A child is, by definition, WRONG

[imamommy at sbcglobal.net]

No: HPFGUIDX 120080


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "delwynmarch" 
<delwynmarch at y...> wrote:
> 
> Meri wrote:
> " Case in point: the Dursleys. For a decade Harry lived with him and
> learned that he couldn't look to adults for help or care or trust.
> They certainly never acted in Harry's best intersts, whether it be 
by
> practically starving him, forcing to sleep in a tiny cupboard,
> punnishments that kept him locked up for days at a time or barring 
his
> windows. Ten years of these kinds of experiences will train a kid 
not
> to trust grownups to do what is best. "
> 
> Del replies:
> I understand your point, but :
> 
> 1. Harry can talk, walk, write, read, and so on. So the Dursleys did
> get quite a few important things right.
> 
> 2. The extreme punishments you mentioned were for extreme 
situations.
> They were in no way part of his routine life.
> 
> 3. Don't mix up the examples. Barring the windows and keeping him
> locked up for days happened *after* Harry started going to Hogwarts,
> and they were always related with magic. They weren't part of his
> pre-Hogwarts growing-up (as implied by "ten years of these kinds of
> experience")

imamommy:

No, sorry, Del.  

"Once, Aunt Petunia, tired of Harry coming back from the Barbers 
looking as though he hadn't been at all, had taken a pair of kitchen 
scissors and cut his hair so short he was almost bald...Next morning, 
however, he had gotten up to find his hair exactly as it had been 
before Aunt Petunia had sheared it off.  He had been given a week in 
his cupboard for this, even though he tried to explain that he 
couldn't explain how it had grown back so quickly."
                                                (SS, p24, scholastic)
"...he'd gotten into terrible trouble for being found on the roof of 
the school kitchens...But all he'd tried to do (as he shouted at 
Uncle Vernon through the locked door of his cupboard) was jump behind 
the big trash cans outside the kitchen doors.:
                                                (SS, p25, Scholastic)
"The escape of the Brazilian boa constrictor earned Harry his longest-
ever punishment.  By the time he was allowed out of his cupboard 
again, the summer holidays had started..."
                                                 (SS, p31, Scholastic)
imamommy:

All of these examples were *before* Harry's Hogwarts letter came.  It 
sounds like they were rather common, especially if we include this 
quote:

"Sometimes, when he strained his memory during long hours in his 
cupboard, he came up with a strange vision..."
                                                 (SS, p29, Scholastic)
Sounds to me like he spent a lot of time in that cupboard.  One could 
argue that these were "extreme situations," but I think punishing 
somebody for something they can't control is pathetic, like a parent 
shaming a child for not going potty in the right place.  Generally, I 
think the Dursleys are (at the least)very ignorant parents.

I disagree that a child is wrong by definition.  A child is entitled 
to make age-appropriate choices.  They may not be the same choices an 
adult would make, but that doesn't make them wrong.

I never remember, even when I was, thinking, "I am a small child.  
I'd better do what Mommy tells me to, because she's so much older and 
wiser."  I only remember feeling like I was grown-up, within my own 
world.  Even more so when I was a teenager.  The trick is to place 
choices before a child, tell him what you would choose and what 
consequences there may be, and then let him make his decision and 
live with the consequences.  This is scary as a parent, especially 
with teenagers, but forcing them to do something only ensures that 
they will run the other way.

imamommy
imamommy