Discus the Relationship of Atticus to His Children. Compare This with a Parent/Child Relationship.

To Kill a Mocking Bird

Discus the relationship of Atticus to his children. Compare this with a parent/child relationship.


Atticus Finch is a single parent and lawyer who is upright and tolerant to differences. Atticus is the same way with his kids, Scout and Jem. At the beginning of this book Scout is 6 and Jem is 10 years old. Unlike most children Jem and Scout don’t call their father “father”. Jem and Scout call their father by his first name, Atticus. Atticus is a very loving father to his children but he also has a very unusual relationship with his kids.
Atticus is a lawyer in Maycomb and when he goes to work he leaves his kids home with the house keeper, Calpurnia. Scout and Jem would always play with Dill during the day. Dill came to Maycomb every summer and stayed with his aunt. At the end of the day Jem and Scout would race up the sidewalk to meet Atticus when he came around the corner every afternoon.   Jem and Scout would walk back with him to the house (pg. 28). After work Atticus would ask Jem and Scout questions about their day while Calpurnia fixed them dinner (pg.28-29). Atticus would read to Scout every day.   When Scout went to school on the first day her teacher, Miss Caroline yelled at her for already knowing how to read. Miss Caroline told her she was not to read with Atticus anymore (pg. 17). Atticus later sense’s there’s something wrong with Scout. Scout says she doesn’t want to go to school anymore but Atticus tells her she has to go by law and that he’ll keep reading to her as long as she doesn’t tell the teacher (pg. 30).
There were many places in the book when Jem and Scout would ask Attics a question. Atticus would take the time to explain the answer to them rather than saying a simple yes or no answer. Jem and Scout wrote a note for the person leaving the gifts in the tree hole. Jem and Scout noticed that the hole had been filled by Mr. Nathan Radley because he said that the tree was sick (pg. 62). When Atticus came home that...