Exploring Lincoln - Great Historians Reappraise Our Greatest President

[L Verge]

(03-29-2015 01:44 AM)LincolnToddFan Wrote:  If Mary's own correspondence is any indication Tad remained loving and protective right up to the end. Linda Leavitt Turner opines that his was the most tragic fate of all the Lincoln boys...compelled to act as a crutch, nurse and companion to his increasingly unstable morbid mother and never really getting a chance to enjoy his blossoming young manhood. I agree with her assessment.

He never wanted to go live in Europe. He begged to stay in the U.S. with Robert and his wife and go to school in America. But Mary would not hear of it because as she wrote .."Tad has become necessary to my very existence" or something similar. So she clung to the boy after the assassination and rarely let him out of her sight.

Even though I am sympathetic to Mary Lincoln and think that I kind of understand her actions, I am happy that you and I (and Linda Leavitt Turner) think alike on her treatment of Tad. I have seen similar, modern cases in my own realm today where sons (and some daughters) are their mother's crutches for life. And, after the passing of the mother, they are grown-ups on their own in need of crutches.