Abigail Adams fascinated me. Her responsibility for her family, her sense of duty and willingness to sacrifice what she wanted most for what was necessary spoke to me personally; her words were some that I spoke myself when my husband deployed, repeatedly. The way she sought to improve herself, to enhance her education and saw it as an extension of her role as a wife and mother, her willingness to be in the fight for her husband and children were opinions and feelings that I share.
And then there was the Abigail Adams whose rigidity and unwillingness to recognize any opinion that differed from hers as anything other than selfish or naive or detrimental or just simply wrong, wrong, wrong. I have to admit I also recognized her moral certainty, though I believe not entirely her rigidity. (I hope my "Venture Books That Impacted Me" proves that for me.)
I felt like I should pray to be both more and less like Abigail Adams by turn. She was a paradox to me, someone by turns that I admired and would have liked to know and whose company I would not have sought and thought her more than a bit dishonest with herself in the bargain. As I said. A paradox.
Favorite Quotes:
Regarding the raising and education of children: "These first principal[s] which grow with their growth and strengthen with their strength neither time nor custom can totally eradicate."
&
"What strang Ideas they have ours is the task to fix them right, that they may surpass thire mothers in every [thing]."
John Adams in a letter to Abigail describing the Congress at the moment: "There is scarcely animation enough in either house, to excite attention. One may sleep in the midst of a Debate. I have not yet tried however."
Overall Opinion:
In two words: Read it!
Rating:
An I Would Read It Again Book
Links to: John Adams by John Patrick Diggins
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