[HPforGrownups] Re: Innocent Alby?

[Sherry Gomes]

No: HPFGUIDX 122984

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, happydogue at a... wrote:
> I realize in all that this is just a story but...I always wondered 
why social services of some type didn't step in.  I realize that 
there were no outer signs of abuse such as bruises or broken bones 
but -- teachers must have questioned the fact that one child in the 
family has everything and the other doesn't even have clothing that 
fits and broken glasses.

Tonks here:
Good heavens! Harry is not an abused child. He is clean, has a place 
to sleep, has food, isn't beaten, even gets some toys and clothing. 
Nothing fancy grant you, hand-me downs. But since when is hand-me 
downs abuse?? He lives like a normal kid did during the depression. 
I have seen abused children. I have worked with PS. Even when a 
child lives in the most abusive homes that you can think of PS 
rarely takes the kid out of the home, they send the parents to 
therapy. We see Harry homelife through the eyes of a child. He is 
not treated like a king, but the Dursley's are not the most 
terriable people in the world. Please understand that I am not 
condoning them. I am surprised at the number of people that seem to 
equate the Dursley's with the lowest form of humanity. Even the 
Dursley's don't deserve that.

Haven't we all when growning up thought that our parents were unfair 
in some way?  It is very normal for kids to wish for the *good* 
parents to come along and take them away. But when they grow up and 
hear what type of home other kids lived in they realize how good 
they really had it. I think that something like that might happen to 
Harry when he discovered just what a terrible homelife Snape might 
have had. There are no perfect parents, some are just a whole lot 
worse than others. 

Tonks_op




Sherry now:
I usually try to stay out of good/bad Dursley discussions, because neither
side will convince the other.  But I have to strongly disagree with you,
Tonks.  And I usually do agree with your posts.  If I knew of a child who
was being locked in a airless, windowless closet, who had to sleep there and
was repeatedly locked in there, I would certainly consider it abuse and
report the family to child protection services.  And somewhere in the
beginning of SS/PS, there is a statement that Harry was small for his age,
probably from being locked in his cupboard.  perhaps, in the WW as it's
presented in the books, nobody really considers this abuse, but in the RW,
it is most certainly abuse.  I won't even go down the road of how
disgraceful it is that CPS doesn't take abused children out of the home in
such situations.  Also, in COS, when Harry is locked in his room with the
windows barred, and fed cold soup through a flap, it would be considered
abuse.  He is starved.  He has classic symptoms of hunger, feeling weak and
dizzy and headaches.  And what if the house had caught on fire?  Do you
think any Dursley would seriously have thought of making sure Harry escaped?
no, my family wasn't perfect either, but I never considered the occasional
spanking or other punishment to be abuse.  I didn't have to be locked up
with no way to escape in an emergency.  I always had plenty of food, and my
siblings were not treated any better than I was.  and I was raised by my dad
and stepmother, not both biological parents.  my stepmother loved me as much
as she loved her own children, and I knew it beyond a show of a doubt.  I
can find excuses for Snape, though I dislike him in many ways, but I hope
the Dursley clan gets what they so richly deserve for the horrible home they
gave a helpless child, that they chose to take in.

Sherry G