Was Charles Ingalls Irresponsible?

I know I'm setting myself up for some varying opinions here, but I am never shy about my feelings regarding Charles Ingalls. 

Charles "Pa" Ingalls was sometimes written as being larger than life.  He was the guy who could drag a horse-drawn cart across a raging river, twist hay into firewood, ward off swarms of grasshoppers with some smoke and a burlap bag, spell down a whole town, and play a mean fiddle while the blizzard howled outside. Basically, a 19th-century superhero with a broom beard cape. But if you peel back the calico and look at the actual history, a different picture starts to emerge. It’s a picture of a man who couldn't hold down a job or produce a successful crop, and seemingly had a physical allergy to staying in one place for more than twenty minutes.

Little Squatter on the Prairie

I ask you, if your husband came home today and told you he sold the house, the furniture, and the neighbors’ respect because he heard the grass was slightly greener three states away, you wouldn’t call him a "pioneer." You’d call a lawyer. I know I would.

Charles had a chronic case of wanderlust. He dragged Caroline and a growing brood of daughters across the Midwest. He wasn’t just looking for a farm; he was looking for a fresh start whenever things got a little too crowded, or the bills started to pile up.

Let's use the little house on the Kansas prairie as an example. Charles moved the family onto the Osage Indian Diminished Reserve land before it was actually open for settlement. He basically built a house on someone else's property, and then acted surprised when the government told him he needed to stop squatting on their land. 

Think about it. Pa set his two toddlers and pregnant wife up in dangerous territory, where he would leave them alone for weeks at a time to go into town for provisions. He spent a year breaking his back for a farm he didn't even own, only to turn the wagon around and head right back where they came from. Which was the only logical choice since they could reclaim their Little House in the Big Woods for lack of payment.

Broke as a Joke

Then there was the financial side of things. In the books and the show, we see a lot of "honest hard work," which is true. But in real life, Charles was also kind of a disaster when it came to finances. He was constantly in debt, and at one point, the family basically had to flee Burr Oak, Iowa, in the middle of the night to stay ahead of the people he owed money to. It’s hard to maintain that wholesome provider vibe when you’re technically a fugitive from your former landlord.

Ultimately, while the Little House books often romanticized Charles'  decisions, historical accounts suggest that he may have been well-intentioned. Still, he often made foolish, even reckless choices, struggling to keep a roof over his family's head.

But before we totally cancel Pa, we have to admit he had one thing going for him: he was a survivor. Even when he was making questionable choices, he kept that family fed and together, which was no small feat when the literal atmosphere was trying to kill him and his family with locusts and hard winters. He might have been irresponsible, but he was also the reason Laura had such a wild story to tell. He was a wandering soul who just happened to bring a very patient wife and several children along for his midlife (younglife..oldlife..alllife) crisis. Charles Ingalls was a lot of things, but he made life interesting for his family, and that made life interesting for us.

Also see: The Pimping of Laura Ingalls Wilder