[HPforGrownups] Re: Much Ado About Money (concerning the Weasleys)

[Jesta Hijinx]

No: HPFGUIDX 59604

>It might be interesting to sort out the "sides" on this issue by
>nationality. We Americans are notorious for inventing the concept of
>the "teenager": a creature miraculously endowed with the rights of an
>adult and the privileges of an adorable little child.

Absolutely (fledgling sociology grad student here).  Somehow the idea of 
adolescence as a magical time when things are "owed" has come upon our 
culture - frankly, this is driven by a couple of forces which have nothing 
to do with internal nature:  advertising and a need to sell to an audience 
that is constanlty bored and will consume; two, the pressures dating back to 
the Baby Boom of a younger generation that would push at the existing work 
force if them were to come right out at 18 and earlier seeking work - 
therefore, that has to be delayed with the idea that this is the time to 
goof around, have a series of low-responsibility or part-time jobs, go to 
school, flunk out of school, take trips to Europe, etc. arose.

Most societies go right from childhood to adulthood.  I can't help but feel 
that they're the wiser, because of the huge number of people who seem to get 
irretrievably stuck in "the magic of adolescence" and never find their way 
out until they're suddenly old.  I have a huge number of friends a few years 
older than me who went from being "bad boys" their whole lives and ruined 
their health and relationships and families, suddenly to find themselves old 
men wanting someone to "take care" of them and being curmudgeonly that no 
one is willing to do that - they've bypassed the whole joyful part of life 
of being a mature leader in community and family and earning those bonds of 
love and care.  You can't just demand them.

But I digress.  ;-)  As usual.

I'm American
>myself, but from New York, so I don't have a lot of patience with the
>political correctness of the heartland.

This is OT, but i don't find what I consider the Heartland (by which I mean 
the Midwest, where I was born) to be overly politically correct in the sense 
I understand it.  Most of society there ranges from conservative to 
reactionary in values.  If anything, you're going to find more "tough love" 
there than you will on either coast.  Just an observation.


My own mother is of hard-
>headed Jamaican stock. She put food on the table and you could eat it
>or starve. (That's a quote). I'm sure she also told me more than a
>few times that I was welcome to go naked if I wasn't willing to wear
>what she provided. Also heard: "we're not made of money", "when you
>get out of here and get a job, you can waste your own
>money", "children in Europe are starving" (this was the fifties).
>
Same here, different era.  ;-)

>Finally, to illustrate the culture gap, here are two views of
>Hogwarts:
>On the Scholastic 'Parent Guide' page: "The characters and their
>lives are quite similar to real-life...but at the same time, are one
>degree removed -- by the fantasized world of magic...Hogwarts - a
>school for wizards - is certainly unique..." --Adele Brodkin, Ph.D.
>
>From The New York Times, Oct. 10, 1999: "...readers on this side of
>the Atlantic may not appreciate how much there is of realism, as well
>as magic, in the exotic tales of young sorcerers being trained at the
>Hogwarts School...What J.K. Rowlings has done...is to take the
>traditional rituals of English public schools and show them in a
>light in which they seem as curious to outsiders as the rites of
>passage of tribal Africa. She makes it easy to overlook the fact that
>the most visible character going through Harry Potter's training is
>Harry Windsor." -- 'The Playing Fields of Hogwarts', by Pico Iyer
>
>--JDR
>
Interesting quote.  :-)  But it's a good allusion to the contrast between 
British public school adolescence and Americna adolescence.

Felinia

_________________________________________________________________
Add photos to your messages with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*.  
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/featuredemail