I'm not so sure. She doesn't actually show Charles leaving the children and Anne asserts that Charles manages the children well enough...

But I am struck by a contrast with the attention that children get in books like Emma... John does not spend his holidays shooting and leave the children only to his wife. We see that he spends long periods with them.

Perhaps it is because John Knightley's boys are older and therefore more able to be in their father's company without a maid at hand. We don't see him alone with the baby.

Nursing may not be a man's province, but I'm not sure what to make of Charles' leaving for dinner. He certainly is not a man of deep domesticity.

The double standard bothers me. Mary lacks a very maternal heart and it is a bit ridiculed. It comes from a kind of selfishness - an inability to care about the concerns of others - even her own children. But her husband has much the same idea. He cannot bear to sit at home quitely and do nothing merely because his child or wife might need it.

Perhaps his wife would need the support and someone to keep her company as she tends her child. Perhaps the child might like his father to sit by him talk to him as a kind of treat.

Not every woman is a martyr to her role as mother. Anne is particularly giving (perhaps overly so). But I'm not inclined to condemn Mary any more than Charles.