How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #10
Being old gave [Sophie] an entirely new view of Fanny. She was a lady who was still young and pretty, and she had found the hat shop as boring as Sophie did. But she had stuck with it and done her best, both with the shop and with the three girls—until Mr. Hatter had died. Then she had suddenly been afraid she was just like Sophie: old with no reason, and nothing to show for it. (20.41)
We don't know if you guys have had this experience yet, but one of the weird things about getting older is that you start to view your parents in entirely unexpected ways. When we were young kids, we thought of our parents as people with lots of authority and responsibility who we expected to know all the answers. As we got older though, we started to realize that our parents were human beings, with many flaws and worries and insecurities of their own.
It can be weird and uncomfortable when you start to look at things from your parents' point of view—and don't get us wrong, sometimes they still drive us absolutely crazy—but Sophie's sudden understanding that her stepmother Fanny had her own frustrations with the hat shop, and that she did the best she could with what she had back then, really strikes a chord with us.