[HPforGrownups] More on Parenting Styles

[Edblanning at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 36049



Jo Serenadust on Molly:
> .  IMO she's just a loving, caring, 
> overworked, underpaid mother who loves all her kids equally, (even 
> if differently) and she gets the important stuff right.
> Are there any other mothers out there wishing to weigh in on this?
> 
> Jo Serenadust, who wishes that people would cut Molly a break about 
> the freaking sandwiches, already (acronym Tabouli?)
> 

I don't know what happened to the reply I started writing last night, under 
the eagle-eyed scrutiny of my 12 year old, so I'll start again.

I love Molly. Of course she's not a perfect parent. Which of us is? There 
seems to me to be an ironical situation on this list when it comes to 
parenting. We like our good guys grey, many want their bad guys grey, but 
when it comes to parents, they're supposed to be squeaky clean, bright, 
shining white and from where I'm standing it just ain't like that!

Unlike Jo, I didn't leave anything high-powered to become a parent, but I was 
fortunate enough to to be able to choose to give up work to look after my 
four children. I'm far from prefect. Like Molly, I shout ( but not as 
effectively, alas!). I often get it wrong. I often regret the way I've 
handled situations. But I'm sure my kids know that they're loved (we tell 
each other often enough) and that however stressy Mum is, she's actually got 
their best interests at heart. That's how I see Molly. Choosing to become a 
full time parent is not necessarily a route to contentment. I would love to 
be one of those wonderful, serene mothers (though actually, when I talk to 
these seeming paragons, they often seem to be having as tough a time as I 
am), but I'm not. I'm glad I chose to be a full-time mother, but I do 
sometimes find it dreadfully frustrating and frankly sometimes resent the way 
my time is wasted by people who don't understand how much time and effort 
you've put into a task which they immediately undo, or think they can just 
keep you hanging round an age until they feel like doing whatever it is that 
needs to be done. Don't get me wrong. I think parenting is terribly important 
and very fulfilling. But it isn't easy and I don't always enjoy it. (I can 
feel a fit of Kant coming on again!)
That's where I think Molly's at. She loves her kids and does her best for 
them, which is all any of us can do. Sometimes she gets it wrong and she's 
stressed, hassled and frustrated at times.
 
As Jo says, Molly treats her kids differently from each other. That's because 
they're individuals. All my kids are different and I have different 
relationships with each of them. Some are more stormy, some more placid; some 
more open, some more unstated; some, frankly more enjoyable at times than 
others. It doesn't mean I love any of them more than the rest: I love them 
all to pieces but each of them brings with them at different times different 
joys and different frustrations.

We know she worries about them. Look at her reaction after the World Cup, and 
after the twins steal the car. And she loves them, despite the criticism. She 
was mortified to think that her last words to the twins might have been 
critical. In fact, surely the criticism ( I'm not saying that criticising 
children is a good thing, though I'm sure I'm guilty) is actually one of her 
ways of expressing care. (We don't often IIRC see Molly being overtly 
affectionate: something to do with them being boys and the fact that she's 
taken on the tough parent role out of her and Arthur?)  As I tell my own 
children, if I accepted everything they did, let them do precisely as they 
pleased, I wouldn't be being a parent. Parents are there to guide, to correct 
inapproriate behaviour as well as to praise. There may be better or worse 
ways to do it, but it's part of the job description. 

Bill really doesn't need her any more. He has a secure job, there's not much 
she feels she can do for him. But criticising his hair and his ear ring is a 
way of bringing him back into her sphere of responsibility. Yes, we have to 
let go, but the reluctance to let go is an expression of feeling, of 
affection.
She's proud of Percy, but much of the pride expressed, the favouritism seen 
by some, seems to be for the benefit of the twins. I think she's genuinely 
very worried about them. Forget how mature or not they kids of that age are. 
>From Molly's perspective, they're just children. Not kids with the luxury of 
three or four years at university in which to mature and decide where they 
want to go in life, but kids who have to make their way in the world in about 
a year. Kids who are more interested in jokes than grades, who, from her 
perspective, have simply no sense of priorities at all. If she took a long 
hard look, of course (I hope) she'd see like the rest of us that the MoM 
would be a disastrous career choice. But surely what she really wants is some 
financial security for them. They're poor, remember. This hair-brained joke 
shop idea just seems too risky - and besides, setting up in business requires 
capital, or at least security, which the Weasley family can't provide. From 
her POV, it's a non-starter. It's OK for the twins to take risks, to show 
entrepreneurial spirit, admirable really from our POV, but I can understand a 
parent's reluctance to allow her children to take such risks with their 
lives. 
As for Ron...well, I think Ron has his own problems. I'm not saying that it's 
easy being the youngest boy, who gets everything second-hand when he has a 
younger sibling, who because of her sex, gets new stuff ( though not 
everything, books, for example), its not; but he does have a bit of a  chip 
on his shoulder. I confess that he's not my favourite character and I can 
imagine that he's sometimes hard to deal with. I've had enough complaints 
from mine about hand me downs, about how its not fair that so and so gets 
something and I don't. We're affluent enough that I can give my younger girls 
some new stuff to supplement the second hand, but it must hurt Molly. Hurt, 
because she doesn't want to give her child second best, hurt because she's 
criticised for something over which she has no control.

As for those sandwiches......Well, the times I get my kids thing into the 
wrong bags, forget exactly who doesn't like what, call my three girls by each 
others' names. Well, I'm sorry, but these things happen in a busy household. 
I *cannot* produce a meal that all four of them find acceptable. Whatever I 
produce, someone will say, 'but I don't like that'. Either I resign myself to 
running a restaurant, cooking separate meals, or I have to displease someone. 
And whilst I know that *someone* won't eat tortellini and *someone* won't 
touch shepherd's pie and *someone* will only eat Tesco's sausages and 
*someome* will only eat Sainsbury's etc, etc, I'm afraid my brain doesn't 
cope with the fine details. Ironically, I think it may be easier to remember 
these foibles in other peoples' children, as in the school teacher example 
someone gave. Those relationships are simpler, they don't have all the other 
emotional overlay, all the complications of relationships with one's own 
children, when frankly, some of these other considerations become very minor. 
They are also professional relationships. I know we tend to talk of parenting 
as a job these days, but IMHO, that is to try to give it some of the status 
it has lacked, to recognise at last its importance, to legitimise the lives 
of people like me who stay at home rather than going out to work. But from a 
child's perspective, I'm not sure that this is helpful. A child wants you to 
be there simply because you love them and they are the most important thing 
in the world to you. Ultimately, parenting is a relationship, not a job and 
it is consequently difficult to quantify how successful one is.

None of us is a perfect parent. But there is a concept, I should know where 
it comes from, but I'm afraid I forget, of the 'Good enough' parent. On good 
days, perhaps I'm better than that, but it's what I cling to when the going 
gets tough, and I'm sure that Molly is good enough. So yes, please give Molly 
a break.

Eloise


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