Parenting & Family Quote by John James Audubon

Audubon’s sentence reads like a family manifesto disguised as logistics: “go to Europe together” isn’t a travel plan so much as a bid to lock the household into a single, disciplined unit of labor. The phrasing “fully decided” signals authority before persuasion; he’s announcing a verdict, not opening a discussion. Then comes the tell: “to work as if” an “established Partnership for Life.” He’s not describing what they are, but what he needs them to perform as - a stable enterprise, emotionally and economically, with husband, wife, and children functioning like a coordinated crew.

That “as if” carries the subtext. It hints at precariousness: the partnership may not feel established, or at least not sufficiently aligned with his ambitions. Audubon was building a career that depended on relentless production and patronage - fieldwork, drawing, selling, networking - and Europe (especially Britain and France) was where American natural history could be turned into prestige and paying subscribers. In that world, the family wasn’t separate from the work; it was part of the infrastructure. Lucy Audubon’s earning, managing, and steadying role becomes legible between the lines, even as the sentence centers his decision.

The line also captures a 19th-century tension that still feels modern: the romance of a calling versus the administrative reality of making it viable. Audubon’s genius needed a market; his market required a “Partnership for Life” that could survive the grind of turning wonder into product.