[HPforGrownups] Re: Hermione's parents

[Shaun Hately]

No: HPFGUIDX 102756

As the person who seems to have started this discussion, and who 
seems to have been quite misunderstood as to what he was saying, I 
just want to raise a few issues here.

First of all, just to repeat, that I never intended to suggest for 
a second that Hermione didn't have a loving relationship with her 
parents, or an unaffectionate relationship with her parents. The 
reason for that confusion seems to be that the word 'estrange' has 
multiple definitions - some of these definitions involve a 
lessening of affection, but by no means all. A significant number 
of people seem to have only encountered the definitions which 
include loss of affection. But that is only one defition.

Just to give a couple of examples from online dictionaries.

Merriam-Webster Tenth Edition:

1 : to remove from customary environment or associations
2 : to arouse especially mutual enmity or indifference in where 
there had formerly been love, affection, or friendliness

Dictionary.com

1. To make hostile, unsympathetic, or indifferent; alienate.
2. To remove from an accustomed place or set of associations.

As I say, it's a word with multiple definitions. I was using it 
more in the sense of the 1st from Merriam-Webster and 2nd from 
Dictionary.com.

I was not intending to claim for a moment that Hermione and her 
parents have lost their love and affection.

The reason I used the term 'estranged' is because it's the term I 
use in some of the work I do in gifted children. Unfortunately, 
here in Australia, it's not uncommon for the parents of gifted 
children to have to send their children to schools that are 
culturally quite different from what they would otherwise 
experience. In my case, my working class parents were forced to 
send me to one of the country's most expensive and prestigious 
private schools so I could get the education I needed. A very 
different culture (nowhere near as big as the potential one we see 
in Hermione's life, of course!). I know of other cases where Jewish 
families have found themselves needed to choose a Baptist school. 
Or where a couple of genuine Hippies wound up having to send their 
kids to a rigidly conservative, highly disciplined education 
environment.

More often than not, these decisions don't cause any major 
problems. But there's a sizeable minority of cases where they do 
lead to various issues arising in a family, including 
'estrangement'. This is the term we use for cases where cultural 
differences between the school culture and the home culture cause 
any form of unusual distance between members of a family.

It *rarely* means that there is a diminishment of affection. In 
fact, I've never personally encountered a case where parents and 
child wound up loving each other less, in the dozen or so I've 
dealt with personally, and I've only ever heard of that happening 
once out of dozens of cases (and there were other issues involved 
there as well).

I used the term 'estranged' in a fairly technical sense. It might 
have been better if I'd used a different word - but for the life of 
me, I can't find one. *Every* similar term has multiple 
definitions, and in every case some of those multiple definitions 
carry a context of loss of affection, or hostility or something 
similar.

It's be nice sometimes if English was a language where every word 
had *precisely one* definition (-8

On 24 Jun 2004 at 14:27, allison_m_otto wrote:

> I also think there is some evidence that when Hermione is with her 
> parents, they seem to have an affectionate relationship (she 
> does "gently" disengage from her mother at the end of OoP).  However, 
> I also think there are really good explanations for why she would be 
> eager to spend time at school or with Ron and Harry during the 
> holidays. 
<SNIP>
> PS - presumably, like Dean, she doesn't tell her parents about her 
> near-death experiences because she doesn't want them to worry over 
> her or forbid her from going back to school.  The fact that they're 
> out of the loop doesn't mean they don't talk about other things.  I'm 
> guessing there are plenty of things Ron hasn't told Molly - for 
> example, I'd be very surprised if she knew the whole story about him 
> being out on the grounds shackled to a werewolf in PoA.

The problem is though, while Hermione might well have 'really good 
explanations' for why she is eager to spend time at school or with 
Ron or Harry during the holidays - that doesn't mean that the 
decision may still not be disappointing to her parents.

In Goblet of Fire, Hermione is away from home for ten and a half 
months - she comes home - and it looks like about a week later, 
she's off again to spend the rest of her holidays with her friend, 
Ron and his family.

After ten and a half months, her parents get to see her for a 
*week*. If Hermione *does* have loving parents, I really think they 
are going to be disappointed at that happening.

They plan a ski trip at Christmas - they are going to take their 
daughter on holiday. At this point they haven't seen her for five 
and a half months.

They meet her at King's Cross Station - and immediately she tells 
them she's going to stay with Ron and his family.

(This is how the times seem to work out).

Six months later they meet her at King's Cross Station again.

What happens there?

First of all, Molly Weasley apparently manages to greet Hermione 
even before her parents do (and while it isn't explicit in this 
case, Molly seems like the type who would greet her with a hug).

When Hermione *finally* makes contact with her parents, she hugs 
them for a moment then 'disengages gently' from her mother - and 
walks off to join a group that includes the Weasley family!

If I was Mr and Mrs Granger, the more I loved my daughter, the more 
hurt I would be by all of this. From their perspective, their 
daughter wants to spend more time with the Weasleys than she does 
them.

Yes, *we* may be able to see that Hermione has good reasons for 
these decisions.

But like you say, I'm also pretty convinced that Hermione doesn't 
tell her parents much of what is going on to stop them worrying.

I really doubt she explained to them: "I have to go stay with Ron's 
family because my Headmaster is worried that the most evil Wizard 
on the planet has returned and he might try to kill all of us." or 
"I have to stay with Ron's family because I intend to help defeat 
the most evil Wizard on the planet." Or anything like that.

At Christmas, did she tell her parents: "I need to go and stay with 
Ron because my friend Harry - you know the one, personal enemy of 
the most evil Wizard on the planet - had a vision in which a giant 
snake tried to eat Ron's dad!"

Mr and Mrs Granger have sent their daughter off into a very alien 
world, and by her fourth year at the school, she's stopped coming 
home for more than a week at a time. She's blown off a skiing trip 
with her parents to stay with a Wizarding family. And in all 
probability, the reasons she's given them for this are very 
innocuous - nowhere near important enough to justify what she is 
doing to them. It's likely it looks to them like excuses.

They may still love their daughter incredibly - in fact, the 
strongest expression of that love may be the fact that they are 
(from their perspective) letting her live in the world she wants 
to, no matter how much it *hurts* them.

But honestly... I'd be hard pressed to see how they can still be 
having a healthy real relationship with their daughter.

One weeks contact in 20 months? And a a daughter, who it seems 
likely is concealing large aspects of her life from them?

If they love each other, it may be that they'll be able to rebuild 
a new relationship, but I really doubt that what they have at the 
moment is particularly healthy.


Yours Without Wax, Dreadnought
Shaun Hately | www.alphalink.com.au/~drednort/thelab.html
(ISTJ)       | drednort at alphalink.com.au | ICQ: 6898200 
"You know the very powerful and the very stupid have one
thing in common. They don't alter their views to fit the 
facts. They alter the facts to fit the views. Which can be 
uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that 
need altering." The Doctor - Doctor Who: The Face of Evil
Where am I: Frankston, Victoria, Australia