sexist norms or that life, she did love and care for her children but she also wanted her own freedom and to be able to live her own life how she wanted.
In conclusion, I do believe that Edna is a good mother and always had been, she took care of both of her kids all the time she just wasn’t coddling towards them, she was letting them be independent because she wanted her own independent life. She always thought about them and how they would feel, she just had to think about herself too.