F. Scott Fitzgerald Tells His 11-Year-Old Daughter What to Worry About (and Not Worry About) in Life, 1933

Born 117 years ago today in St. Paul, Min­neso­ta, F. Scott Fitzger­ald, that some­what louche denizen—some might say inventor—of the “Jazz Age,” has been immor­tal­ized as the ten­der young man we see above: Prince­ton dropout, writer of The Great Gats­by, boozy com­pan­ion to beau­ti­ful South­ern belle flap­per Zel­da Sayre. Amidst all the glam­or­iza­tion of his best and worst qual­i­ties, it’s easy to for­get that Fitzger­ald was also the father of a daugh­ter, Frances Scott Fitzger­ald, who went on to have her own suc­cess­ful career as a writer. Unlike the chil­dren of some of Fitzgerald’s con­tem­po­raries, Frances thrived, which must be some tes­ta­ment to her father’s par­ent­ing (and to Zelda’s as well, though she alleged­ly hoped, like Daisy Buchanan, that her daugh­ter would become a “beau­ti­ful lit­tle fool”).

We get more than a hint of Fitzgerald’s father­ly char­ac­ter in a won­der­ful lit­tle let­ter that he sent to her in August of 1933, when Frances was away at sum­mer camp. Fitzger­ald, renowned for his extremes, coun­sels an almost Epi­cure­an mid­dle way—distilling, per­haps, hard lessons learned dur­ing his decline in the thir­ties (which he wrote of can­did­ly in “The Crack Up”). He con­cludes with a list of things for his daugh­ter to wor­ry and not wor­ry about. It’s a very touch­ing mis­sive that I look for­ward to shar­ing with my daugh­ter some day. I’ll have my own advice and sil­ly in-jokes for her, but Fitzger­ald pro­vides a very wise lit­er­ary sup­ple­ment. Below is the full let­ter, pub­lished in the New York Times in 1958. The typos, we might assume, are all sic, giv­en Fitzgerald’s pen­chant for such errors:

AUGUST 8, 1933
LA PAIX RODGERS’ FORGE
TOWSON, MATYLAND

DEAR PIE:

I feel very strong­ly about you doing duty. Would you give me a lit­tle more doc­u­men­ta­tion about your read­ing in French? I am glad you are hap­py– but I nev­er believe much in hap­pi­ness. I nev­er believe in mis­ery either. Those are things you see on the stage or the screen or the print­ed page, they nev­er real­ly hap­pen to you in life.

All I believe in in life is the rewards for virtue (accord­ing to your tal­ents) and the pun­ish­ments for not ful­fill­ing your duties, which are dou­bly cost­ly. If there is such a vol­ume in the camp library, will you ask Mrs. Tyson to let you look up a son­net of Shake­speare’s in which the line occurs Lilies that fes­ter smell far worse than weeds…

I think of you, and always pleas­ant­ly, but I am going to take the White Cat out and beat his bot­tom hard, six times for every time you are imper­ti­nent. Do you react to that?…

Half-wit, I will con­clude. Things to wor­ry about:

Wor­ry about courage
Wor­ry about clean­li­ness
Wor­ry about effi­cien­cy
Wor­ry about horse­man­ship…
Things not to wor­ry about:
Don’t wor­ry about pop­u­lar opin­ion
Don’t wor­ry about dolls
Don’t wor­ry about the past
Don’t wor­ry about the future
Don’t wor­ry about grow­ing up
Don’t wor­ry about any­body get­ting ahead of you
Don’t wor­ry about tri­umph
Don’t wor­ry about fail­ure unless it comes through your own fault
Don’t wor­ry about mos­qui­toes
Don’t wor­ry about flies
Don’t wor­ry about insects in gen­er­al
Don’t wor­ry about par­ents
Don’t wor­ry about boys
Don’t wor­ry about dis­ap­point­ments
Don’t wor­ry about plea­sures
Don’t wor­ry about sat­is­fac­tions
Things to think about:
What am I real­ly aim­ing at?
How good am I real­ly in com­par­i­son to my con­tem­po­raries in regard to:
(a) Schol­ar­ship
(b) Do I real­ly under­stand about peo­ple and am I able to get along with them?
© Am I try­ing to make my body a use­ful intru­ment or am I neglect­ing it?

With dear­est love,

Relat­ed Con­tent:

F. Scott Fitzger­ald Cre­ates a List of 22 Essen­tial Books, 1936

“Noth­ing Good Gets Away”: John Stein­beck Offers Love Advice in a Let­ter to His Son (1958)

Read F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Sto­ry “May Day,” and Near­ly All of His Oth­er Work, Free Online

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness