[HPforGrownups] Re: Harry's money (was Ron, Harry, Molly, Money)

[Jesta Hijinx]

No: HPFGUIDX 60783

>Rhianyn rouses from her firesde contemplation to postulate:
>
>Well, no, but then a lot of things don't.  Most things even.  Despite what 
>we
>may be taught as kitlings, our own talents and interests make us gravitate
>toward our own unique "knacks".  My own mother is a fantastic domestic 
>engineer
>with a home that is always immaculate.  And she did try to teach me as did 
>my
>aunts with similar qualities.  But I always wanted to be doing outside 
>things.

Oh, so true.  :-)  In my case, my mother was always furious and talking with 
me right there about "having trained me better" - in her view, trying to 
instill me an obsession with housework and a desire to "work right alongside 
her".  Well, since i'm not a puppy or a seal, and since the reason I 
resisted constant cleaning was twofold:  that it just gave her someone close 
at hand to pick at and obsess in front of who was not her own age, and her 
daughter was not an appropriate companion for her for some of those 
emotional needs; and that I'd figured out that much of her frenzy was 
unnecessary and could be done more efficiently, less often, etc.  Example:  
she had a weird Luddite thing about not using the dishwasher - her "reasons" 
were all rationalizations and silly (and they weren't saving energy or 
money, since conservation was never something she thought was right or real 
or necessary either) - but mostly it was that she liked to see me bent over 
a hot sink of steaming dishes while she chattered and railed at me instead 
of her husband or a friend her own age.  So needless to say I used the 
dishwasher whenever I could get away with it - it got the dishes much 
cleaner!

But you could say in her view I didn't have a natural knack for cleaning - 
or she believed I did, but was just being lazy.  I really don't:  I can't 
seem to use a broom properly for sweeping.  I just can't get all the 
particles, or sweep carpets effectively when the vacuum is broken, or 
anything like that.  Imagine being around boyfriends who really believe 
women "like" to clean, and that's why they do it.

>  So now, when faced with major housecleaning traumas I find myself 
>wondering
>about very basic things like 'do I clean the tub and toilet first as I hate
>doing those, then move on to the floor?' and have to reason my way thru the 
>idea
>that I'm likely to dirty the floor doing the tub and toilet and will have 
>to
>do the floor twice if I do it first.  But give me any plant to grow or 
>about
>any animal of any species to train and I excel.  And just to bring it back 
>to
>mathematical matters I eventually realized that I get X amount of dollars 
>for
>an hour spent training critters and it costs Y amount of dollars per hour 
>to
>pay someone to clean the house and that X is substantially greater than Y 
>so I
>was actually losing money by doing it myself.
>
Yeah - I have better critical thinking facilities than cleaning facilities.  
Very distressing to the very conservative classic boyfriend I lived with who 
couldn't understand why I didn't find fulfillment in cleaning and letting 
him come up with all the ideas, and basically was like "Tough, fake it, 
you're the girl".  I didnt put up with that, but it made for a very 
uncomfortable domestic existence for much of the time we were together.

But I do think I would have had better financial abilities - because I 
*don't* lack critical thinking skills - if, instead of being vague about the 
job world and trying to hint that I should become some girlie job that paid 
slightly better than my mom's but not too much, because the *real* objective 
was to keep me living at home, unmarried, and contributing to the housing 
expenses - they'd actually acquainted me with other adult friends and 
relatives, let me find out what they did and the general salary range they 
got, and what they did with that money.  I had no idea how one chose a house 
or car other than based on color.

>Of course you must keep in mind that I as close as failed math in school as
>one could get.  So either I slipped into creative thinking (which I fondly
>believe is another of my strong points) or I was driven by need to come up 
>with a
>plausibly sound (to me anyway ;P) mathmatical theory.  Either way, my 
>natural
>tendencies or need transcended my education.
>
Same here.  :-)

>I think given common sense which Harry mostly has, (with some glaring
>exceptions) one can muddle thru the day to day mundanities of life.  
>However great
>intelligence and common sense don't necessarily go hand in hand which, I 
>think,
>is where you get very bright people who squander away lifes resources.  One
>thing I've always found attractive in Hermione is that she is very bright, 
>with
>a good deal of common sense as well.  I tend to think about Ron that he has
>the "goods" mentally but maybe not the common sense and given that 1000 
>pounds
>that Harry gave the twins, Ron would squander it.  Gred and Forge, on the 
>other
>hand, are far more likely to parlay it into more money.  Same basic
>nurturing, different outcome.  Nature over nurture :)
>
Very true - IQ and common sense dont' always go hand in hand.  However, not 
all of the salt of the earth types who think they have common sense actually 
have it.  :-)  A key is how broad the exposure is to all different types of 
thinking and how to develop the flexible problem-solving skills that allow 
one resilience (something I see in harry in *spades*, incidentally).

Felinia

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