In My Boy Jack, Rudyard lets his high expectations as a parent overshadow what his son actually wants out of life. Rudyard wants Jack to become a courageous and respected military official, and this blinds him to the fact that Jack resents him for exerting so much parental pressure. Part of the reason it’s hard for Rudyard to see this dynamic is that Jack legitimately wants to join the army, which makes it seem like he and his father are on the same page. In reality, though, Jack only wants to enlist because he’s desperate to get away from Rudyard, who stifles him not just with his high expectations, but also with his ideas surrounding masculinity and strength, always telling Jack to “buck up” and trying to get him to act like a stereotypically manly soldier. Rudyard’s vision of Jack’s life doesn’t actually have much to do with Jack himself. Instead of encouraging Jack to become a soldier because this is legitimately what Jack wants, Rudyard pressures him because he thinks it’s the right thing to do—something that he himself would do if he were a young man. While Jack actually comes to enjoy military life after enlisting in the army, this doesn’t change the fact that his initial desire to join was driven not by his wish to contribute to the war effort, but by his burning need to escape his domineering father. The negative impact of Rudyard’s expectations is therefore quite clear, demonstrating that such overbearing parenting run the risk of pushing children down certain paths for all the wrong reasons.
Rudyard’s style of parenting feels so overbearing because he micromanages seemingly every aspect of Jack’s life. Before a meeting with army doctors, for example, Rudyard fusses over Jack’s physical appearance, insisting that he wear a pince-nez (glasses without earpieces) instead of regular glasses. Jack, however, hates the pince-nez because it constantly slips off his nose, making it hard for him to deliver a speech about wanting to join the army—a speech that Rudyard is adamant about him practicing and delivering with confidence. Despite Jack’s complaints, Rudyard says that the pince-nez gives “a man a different expression as compared to spectacles.” Rudyard thinks the pince-nez makes Jack look dignified, and nothing Jack can say will persuade him to let go of the matter. This is a perfect illustration of how Rudyard imposes his own opinions upon Jack’s life.
The parental pressure Rudyard places on Jack also has to do with his ideas surrounding masculinity and strength. He’s obsessed with turning his son into a tough man of influence and integrity, wanting Jack to join the army and thus demonstrate his courageousness. When Carrie tries to remind her husband that Jack is still just a teenager, Rudyard says, “He is not a boy, he is a young man. If you continue to pamper and paw him, you will turn him into something altogether weak and watery…” Rudyard, in other words, sees it as his parental duty to toughen Jack up. Although Carrie simply wants to keep Jack safe, Rudyard sees her concern as something that will hurt their son in the long run—according to Rudyard, leading a coddled, easy life will make Jack “weak.” Rudyard justifies the pressure he exerts on his son by insisting that it’s for Jack’s own “sake.”
But Rudyard’s sense of parental responsibility keeps him from paying attention to Jack’s actual feelings. If he were more attuned to Jack on an emotional level, he might realize that the expectations he has placed on the boy are overwhelming, ultimately driving Jack away from him. Indeed, even though Jack does want to join the army, this isn’t because he shares his father’s ideas about strength and valor. Rather, Jack just wants to escape his home life, which feels—because of Rudyard’s expectations—stifling and oppressive. As Jack says at one point to his sister, Elsie, he sometimes wishes he could “be someone else for a while.” He then revises this statement, saying that what he really wants is to just be himself, which feels to him like the “same thing” as being someone else. In these comments, it is clear that Rudyard’s controlling parenting has pushed Jack so out of touch with who he really is that the mere idea of being himself seems as unfamiliar as being somebody else entirely.
Of course, Jack actually ends up liking military life, making it even harder for Rudyard to recognize the detrimental effects of his own stringent expectations. All the same, though, when Jack goes missing, Elsie pushes her father to see that Jack “didn’t give a damn” about any of Rudyard’s lofty ideas surrounding masculinity, strength, or duty. “The suffocation, the love, the expectation,” Elsie says. “That’s why he went.” What’s interesting about her argument here is that she includes the word “love” in her list of things that “suffocat[ed]” Jack at home. She acknowledges that Rudyard’s high expectations for Jack originally came from a place of love—the problem, though, is that they still overwhelmed him and ultimately drove him away, highlighting that even well-intentioned forms of parental pressure can have negative consequences.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Parental Expectations ThemeTracker
Parental Expectations Quotes in My Boy Jack
RUDYARD. Well, they'll check you over, they might want a bit of a chat ...(He looks at JOHN’s suit.)The kit is first-rate…where's your pince-nez?
JOHN. I can't get to grips with it.
RUDYARD. Well you must. They give a man a different expression as compared to spectacles.
JOHN. It won't stay on my nose.
RUDYARD. Have you got it about you?
JOHN. I think so.
RUDYARD. Well, let's have a look—Pop it on.
JOHN. I don't want to wear it.
RUDYARD. Jack, we need the overall impression. Pop it on please.
RUDYARD. Of course we don't have to…it's not for my benefit.
JOHN. Oh don't be like that Daddo. Let's do it then. Ask me a question.
RUDYARD. Not if you don't think it's going to help.
JOHN. I do, I do. Please ask me.
RUDYARD. I think it'll be useful.
JOHN. It will.
RUDYARD. I'm not doing this for fun. It's for your sake.
JOHN. I know.
JOHN. I can't see how this will make any difference to my chances. If the Army is desperate for recruits they won't mind a pair of specs.
RUDYARD. Jack, the Navy has already rejected you once. Your eyes are a serious stumbling block. Your performance this afternoon is very important, and the first impression you give is vital. You've got to take a big pull on yourself and really dig out.
JOHN. I'm doing my best Daddo. I won't let you down.
CARRIE. He's too young.
RUDYARD. He is not a boy, he is a young man. If you continue to pamper and paw him, you will turn him into something altogether weak and watery…the next few hours will be a serious point in his career.
CARRIE. Do you think it's fair to encourage him?
RUDYARD. I would think it very unfair if I didn't. Within a year, by the end of 1914, we shall be fighting for civilisation itself, one wouldn't want him to miss an opportunity to be part of that.
SPARKS. […] this is very severe myopia ...we couldn't possibly… (He turns to POTTLE for help.)
POTTLE. Not possibly. There are very strict guidelines.
SPARKS. I think [Pottle] would agree, we were prepared to, um, stretch a point…very keen to stretch a point, but…
POTTLE. There has to be a limit.
SPARKS. I'm sure you understand.
RUDYARD. Yes I understand, but his spectacles are extremely effective.
SPARKS. But if he should lose them he'd be a danger to himself.
POTTLE. And to his men.
JOHN. Do you ever long to…
ELSIE. What?
JOHN. No.
ELSIE. What?
JOHN. Doesn't matter.
ELSIE. Say it.
JOHN. …Be someone else for a while. Or, rather, be yourself for a while, that's what I really mean. Sounds like the opposite, but in fact it's the same thing.
JOHN (furious). Oh, shut up. I don't care whether it's sensible or not, or dangerous or not, I don't give a damn as long as I get away, and get out of this house.
ELSIE. Ssh...Jack...
JOHN. I can't bear it.
ELSIE. Jack.
JOHN. I hate it. You don't understand.
ELSIE. I do.
JOHN. No you don't. Sometimes it makes me ill. It does. I get so upset, I actually feel sick. And I can't breathe in. I can't make myself take a breath. It's suffocating. […]
RUDYARD. Listen to me! A family of nations. And Britain, as parents—Mother and Father, has an absolute duty to protect its children, and some of the children are self-sufficient young adults, and need only a nudge in one direction or the other. But some are still bawling, inarticulate, aggressive kids, who need all the help and direction we can offer. But it is a family. And it is our responsibility as parents to feed, to educate, to guide, to maintain our children's quality of life.
ELSIE. And to make money.
RUDYARD. Of course! That's absolutely right. That's why our empire is uniquely successful. We have managed to combine benevolence and commerce. No-one has done it before. Not only are our children better off spiritually but they are better off materially. From Canada to Australia, from Africa to India, the world is a better place, a safer place, a more comfortable place than it was a hundred years ago.
RUDYARD (very quietly). There is a price we have to pay. There is a risk we all have to take. Jack knows that. Germany will go on killing by all the means in its power. She must either win or bleed to death. Therefore we must continue to pass our children through fire, until somehow we win and destroy her.
JOHN. […] Please God I mustn't let them down. Will I be brave? Will I fail?—Onto the firestep—keep the pistol out of the mud—left hand on the parapet—pull—right foot on the sand bags—push up—left leg over—Straighten—run—I mustn't let them down. Some of these men will be dead tonight. I may be dead tonight. Let me live. Stop raining—just for a second.
Oh Daddo—what luxury—to turn on a hot water tap—hot steaming water—evening clothes—dinner at the Ritz—the Alhambra afterwards. Elsie. Mother. Daddo.—My first action—Fifteen seconds—is that the whistle?—one clear blast—left hand—parapet—sand bags—over—run. Run fast and straight. Please God let me live. Pistol high—run, run, run.
RUDYARD. […] Why should I stop him? If I had, he would have suffered a living death here, ashamed and despised by everyone. Could you bear that? … It's true. How would he hold his head up, whilst his friends risked death in France? How would he walk down the high street, or into a shop? He wouldn't. He would stay indoors, growing weaker and quieter by the day. Unable to leave his room. And he would wish he was dead.
CARRIE. People would understand.
RUDYARD. No they would not. They know what we are fighting for. They know we must go forward, willing to sacrifice everything to deliver mankind from evil.
CARRIE. Yes that's very fine. But will you believe that tomorrow? Today is the last day you can believe that.
RUDYARD. Carrie, if by any chance Jack is dead, it will have been the finest moment in his young life. We would not wish him to outlive that.
CARRIE. You don't believe that Rud. I know you don't. There is no need to say that to me.
RUDYARD. No sacrifice…is too great…no sacrifice, however painful, is too great…if we win the day…
ELSIE (angry and upset). You've missed the point haven't you? God! You just…You've no idea. God!
Silence. RUDYARD and CARRIE are helpless.
Don't you realise, he didn't give a damn about your cause? The reason he went to France, the reason he went to get his head shot off, was to get away from us! He couldn't bear us any more.
Short silence.
The suffocation, the love, the expectation. That's why he went.
RUDYARD. How did he seem?
BOWE. What do you mean?
RUDYARD. Well, was he calm or…excited or…nervous…?
BOWE. He was fine, you know, jus' fine.
RUDYARD. Did he seem…pleased to be there?
BOWE. Pleased? No-one's pleased to be there. He was fine. He told us we had to go on.
RUDYARD. Did he?
RUDYARD (quietly). Thank you…so…he was killed by a shell…during an attack on 'Puits Bis l4'. He led his men from the front, and was courageous in the face of considerable enemy fire.
BOWE. He was. Yes sir. Very courageous.
RUDYARD. Thank you.
RUDYARD. […] By all accounts he was very brave.
He didn't have a long time in the trenches. But he had his heart's desire. So few of us have the opportunity to play our part. Properly. But he did. He worked like the devil. It's a shame that all the effort should end in one afternoon, but he achieved what he set out to achieve. It was a short life, but in a sense complete. I'm happy for him, and proud of him, aren't you?
[…]
CARRIE. I’m so relieved that you see the death of our only son as such a positive and uplifting event. I am sincerely relieved that you are at ease with it all.
RUDYARD. […] I find it a great comfort that so many are in our position, don't you? It is a common agony. A common sacrifice.
CARRE. No I don't find that comforting. I don't care how many people it's happened to. That doesn't help me at all. Not at all…no.
CARRIE. […] Your cruelty doesn’t surprise me. You are a cold fish, a very cold fish. But that's alright, I know that now. It doesn't hurt me, but don't pretend anymore. Jack was eighteen years and six weeks old. He died in the rain, he couldn't see a thing, he was alone, in pain, you can't persuade me there is any glory in that.
RUDYARD. I believe there is.
[…]
I must ‘believe’ in order to survive at all.
“Oh dear, what comfort can I find?”
None this tide
Nor any tide
Except he did not shame his kind—
Not even with that wind blowing and that tide.
Then hold your head up all the more
This tide,
And every tide,
Because he was the son you bore
And gave to that wind blowing and that tide.
