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

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 123807


Salit wrote:
> <snip> 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. <snip>

Carol responds:
Besides her work with the Order and her housework, both of which you
mentioned but I snipped, she has all those Weasley jumpers and socks
to knit. Even with magic that would take a while (note that Harry's
sweater had a dragon on the front). And if the Burrow is anywhere near
as hard to clean as 12 Grimmauld Place, that job is no picnic with or
without magic. And she probably has to degnome the garden by herself
when the boys are gone, not to mention tending it in a more ordinary
way. I'd say she has plenty to do at home and plenty of reason to
believe that she needs to stay there when she's not doing work for the
Order. So I agree with you on that point, though I'm not so sure about
age discrimination in the WW. We certainly see some elderly witches
and wizards administering the OWLs.

Regardless, based on her description of her school days at Hogwarts, I
think she's considerably older than fifty or even seventy like
Voldemort as of OoP. She speaks of Ogg the gamekeeper and Apollyon
Pringle the caretaker. The implication is that her school days predate
Hagrid's and probably Tom Riddle's as well. But of course seventy for
a witch and seventy for a Muggle are two different things, and fifty
(which for us is late middle age at best and early senility to kids in
their teens and twenties) is barely middle-aged to wizards. (Notice
the narrator's reference to Lupin, who'd be about 34 at the beginning
of PoA, as "quite young.")

Carol, who doubts that she'll be quite as "sprightly" as McGonagall
(or Molly) at seventy but fortunately doesn't have to worry about it
for awhile