How being with Dursleys influenced Harry's character

[dumbledore11214]

No: HPFGUIDX 158569

> Cliff here:
<SNIP>
 So let kids learn to cope with
> bad situations when they learn quickly and can adapt and/or heal 
quickly. 

Alla:

Sure, sometimes learn to cope with bad situations is good, I just 
disagree that being with Dursleys is the bad situation kids should 
be placed into in order to learn to adapt and cope.
 
Cliff:
> So Harry leans to adapt and cope. He used his wits to save the
> Sorcerers Stone, to fight the basilisk, etc. at ages 11 and 12. Put
> your average kid of 11 or 12 who grew up in a safe, loving home 
into
> those situations and you'll have a disaster. SS would have been a
> horror story.
<SNIP>


Alla:

How do we know that SS would have been a horror story? Is the 
argument that unless kids grows up in home like Dursleys then kid 
cannot adapt and cope? I am sorry, but I cannot buy it. It is quite 
possible to raise strong kid without doing what Dursleys did to him 
IMO.

If memory serves me correctly there were three of them going after 
the Stone and while it fallen upon Harry to fight Quiirrelmort at 
the final stage, Ron and Hermione also did quite a few very 
difficult tasks and as far as we know they grew up in normal, loving 
homes. I thought they did pretty well under circumstances.

> Tesha:
> oh, my Tonks - you are sooo right. A lot of people grow up 
believeing
> that they got the raw end of the deal, and how great to have a hero
> that you can feel akin to - bonds you right to him, doesn't it?

Alla:

I am going to refer you to  this part of Magpie's post. She said it 
so much better than I ever could.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/158548

Magpie:
Yesk, they FEEL misunderstood and unloved--that doesn't mean they 
are.
Harry IS misunderstood and unloved every day at the Dursleys. 
Children like
reading about that. I don't think anyone is arguing that *JKR* has 
done some
horrible wrong by putting Harry with the Dursleys. I think everyone 
gets
the appeal of that situation in fiction. I accept that this is a 
device to
get Harry into his fairy-tale (in the bad way) situation and I 
accept it had
to happen as I accept a lot of things that way. I don't have to 
argue it to
myself as if it were real. But if I am going to argue it to myself 
as if it
were real (which is basically what the thread is doing, imagining 
what
options Dumbledore had and which one was best), it's Dumbledore 
that's going
to get tarnished, not the entire rest of reality.


Alla:

Just as Magpie, I **get** the fictional appeal of the situation, I 
really, really do. But when we are arguing as if it is **real**, 
then I really don't. 
 
> Tesha:
> and Alla, the abuse Harry lives through is not that far off center.
> Families go through tough times, tempers get short, dad takes up
> drinking when he looses his job, mom is frazzled with a job the
> housework and the kids. Harry isn't tortured, he's simply "a 
problem"
> for his caretakers. If you never felt this as a kid, not even once,
> then you're really very lucky.

Alla:

Harry is never tortured indeed, the point I am making is that he is 
suffering enough without being tortured IMO.

And I am not sure I understand your question correctly. Are you 
asking whether my parents ever behaved like Dursleys? I mean close 
enough? Erm.... NO. Not once and I know many families who do not 
behave like them.

Oh, and I don't remember experiencing too many hugs and kisses 
either - my parents both worked and I was indeed given enough 
freedom as a teen, but they always always found time to talk to me, 
even if it was not much during the day, pay attention to what is 
going on in my school and my brother's school, etc.

And they never called us names, **ever** and I resent the argument 
which was made earlier that it means that they were mentally 
unhealthy too. Raising voices sometimes? Sure, but without cursing 
us.

There is plenty of good parents who fall in the normal middle 
ground, IMO. Plenty.


JMO,

Alla