Weasley Poverty, Working Wizard Women; was Molly & Arthur - was Why I like G

[slgazit]

No: HPFGUIDX 123713


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Tonks" <tonks_op at y...> wrote:
> 
> --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "phoenixgod2000" <jmrazo at h...> 
> wrote:
>  IMO, Molly has absolutely no excuse to not work when all of her 
> children are gone for so long out of the year.  She has the time to 
> work if she wanted to. I honestly don't know why she doesn't since 
> she clearly doesn't like being poor any more than Ron does.

I am a single mother who has always been working in a male dominated
profession (software engineering), yet I find this comment
condescending and insulting. Equal rights and opportunities mean first
and foremost the right to make choices on what is best for you and for
your family, without regard to what the social elite of the time
thinks. Once women were expected not to work and society frowned on
those who did, today it seems that too many have gone the same
sanctimonious path in the other direction and frown on those who have
made, together with their spouse, a decision on what is best for their
family as a whole.

Molly has spent 20+ grueling years raising seven kids on a single
small income of her husband's, educating them at home moreover (I find
weekends with my two rather exhausting - can't imagine doing it
fulltime with seven...). By all accounts she has done a magnificent
job on both housekeeping and child rearing. When her last child went
to Hogwarts she finally could take it easier - maybe focus on home
maintenance and upkeep chores she has had to put aside, perhaps pick
up a hobby. At close to 50 years old and 20+ years out of the
workforce she would face the same long odds that muggle women do under
similar circumstances. What jobs are there in the wizarding world? The
only ones we have seen that pay a salary are ministry and teaching
jobs or newspaper reporter and the like. She has no qualifications for
any of those. Anything else are enterpreneurial (sp?) positions (run a
cafe, sell or make wands, sew robes, etc. - all incidentally require
upfront investment to start which she does not have). Well, she could
start a mail order selling cookies out of her home I suppose - this
will sure be a runaway success... :-)
In the last year she took care of the OoP (whose active members all
seem to be unemployed or retiries). Much more important to society
than whatever else she could have done to earn a little money.

So barring 2-3 years of well deserved rest (rather less chores), she
has been working very hard her entire adult life.

As for Arthur getting a better job - clearly he is very commited to do
a good job at the ministry and has been blocked from promotion by the
bias of the establishment (as Molly says at the end of GoF after Fudge
storms out of the hospital wing). If he loves what he does, excells in
it and feels that without him the status of the people he is
responsible for (muggles) will be compromised significantly, then all
I can say is that he is a much better person than those of us who
choose a job mostly based on how much it pays.

Salit