Working parents (was "I know Molly.....")

[Matt]

No: HPFGUIDX 84097

Kneasy: 

> The WW is highly traditional, including the 
> portrayals of women.  There seems to be a 
> strict divide; what might be called career 
> types with no apparent families (MacGonagall, 
> Skeeter) and the home based (Molly, Petunia) 
> with no career. No compromise or blending of 
> the two so far as I can see.

Laura: 

> It is rather interesting that JKR would 
> portray such a traditional societal structure.  
> The only working mother we hear about is 
> Hermione's mom, but we don't know her at all.  
> (Besides, she's a muggle.)  Obviously this 
> doesn't square with JKR's own personal 
> experience.  I don't think that we can take it 
> as an endorsement of any particular societal 
> model, though.  Several posters have observed 
> that the WW is traditional, even old-fashioned, 
> in many ways, and this is a significant one.   

I would suggest that the lack of portrayals of working mothers has
less to do with a portrayal of the WW as "traditional" than with a
strong dichotomy in Rowling's writing between professional and family
life.  (I will leave others to explore the implications of such a
dichotomy for feminist theory :) ).  Unless some plot device is being
served, we rarely learn anything about the family status of people
whom we see in a work context (famously so in the case of the Hogwarts
staff, see
http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/quickquotes/articles/2001/0301-comicrelief-staff.htm
and search for "spouse"), or about the jobs of people whom we see in a
family context.  As a result, there are nearly as few working fathers
portrayed as working mothers.  

Here is the list of working parents I was able to compile with a
modicum of effort -- two witches and five wizards, plus Mr. Dursley
and the Grangers:

Vernon Dursley (executive) 
Arthur Weasley (bureaucrat)
Hermione's mom (dentist)
Hermione's dad (dentist)
Alice Longbottom (auror)
Frank Longbottom (auror)
Mr. Lovegood (editor)
Barty Crouch Sr. (not much of a father, some would say!)
Madam Edgecomb (bureaucrat) (Marietta's mom)
Amos Diggory (bureaucrat)

Unless I'm mistaken, there is exactly one confirmed stay-at-home witch
in the books, and that is Molly Weasley.   

Given the infrequency with which Rowling couples professional and
family descriptions, it is ridiculous to assume (as Kneasy appears to
do) that a witch or wizard is childless just because we have not heard
anything about his or her family.  It is even more unreasonable to
limit that assumption to women.

If we look generally at what we see of the working world in the books,
most occupations in the WW seem to be staffed by women and men in
roughly equal proportions (contrary to what one might call the
"traditional" (ahem) approach).  See, for example, the discussion of
the Hogwarts staff on the Lexicon
(http://www.hp-lexicon.org/hogwarts_teachers.html); compare the number
of male/female proprietors in Diagon Alley.  Within the Ministry and
on the Wizengamot there also appears to be significant female
representation, although I believe more male characters have been
shown.  Witches and wizards were equally represented among the
Hogwarts founders ten centuries ago.  

Given that observation, unless there is a huge childless population in
the WW, it is most reasonable to infer that many of those working
witches are mothers.  That Rowling chooses not to play up that fact is
simply a matter of writing style, or perhaps an effort to remain
apolitical.

-- Matt