Mary Poppins, child abuse and popular children’s fiction.

P.L.Travers, author of Mary Poppins, grew up in Maryborough, Queensland, Australia. Her growth though, her normal, safe, childhood, was stunted thanks to the abuse perpetrated by her loving parents.

Mary Poppins was Written by a Child in Need of Protection: Mary Poppins was originally written by Pamela Travers as a parody – a spiteful poke at “good” families gone wrong. The central characters of the story, the Banks family, were a glossed up representation of Pamela’s family of origin and the story line reflected Pamela’s attachment disordered thinking and fear of abandonment.

Born Helen Goff, in Maryborough, Queensland, Australia in 1899, the celebrated author of Mary Poppins was the daughter of a bank manager who drank himself to death by the time Helen was seven. Helen’s mother, Margaret, dithered on for a few more years before also giving up on life and attempting suicide in a local river. One thundery night, Margaret Goff announced to her three children that she was off to kill herself. Helen, the oldest (age 10) was terrified. She was left, alone, to settle her younger siblings and she coped by putting them to bed, all three together, on the lounge room floor. In an effort to divert their attention from frantic thoughts around their mother’s impending violent death, Helen made up fantasy stories about magical flying horses in faraway lands that would ride them all to safety.

Although Margaret returned, unsuccessful in her suicide attempt, Helen withdrew from the hurt caused by her family and instead found solace in the strength of a spinster aunt. Helen’s dysfunctional family predicament haunted her for the rest of her life. She was never able to rid herself of images concerning the appalling fate of children whose parents were unable to care for them.

At 21 years of age, Helen changed her name to Pamela L. Travers. Soon after she moved to London to make a new life as a writer. She never married, wore trousers (totally unacceptable in those days) when she wanted, had an affair with an older married man and eventually entered into a long-term relationship with another woman. Ever desperate to protect children, at age 40, a single parent, she adopted and raised an Irish orphan.

Appalled at the accepted treatment of children by their loving families, Pamela Travers wrote Mary Poppins as a piece of anti-nanny propaganda. Angered by the middle classes who shunned their children, Mary Poppins character was essentially a therapeutic catharsis for Travers wounded inner child. Mary was designed to bring the middle classes to their senses by reflecting their own weak ethics and inability to provide emotional stability to their children. The moral of the story was that the Nanny got the chop because she was no longer required: the middle classes awoke to their children’s needs and would forever more parent appropriately.

Walt Disney rewrote Mary Poppins, the book, as a sreen play (1964) and created the now immortalised personification of Mary Poppins as the all rounded protector of children. His movie made Mary Poppins synonymous with love, magic and umbrellas – a protective accessory (Umbrellas and Parrots to Help Play Protect our Children. Thanks Mary Poppins). Travers reportedly sat through the opening night of the stage play with tears of despair running from her eyes. Her message to the middle classes had been turned around by Disney to now  romantise Nannies and ineffectual parenting. Such is the power of Hollywood and patriarchy.

No matter how diluted the original message became in the story of Mary Poppins, I remain grateful to Pamela Travers, an abused child, for having written a story that turned bad to good: first for her own healing and second as a classic piece of international children’s fiction.

Will you ever again be able to watch the movie or read the book without sparing a thought for all those children who miss out on safe, attachment strong parenting? Do you know how to use a story, any story, to help children solve problems? It is called bibliotherapy and is something that every parent can do with a little framework around how to do it: Are children’s books providing them with enough advise?

Thanks to the wonderful Alison over at Three Times Kewl for blogging about her inability to accept help, even from her hippie Nanny: not only did it give me a jolly good laugh it also reminded me of the sad history of Nanny Poppins.

Above picture is of me with a bronze statute of my favourite Nanny, Mary Poppins, outside of the bank where she was born in Maryborough, QLD.  I went to Maryborough as an invited guest speaker for the launch of Sexual Violence Awareness Month (2006) and facilitated some protective behaviour training while there. Mary Poppins, and the true story, featured heavily in my presentations. RIP Pamela Travers…I will tell your story of truth whenever I have the opportunity.