I know Molly.....

[jwcpgh]

No: HPFGUIDX 84185

Kneasy and Pippin again, eh?  Okay, here goes:

Laura said:
A sentimental streak-how sweet!

Kneasy:
> No, it's  an analytical streak.
> Dissecting characters is part of the game and I was doing just 
that as a corrective to those rubbishing Molly  because she did not 
comply with prevailing prejudices of what was fashionable behaviour 
in the circumstances that prevailed.
> 
>  Laura responds:

Methinks the gentleman doth protest too much.  This charming defense 
of motherhood is more than character analysis (which you 
called "post-facto rationalization) in another post, I believe).  I 
don't recall anyone, including myself, saying that Molly doesn't fit 
some feminist stereotype and therefore is a bad person.

> > Laura:
> > The stereotype you describe has good and bad traits, imo.  Some 
of the good traits become bad when taken to extremes.  It is *not* 
cute, loving or desirable to treat your grown children as 
emotionally dependent all their lives.  
>
Kneasy: 
> Taking  any behaviour to extremes is counter- productive. As to 
having good and bad points, show me a perfect child-rearing system 
applicable to all children, all parents, in all circumstances.
And who said anything about cute? Escaping the all-enveloping embrace
> of your mum was a  rite of passage necessary to achieve adulthood.
> It's not the children who end up emotionally  dependent, it's the 
mother. Molly  worrying  about  things like Bill's hair shows 
Molly's emotional attachment, not Bill's. I don't consider this to 
be an undesirable trait, more a natural maternal effect; then again 
I haven't read the latest trendy parenting manuals so I may be out 
of date.
> 
>Laura responds:
Of course, there isn't a perfect child-rearing system.  So the fact 
that Molly treats all of her children exactly the same way should 
make you wonder.  They're hardly all the same sort of people.

Your mom doesn't have to be "all-enveloping" for you to want 
independence.  Most kids want it regardless, from both mother and 
father (if they're lucky enough to have both).  

Yes, exactly-it's Molly's attachment that isn't healthy.  No, it's 
not a natural maternal effect, whatever that is.  It's Molly.  Can't 
help you on the parenting manuals question, I'm afraid.  But the 
ones I read back in the day all agreed that the parent's job is to 
enable the child to achieve independence.  Adult children and 
parents should have a loving and close relationship, if possible, 
but not a dependent one.  

Laura:
Women who are mothers, even full time mothers (like me) have to have 
 some sort of independent emotional and/or intellectual lives to be 
healthy and balanced human beings.
>
Kneasy: 
> I  don't question your right to choice, I  do dispute your 
contention that yours is the only correct choice for all women and 
that non-compliance signifies irredeemable descent into 
vegetablehood.  I was under the impression that the feminist agenda 
was about expanding choice rather than imposing a new rigid 
orthodoxy. Offering a choice is not compatible with imposing a 
dictat. Or am I  wrong?
>  

Laura responds:
I don't want to get into this too deeply since it's kind of OT, but 
I will say that I wasn't trying to lay down rules or limit anyone's 
choices. And I really don't think I suggested that.  Feminism is 
exactly as you describe it-a belief that women's choices should be 
respected.  I was suggesting that the women I know who are at-home 
mothers benefit, as I have, from some degree of a life away from 
their kids.  Even if it's a walk around the block by yourself or 
watching tv and knitting, all parents (including full-time dads) can 
use a bit of a break now and then.  Until the Order came along, 
Molly didn't seem to have much happening in her life outside of her 
kids.  Of course, for all I know, once Ginny left for school, she 
and Arthur spent every night learning techniques from the kama sutra 
and she spent all day brushing up on her DADA skills.  

> Laura:
> >  The notion that a woman would do nothing with her life but be a 
> > mother is a relatively new one to civilization.  
> 

Kneasy:
> Is this how you see Molly?
> Thinking about it, maybe it's true.
> Seven kids, each of them totally dependent until  they are, say, of
> school age would  take a fair chunk of years and commitment. But 
> if you want or end up with a family that large, what is the 
alternative? There is none. The home is it. Probably explains her 
fantasies about Lockhart.

Laura responds:

The snip you used from me above is a bit out of context.  I was 
suggesting that women had other work to do in addition to their 
child-rearing duties, so that they didn't have time to do the sorts 
of things we do nowadays for our kids (even if they'd existed and 
were considered appropriate for kids who weren't aristcrats).  No 
soccer teams, violin lessons, drama coaching-you know the drill. 

Yes, if you have a large family and you stay home with them, your 
time is going to be quite full for the years until they start going 
off to school in the daytime.  Someone suggested elsewhere on the 
list that the Weasleys were probably home-schooled, which makes 
sense given their relative isolation and complete ignorance of all 
things muggle.  So Molly was a very busy and no doubt very tired 
woman for many years.  When we first meet her, she is down to only 
one at home, and that one has gotten past the age of complete 
physical dependence.  She doesn't actually *need* to be a full-time 
parent any more.  She chooses to be one.  Which is a bit challenging 
if you don't have any kids at home, as happens the following year.  
Molly wants to keep doing her job the same way she always has even 
though its parameters have changed dramatically.

Kneasy:
> This new notion (in our world) is the result of low child 
mortality more than anything else. Near where I live (a  country 
town) there is an old graveyard. The number of gravestones marking 
children under 5 out-numbers adults by 3:1. By that reckoning, a 
hundred years ago perhaps two of Molly's brood would  have got to 
Hogwarts. That would have given her much more opportunity to engage 
in fun activities outside the family.

Laura responds:

Now you know perfectly well that I'm not suggesting that was a 
better alternative.  It's not a question of fun activities, in or 
out of the family-it's a question of doing basic work to maintain a 
household.  That would have to be done whether you had 2 kids or 12, 
and that work was highly labor-intensive.  Yes, the reduction in 
child mortality in addition to improved birth control techniques 
have radically changed women's opportunities.  That doesn't mean 
that mothering is a less worthy occupation than it ever was.  Maybe 
it's more worthy, just because it can be a choice.  
> 
> Laura:
> > The fierce instinct to protect the family from a hostile 
> > world is an ancient one, and was necessary to insure family 
> > survival, but to suggest that this level of insularity is still 
> > necessary is, I think, wrong.  

Kneasy:
<snip> Consider, Molly *knows* it is a hostile world out  there. 
Voldy is on the prowl again and he *kills*. He also has hidden 
allies. Her family is  associated with Voldy's prime target. It's 
not insularity, it's fear.

Laura responds:
Yes, and how should you deal with fear?  By gaining power over it.  
And the way people can do that in the WW is to learn what it will 
take to defeat LV and his DEs.  Knowledge is power.  Molly wants to 
deprive her kids of that.  If you don't give your kids the tools 
they need to take care of themselves in the world, you've done them 
a grave (in this case, perhaps fatal) disservice.  The evil doesn't 
go away because Mommy didn't tell you about it.  Intellectually I 
understand why Molly acts as she does.  But I couldn't do that to my 
kids.  I'd want to give them whatever it would take for them to 
survive.
>   
> Laura:
> > My feeling about her, though, is that she's too invested in 
> > her role as mom and has nothing else to help her form an 
identity.  That's why she goes overboard with her reactions 
sometimes.  She seems threatened when Harry shows understandable and 
appropriate affection for Sirius.
> 
Kneasy:
> Oh, Molly has an identity, she is not a blank, a cipher. Identity 
is nothing to do with complying with an observers stereotype of what
> she should be. 

Laura responds:

I'm not sure what you mean by this.  She isn't a cipher at all.  We 
all understand exactly where she's coming from.  What I'm saying is 
that she wants to keep her children dependent on her because she 
doesn't seem to see another alternative for herself.  You always 
keep your protective feelings no matter how old your kids get.  But 
you don't act the same way with a 15 year old as you do with a 15 
month old, and you don't act the same way with a 25 year old as you 
do with a 15 year old.  

Kneasy:
The traditional mum was not weak or ineffectual. An assault on the 
family and you have a tigress on your hands.

Laura responds:
Honey, you don't have to tell me-I have a Jewish mother.  

Kneasy:
> Harry may need a father figure, but is Sirius it?
> An escapee who has spent 90% of his adult life in goal, who was
> indirectly responsible for the deaths of Harry's parents, who  was
> indirectly responsible for Harry being attacked by Dementors and
> who comes from a family of supremacists? 

Laura responds:
We'll have to agree to disagree about Sirius.  But what's this about 
his being indirectly responsible for Harry being attacked by 
dementors?  If you're talking about PoA, that's *really* stretching 
a point.  Harry and company were vulnerable to the dementors because 
they were trying to rescue Buckbeak, which is why they were outside 
in the first place.  Sirius was not in their plans that night.
> 
Kneasy:>
> Hmm. Must all books be considered in the light of feminism?
> How boring that would  be. As well as being totally inappropriate.
> Half the population disregarded to please the other half.
> Brainwash 'em early, is that the idea? Acceptable stereotypes
> only, otherwise the crusade is threatened? Can't be  very  sure
> of your ground if that's the case.

Laura responds:
No, I wasn't suggesting that at all, just commenting on what's out 
there in terms of analysis.  It *would* be boring and 
inappropriate.  I've also read essays that accuse JKR of not paying 
sufficient attention to post-colonial race relations in the UK or 
issues of economic justice.  It all seems pretty silly to me-the 
woman wrote the books she wrote and not something else. No author 
has the responsibility to address all the burning questions of the 
day, for Pete's sake.  Judging by what is discussed on this list, 
she's done a pretty good job of making us think about some real-life 
problems in a clever and attention-grabbing (not to say addictive) 
way.> 

Pippin:
I see the WW as post-feminist in some ways. The women in the WW, in 
contrast to the men, all seem to know what they want and how to get 
it. There's an assumption, it seems to me, on the part of some 
feminist critics, that any woman who is not struggling desperately 
has given up. But what if they're simply on track to get what they 
want, and haven't got to struggle for anything?

Laura:

I'd agree, if by post-feminist you mean a society in which gender 
isn't a defining factor or an obstacle to anyone.  JKR seems to want 
to show us a culture in which anyone can be anything they choose-
sounds good to me!  I don't know about feminist critics in the 
context you present, but anyone who goes through life without 
struggling (at least against one's own lesser instincts) isn't 
trying hard enough.  If sex-role stereotypes aren't a problem in the 
WW, that's one less thing to struggle with.  

Pippin:
Molly's offspring live in her world, not ours. We value
independence from family, but in more traditional cultures the
family has multi-generational responsibilities. It has to. The
institutions that oversee cultural transmission and social
support in our society, ie universities, organized religion, the
welfare state, are either undeveloped or don't exist at all.

Laura:

I thought traditional societies were all pretty strong in their 
religious structures.  I can't think of one offhand that wasn't.

You raise an interesting point, though. How do values get 
transmitted in the WW?  Maybe the lack of institutions to perform 
this function accounts for the ethical/moral weaknesses in the WW.  
Learning values from the Daily Prophet could be dangerous.  Kids 
will pick up something at school but there's no explicit ethics of 
magic class, as we've observed before.  Still, once the kids are at 
school, parents lose most of the opportunities to have the kind of 
day-to-day influence that they have when the kids are at home.  

Still, nagging grown men about their hair and jewelry preferences 
and making decisions based on what you read in a notoriously 
unreliable publication aren't exactly the values one might want to 
see passed along.  

Pippin:
Just because JKR depicts a more traditional society doesn't
mean that she's nostalgic for it. <snip>And while JKR's life story 
would make a good Danielle Steele novel, I don't see why JKR has to 
write it. Isn't the fact that she's lived it enough?

Laura:
Again, that wasn't my suggestion at all, and if I wasn't clear, I'll 
try to do better in the future.   It was just an observation.  I did 
go on to say: 'I don't think that we can take it as an endorsement 
of any particular societal model, though.' That's why they call it 
fiction, right?  Authors who write thinly disguised autobiographical 
novels don't usually fool anyone.  If JKR has an agenda in writing 
these books besides entertainment, it certainly isn't to tell us her 
own life story.
Is there any such thing as a good Danielle Steele novel?  *grins*

Laura, who may not always agree with what Kneasy and Pippin have to 
say but respects their points of view and loves reading their posts!