"Though not born into great wealth, George Washington doesn't qualify for inclusion in the ranks of self-made Americans." p. 8
George inherited Mount Vernon when his half-brother Lawrence died.
George and his mother did not get along. They tangled all of her life. She consistently accused him of mistreating her.
"There was always a cool, quiet antagonism between Washington and his mother. The hypercritical mother produced a son who was overly sensitive to criticism and suffered from a lifelong need for approval. . . It was the extreme self-control of a deeply emotional young man who feared the fatal vehemence of his own feelings, if left unchecked. . . Never able to express these forbidden feelings of rage, he learned to equate silence and a certain manly stolidity with strength. This boyhood struggle was, in all likelihood, the genesis of the stoical personality that would later define him so indelibly." p. 11
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