More on Parenting Styles WAS :Re: Snape / Bowman Wright / Ron / Molly / Gred&For

[lucky_kari]

No: HPFGUIDX 36011

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "catlady_de_los_angeles" <catlady at w...> 
wrote:
> Yes! There are certain things in Book 1 that troubled me the first 
> time I read it and every time since.  "She always forgets I don't 
> like corned beef." "Swap you for one of these," said Harry, holding 
> up a pasty. "Go on --" "You don't want this, it's all dry," said 
Ron. 
> "She hasn't got much time," he added quickly, "you know, with five 
of 
> us." Ron is very loyally making excuses for his mother but IMHO she 
> needs excuses. It seems to me that JKR intends to portray Molly as 
a 
> very lovable good person and her relationship with Ron as warm and 
> loving, but she does these things that just seem like she doesn't 
> care much about Ron, and like she doesn't do her homemaker job very 
> well... She's only making *four* to-go lunches, even if they all 
have 
> to be the same kind of sandwiches, even if they have to be whatever 
> was on sale cheap or leftover whether or not the kids like it, how 
> could she not have enough time to put an anti-dessication charm (or 
> Saran Wrap Spell) on the sannies? 
> Adrienne goddessa replied to Debbie: 
> 
> > With seven kids... I'm not too surprised. Can you imagine keeping 
> > track of all the different favorite colors, favorite foods, 
> > favorite whatevers?
> 
> Why not? I don't have children, but I can recite off the favorite 
> colors of a long list of my friends, and remember who's allergic to 
> mushrooms. Those kids are her JOB, she should know them as well as 
I 
> know the databases of the system that I support at MY job. 

I have to admit that these remarks and many others that have 
characterized this exchange have really, really bothered me. I had to 
think hard why this would be so, but in the end, I think it really 
comes down to, once again, people's preference for parenting styles.

It would never have occurred to me that parents should know their 
kids' favourite colours. In fact, in the matter of clothes, it would 
never occured to me that they were obligated to buy according to the 
child's tastes. That's just not how it works in my world. My mother 
has no idea what my favourite colour is, and rode over my fashion 
sense for years. Even these days when we shop together, she still 
says things like, "That's a perfectly nice shirt. Why are you making 
a fuss about it?" In my book, parents have an obligation to properly 
clothe their kids. Period. Like Ron, I objected strenuously and at 
length to one dress I had to wear to a conference (perfectly fine, 
but too old-fashioned, I thought), and she suggested I could go 
naked. When I read GoF, I nearly died laughing....

And it makes me very mad somehow that people would think that this 
way of bringing up children is wrong, something that Mrs. Weasley 
really should examine her conscience for, and beg Ron's pardon about.

Ron didn't like his corned beef? And told Harry Mrs. Weasley forgot? 
Or didn't care? My mother didn't care when I told her I didn't want 
liverwurst sandwiches. Or spaghetti. I told her I was obviously 
allergic to spaghetti. It made me gag. She called it psychological 
and made me sit at the table by myself until I'd eat it. Only then 
could I have dessert. To me, this is perfectly reasonable. Because of 
that early strictness, I now enjoy spaghetti. The only kid she 
lightened up on (because he was supposed to have quite a few 
allergies, but turned out not to) is now a teen-ager who eats 
Cheerios at the table rather than try Thai Food. But I suppose that 
having kids eat what they're given now constitutes child abuse in 
many people's minds.

And taking Ron's "it's all dry" to be an indictment of Mrs. Weasley's 
sandwich-making skills? 

Well, you should have seen what my liverwurst sandwiches looked and 
felt like after I left them open and squished them under my pack. My 
mother never wanted to open the lunch section of my backpack for fear 
of what she would find. When I saw Ron holding them up in the film, 
obviously subjected to the same familiar treatment, I knew once again 
that though I may have grown up to be Percy, I was Ron as a child. 

Eileen