Did Molly dislike Sirius?

[jwcpgh]

No: HPFGUIDX 109696

Siriusly Snapey Susan wrote:
Do you really think Molly DISLIKED Sirius, or just that she
questioned his ability to be a mature, responsible guardian for
Harry?  

Brian:
> I took the Molly/Sirius exchange as a personality clash. <snip> My 
guess is that JKR has written Molly as a stereotypical mother.  
Stereotypy has received a lot of bad press since the days of 
political correctness, but Molly, I think, is an example of it.  
Notice that most of the time Harry notices that she behaves "like a 
mother."  <snip> Anyway, I don't think Sirius and Molly dislike each 
other.  In fact, I'd be willing to bet that Molly will, at least for 
awhile, be tormented with grief over Sirius's death.  After all, 
this is the woman who in GoF worried that her last interaction with 
Fred and George was disciplinary!  

By the way, Molly does a pretty good job of henpecking Arthur, thus 
fulfilling another stereotype.

Laura here:

Ah, Molly.  She's all heart-but that's not such a good thing, since 
we are made of heart and mind.  

I want to be clear that I have nothing but respect for full time, at 
home parents (being one myself).  Rearing children is the most 
difficult, and the most important, job in the world.  Still, Molly's 
parenting style often sets my teeth on edge.  There's no doubt that 
her family is her whole life and she loves them with every atom of 
her being.  But Molly's kind of love leans towards the 
overprotective, infantalizing kind-and that applies to her feelings 
about her husband too.  The primary task of a parent, it seems to 
me, is to help her children become independent, self-sufficient, 
successful adults.  Encouraging dependency, treating growing 
children (and adult husbands!) in age-inappropriate ways, 
interfering with the children's attempts to make their own decisions-
those kinds of behaviors do not allow the children to become their 
own people.  

The thing about Molly is that she always acts out of whatever 
emotion is predominating in her at the moment.  She never stops to 
think a situation through.  Rarely, if ever, do we see her handle a 
crisis with calm deliberation.  She's a bit of a caricature in that 
way and her behavior makes me uncomfortable.  If kids learn by 
example, Molly's way of handling pressure is a pretty poor one.  She 
melts down and goes all drama-queen on everyone and makes herself 
the focus of attention but she doesn't actually adress the problem.  
The fact that her kids are by and large reasonable people capable of 
dealing with difficulties in a constructive way (yes, even Fred and 
George) probably has to do more with the size of the Weasley family 
than anything Molly does.  She just doesn't have time to micromanage 
every child's life the way she'd like to, and I shudder to think 
what kind of child would result if she did.  (Wait a minute-the name 
Dudley comes to mind here.)

My 16-year-old daughter is a lot more sympathetic to Molly than I 
am.  She pointed out to me that Molly's behavior in book 5 probably 
has a lot to do with her being out of her safe space.  In her home 
she knows what her job is and what to expect.  At Grimmauld Place 
she is dislocated, physically and emotionally.  She tries to act the 
same way she would at home, with mixed results.  Her housekeeping 
organizational skills are valuable in the effort to restore the 
house to some semblance of livability.  But she doesn't deal well 
with the crisis mode of the Order.  Her instinct is to boss everyone 
around, even the adults, and try to keep the obvious a secret from 
her bright, curious children.  Both efforts are doomed to failure, 
which just increases her frustration level.  She can never step back 
and rethink her clearly ineffective reactions.  

I think Molly and Sirius simply had no common ground.  Their life 
experiences were so radically different that they were barely 
speaking the same language.  Molly is a homebody.  Sirius is a 
fighter.  Molly wants to protect and preserve the status quo.  
Sirius has seen evil, lived with it, and has chosen to dedicate his 
life to battling it.  For Molly, Sirius represents danger and the 
destabilizing of everything she values.  For Sirius, Molly 
represents home and conservatism (small c-as in keeping things as 
they are), which have stifled him and caused him pain his whole 
life.  One can see where the problem would arise when these two try 
to interact.  

Molly's finest moment, for me, is at the end of book 4, when she 
hugs Harry.  She doesn't try to give him long explanations or make 
him give any. She just gives him what he has needed all his life-
simple, direct love in a simple, direct way.  She knew what do to 
and she did it.  At that moment, she is a mother to Harry in the 
very best sense of the word.

Laura, who thinks that Sirius could have used a little of that kind 
of loving gesture too and wishes Molly could have seen that