Working mothers, was Did the Slytherins come back

horridporrid03 horridporrid03 at yahoo.com
Fri Mar 7 18:23:26 UTC 2008


No: HPFGUIDX 181955

> >>Lynda:
> I always read these threads with a bit of apprehension, being one   
> of those working women who always wanted kids but never had any.
> <snip>
> So I don't see that writing a series of books in which some of the 
> women who have kids stay home to raise their families rather than  
> go out and work is a problem.
> <snip>
> Could the Weasleys really have afforded a babysitter? If Tonks had 
> lived, maybe she would have gone back to work.
> Come to think of it, she did!

Betsy Hp:
As Edna points out, for most of the time we know Molly, she's sitting 
at home alone.  For one year she has ten year old Ginny, but after 
that, not even Arthur is home that often (most of the time we know 
Arthur he's buried at work).

Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course.  The Weasleys 
have a farm-ish like home and Molly could well be busy tending live-
stock and the garden, etc.  Or she could be planted on the couch 
listening to the wireless, reveling in the freedom to do nothing 
after several years with a solid set of children under foot.  And 
more power to her, is my opinion.  Again, Molly can do as she likes.

The trend *I* don't like in the series is the implicit idea that 
sexual attraction (either being or having) is only okay with an eye 
towards future breeding.  That a girl can't crush on a boy simply 
because he's attractive, she's got to be thinking he's future husband 
material.

Couples without children are futureless and generally treated as 
having something wrong with them.  Single people are okay, but only 
if they take a vow of chastity.  McGonagall is a classicly sexless 
old-maid type.  Trewlawny is the pathetic type of old-maid: 
interested in sex, but unable to land a man.

Lavender is a bad girl in her dating of Ron without wanting to marry 
him (making out rather than picking out china) and ends up ravaged by 
a werewolf (an old sign of rampant sexuality).  Ginny is a good girl 
with her sexual aggression and attractiveness because she's got her 
cap set for a husband (Harry).

Dumbledore, being gay and therefore not a breeder, is a bad boy when 
he's crushing on a boy, but okay when he shuts himself up in a school 
with the implied vow of chastity that goes along with it.  (Though, I 
think you can read a certain amount of... tragedy, maybe? in his not 
having a wife and child and subsequent loneliness.)

I think JKR gets Tonks knocked up so quickly after her marrage to 
Lupin to show us that yes, Tonks is a good girl.  She's sexual for 
the right reasons.  And I find it hilarious that JKR "punishes" Pansy 
by not showing her married with children in the epilogue.  (The 
amusement comes from me reading the epilogue and picturing Pansy 
enjoying her twenties or pursuing a career, when apparently I should 
have been thinking, "Hah! You didn't marry your high-school 
boyfriend! Loser!")

Anyway, I think that's part of the reason the series left me cold in 
the end.  Not that I don't think people should have kids, just sex is 
okay even if doesn't end in children.  The other view leaves me a 
bit... cold, I guess.

Betsy Hp (a bit rambly, sorry)





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