Many people find Nora Helmer from Henrick Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House” commendable for her courage; they see her character as one of our steps in history toward equality between men and women. However some would argue that it was wrong of this poor woman to leave her children and let them grow up with no mother for guidance. The fallowing pages are an explanation of why Nora’s leaving, with the possibility of never seeing her children again, was for the best. First of all Nora came to believe she was not a fit mother, and if she did not believe she could raise the children correctly she would have no hope of raising them at all. This woman was in a very uncomfortable situation. She had realized she could no longer live with her husband, a direct connection to her kids. Nora needed to keep her dignity, and to her it felt as though there were large opportunities waiting for her.
Nora thought herself to be a bad mother for a number of reasons. She realizes that just as her father and now Mr. Helmer treat her as a play thing she states, “…And here the children have been my dolls. I thought it was great fun when you played with me, just as they thought it was great fun when I played with them.”(3.81) The children need more than a play mate and she has never truly taken care of them. Nora also feels that although what she did was out of love for her husband, she still lied and schemed behind his back which is a terrible example to set for her children. She begins to get this idea in her head that she will ruin her children’s morality after what her husband Torvald tells her in reference to the dirty dealings of Krogstad:

HELMER. And about the children–that is the most terrible part of it all, Nora.
NORA. How?
HELMER. Because such an atmosphere of lies infects and poisons the whole life of a home. Each breath the children take in such a house is full of the germs of evil.
NORA. Are you sure of that?
HEMLER. My dear, I have often seen it in the course of my life as a lawyer. Almost everyone who has gone to the bad early in life has had a deceitful mother. (1.32)