Extra Credit Questions

[AussieMick]

To add my thoughts ... This issue of poor fatherhood skills? I'd say it only shows that Lincoln had a weakness. Perhaps a major one as a human being, in that ensuring one's offspring grow up to be decent well-behaved adults is a major responsibility of any adult.

Having said that, my respect for Lincoln is undiminished. Anybody that has brought up children knows how difficult it is. Just about every child that I've ever known, apart from my own, has been a brat. I guess I'm only half joking when I write that. (After the age of 16 they often seem to improve.) I recall saying to a teacher at a parent-teacher interview " I know that my daughter is a bit of an introvert and probably seems a bit quiet ..." The look on his face told me that this was not how she behaved in class.

Certainly Lincoln seems to have been a poor parent, but when one considers his qualities in other respects I'll give him a nine out of ten as a human being.