More on Molly

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 84424

jjpandy wrote:
> > >  Plump, warm, nurturing 
> > > Molly is the opposite of bony, cold, prison-warden Aunt Petunia.
 
I wrote:
> > Excellent point (but please don't assume that bony women can't be
> > motherly!). It's not just Petunia's treatment of Harry that's 
> > involved here. Look how she treats her own son. Imagine her sending 
> > him the muggle equivalent of a howler, if there were such a thing. 
> > She doesn't discipline Dudley in any way (except for the grapefruit 
> > diet ordered by the school). Till then she probably sent him 
> > sweets--as Draco's mother also does.
 
MM wrote: 
> Petunia may have the best of intentions when it comes to Dudley, 
> but he really grew up as abused as Harry did. Only he was abused on 
> the opposite side of the scale. He was overindulged, in almost every 
> way, in every whim, and that is worse for many children than to grow 
> up as Harry did- underindulged, forced to fight for survival. <snip>


That was exactly my point, except that I'm not sure of her intentions.
I wasn't defending Petunia, whose overindulgence of Dudley is anything
but good mothering. I think you may have been misled by my
parenthetical remark reacting as a rather bony woman myself to the
implication that plump = nurturing. It was intended as a facetious
aside. My apologies for assuming that my intention would be understood
by a group of people who don't yet know me.


M.M. again:

> He grew up a callous bully, who is afraid of his 
> own shadow, who's never had to really fight for anything, and, if he 
> was really in danger of death, would die if no one else were around 
> to rescue him. If that happened, both Vernon and Petunia would have 
> no idea why; or they'd blame it on Harry, if possible. Never would 
> they think to question their own indulgent style of parenting which 
> left the poor boy without a resource. Dudley in the books is a cruel 
> bully, yet I cannot help pitying him, because he never had a chance.


Yes. Again, see my comparison with Draco, another bully whose mother
sends him sweets, and who has his own gang of thugs to protect him
because, unlike Dudley, he isn't big enough to play the bully role
himself (except with his wand). Pampering is not parenting, as we see
in both cases.

My original intention in responding to the prison-warden post was to
extend the contrast between Petunia and Molly from their respective
treatment of Harry to Petunia's indulgence of Dudley in contrast with
Molly's penchant for discipline. (There may be better disciplinary
methods than scolding and howlers, but at least she doesn't tolerate
misbehavior.) Dudley's parents, on the other hand, never discipline
him for anything. Their blindness to his faults is preparing him for
incompetence and delinquency. (I suppose I could pity him, but it
would require some effort. Surely he knows what he's getting away
with. A fifteen-year-old who beats up ten-year-olds has lost whatever
claim he once had to our sympathy.) 

I do hope we'll see a more sympathetic side of Petunia, whose
resentment of Harry may well reflect her being forced by her husband
to hide her own family's connection to the WW all these years, but
that's a topic for another thread. My point here is just that you seem
to have misread my post. We agree that her indulgence of Dudley is not
good mothering.

Carol