The Colonies, at only 150 years old are like 13 preteen children. Not smart enough to know the parent (Britain) has some good points, a little scared to go out on their own, but brave enough to cross town. Most importantly though, the preteens are starting to get really annoyed at their parent and don't know quite what to do.
A Quick Disclaimer: For the purposes of this post, the Colonies will be referred to as a single entity of preteens. I, as the writer of this post, do recognize that each Colony has a different attitude and thus acted slightly different from one another. If any member of the Colony family happens to read this post, please know that I can tell you apart, just it would make this post so much more confusing for everyone than it already is.
Britain is like the mother of the colonies for multiple reason. The most simple one is because that is what everyone always refers the base country of a country: the "Mother Land" or "Mother Country". Britain, like a mother, created the colonies, the thirteen preteens.
Like most mothers, Britain seemed to wish for the colonies to be relatively happy. Britain only had the colonies pay about 1/30th of the taxes the rest of Britain had to pay; they repealed multiple acts for the colonies; and created Acts that would help both Britain's company's and America's taxes and therefore a compromise. After the Stamp Act was repealed, like some parents who try get the last word after losing an argument, created the Declaratory Act. The Declaratory Act was an act simply stating that is had supreme power over the colonies "in all cases whatsoever". Also like a mother, after Boston the preteen had the Boston Tea party, Britain not only punished it harshly but tried to make an example of it so that its siblings did not follow suit. Of course, the other preteens started to feel bad for Boston and worry about being "grounded" themselves for speaking against Mother. But it is the similarity that counts.
Some of the biggest preteen moments for the colonists were in their temper tantrums. The Preteens were mad at Britain for not listening to their request for "no taxation without representation" and thus not allowing their democratic wish. Like a piece of clothing or cellphone that a mother does not want her preteen to get, so it was like with Britain and the Colonies. Instead of spite, one of main reasons that Britain did not grant the Colonies democratic representation was because the majority of Britain didn't have that sort of representation either. If one brother asks his mother for something and is told no, and then his sibling asks the same thing, the answer, like here, is still no. However, the Colonies couldn't grasp this ideology and threw a temper tantrum when told no. When told no, the Bostonians had the Boston Masecure, and the media pumped out the propaganda to help raise the level of anger of the colonists. Then, after Britain gave a discount on Tea (the coffee of the age), the colonists got so mad they wasted tons of tea just to show up Britain for trying to help them* . On top of that, members of the Sons of Liberty would pour hot tar on the flesh of tax men, but feathers on them, and then torture them some more by pouring hot tea down their throats. This thus burned the messengers of the Mother both inside and out. If that is not a temper tantrum (if not worse), who knows what is. On top of all of this, when the Preteens couldn't take it anymore, they hurt their Mother's feelings more than their Mother hurt them. They did this with "the shot heard around the word" and by killing three times more British soldiers that day than the British did American.
The Colonies, as its own entity, was a very young "country" compared to its neighbors. In that sense it was most certainly a child. However, a child has innocence, and the actions taken from the colonies as a whole were certainly not done with innocence.
Do you think the Colonies are like preteens and Britain is like the Mother? Can the Sons of Liberty, as only one small group, sway your answer on that?
*Why is it that this is what the Boston Tea Party was about, but we grow up thinking favorably about the Sons of Liberty who did the Tea Party and now people are priding themselves by calling themselves part of the "Tea Party"? The more I think about it, it makes less and less sense.
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