Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #368, Growin’ Up
Show Intro
[Show music plays]
Andrew Sims: This is MuggleCast, the Harry Potter podcast discussing everything about J.K. Rowling’s Wizarding World. Welcome to MuggleCast Episode 368. I’m Andrew.
Eric Scull: I’m Eric.
Micah Tannenbaum: I’m Micah.
Andrew: We have a special Mother’s Day-themed edition of MuggleCast, and we’re joined by a mother, and she was actually on the show a few weeks ago. Cherise, welcome back to the show.
Cherise: Well, thank you, Andrew. I’m glad to be back.
Andrew: What are your mother credentials? [laughs]
Cherise: Well, I have not biologically given birth to children, but I am a foster parent, and I have had about 15 kids in my home, ranging from ages four months clear up to 20 years old.
Eric: Wow.
Cherise: We currently just adopted our first child. She is three years old.
Andrew: That’s amazing. Congratulations! That’s so exciting.
Cherise: Thank you!
Andrew: So it’s nice to have you on.
Main Discussion: The Mothers of the Wizarding World
Andrew: We’re going to talk about the mothers in the Harry Potter series. We’re going to talk about who we think is the best mother; what these mothers have contributed to the story over the years. Let’s jump straight into it. Before we get to the specific mothers of the Harry Potter series, I thought we should start the discussion with how would raising a young witch or wizard differ from raising a child in the Muggle world? Because there must be clear differences there.
Eric: Hmm. So if you’re a Muggle parent and your kid is magic?
Andrew: Well, yeah. Or not necessarily; you don’t have to be a Muggle parent, per se. I’m just wondering how raising a child differs when you’re involved in the wizarding world.
Eric: I mean, I see it as like raising a kid with a talent. You want to foster that talent. I mean, I think it is different if you’re also a wizard or witch, because we’ve seen that wizarding households are run a little bit differently government-wise, especially with the Statute of Secrecy being a thing. Ron Weasley had a very different upbringing than Harry did. Even underage magic isn’t really policed in wizarding homes, because there’s apparently no way to track who’s doing it, so you could actually grow up doing a little bit of magic a long time before you’re 11, if you grew up in a wizarding household.
Andrew: I was wondering about going to school. Do you not go to school until Hogwarts if you’re a wizarding child? Is there a preschool? Is there a kindergarten? What are these children doing before Hogwarts?
Eric: That’s a good question.
Cherise: I mean, the only thing that we ever see is the Weasley kids, so… I mean, and of course, Molly stays home with them. But what about the moms at work?
Eric: It’s so weird to me that for somebody like Hermione, who is Muggle-born, her first introduction to the wizarding world seemed to be when she got her Hogwarts letter, which is when she turned 11. That is a long time to be a witch or wizard without knowing about it, and if it’s anything like Harry, who had all these unexplained things happening to him when he was very young, you’re going to wonder what’s up. You’re going to wonder what’s going on. It seems like there should have been communication a little bit sooner than that, right? On the part of the wizarding world to be like, “Hey, you’re a kid with Muggle parents. You don’t know any of this, but you have magical powers, and magic’s a thing, P.S.”
Andrew: Well, that’s what I was also wondering, and that leads into my next question: Hermione didn’t exhibit any signs? Was she sneezing out magic fairy dust?
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: There must have been some sort of sign. And then I’m wondering for the parents, what does that…? How do you react to that? Do they go to a class, a course about…? [laughs] “What to expect when your child is a wizard.”
Eric: [laughs] There should be special classes you can take in Diagon Alley or something for Muggle parents looking to work with their kids a little bit more, because I think ultimately, Hermione’s parents are an example of parents who are doing it right. Presumably, before they found out she was magical, they already supported her in her… I wanted to say literacy, but her literary prowess, her academia. They really seemingly encouraged her to read all she could and made that available to her, and they were just pleased as punch when they found out that she was also a witch and special. And so having parents that foster that support, that want their kids to grow and excel as much as they can, is a great mindset, but we haven’t really seen what plans are in place to really ease that transition. It could probably be hard for parents having a magical kid.
Micah: I think, though, too, we’re dealing with the story starting more or less out when Harry is already 11 years old and is finding out that he’s going to Hogwarts. We don’t have a whole lot of context to what happens prior to that. And if there are instances throughout the series, they’re very limited in explaining what Ron went through or Hermione went through when they were growing up. So I would just think it would be… I’m picturing Molly Weasley in the kitchen having to deal with a younger version of Fred and George.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: Think about how they are when they’re grown; never mind what they were probably like when they were six or seven or even younger. I mean, they probably created such a mess in that household.
Eric: We always hear about pranks they pulled on Ron, like one of them changed his teddy bear into a tarantula or something like that. That stuff was definitely going on.
Andrew: Cherise, what’s your daughter’s name?
Cherise: It’s Elena Jane.
Andrew: Has Elena Jane exhibited any signs of being a witch yet?
Cherise: Besides the red hair?
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: Yes. Sneezing magic dust?
Eric: That’s not a thing.
Andrew: Talking to snakes? None of that? Okay, just checking.
Cherise: Oh, I hope she’s not talking to snakes.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: Don’t like snakes?
Cherise: No, I don’t. [laughs]
Andrew: I’m picturing a wizarding daycare for the families where a parent can’t stay home during the day, and that would be an absolute mess, I think. I keep thinking about The Incredibles‘s Jack-Jack, how it’s like you can’t restrain him because of his powers, which we really don’t know much about, [excitedly] but maybe we will in The Incredibles 2, coming out this summer. [inhales deeply] But anyway, I think, it would be like that, where these kids maybe show brief signs of magic and there’d be no way to control them. It’s hard enough to control a child without magical powers. [laughs]
Cherise: Yes, it is. [laughs]
Eric: I just watched The Incredibles the other day, so now I get that reference, and it’s a very good one. [laughs]
Andrew: It came out 14 years ago; you just watched it?
Eric: I know, I know. I’m a little late. I’m a little behind the curve.
Andrew: Oh my gosh.
Eric: But you know? I’m prepped to watch Incredibles 2, so there we go.
Andrew: Good.
Eric: But baby Jack-Jack… it’s the same thing, right? As a parent, you just want your kid to succeed. You’ve got to be able to give them the environment that they need in which to thrive, I think.
Cherise: Absolutely. We’ve had some… I mean, we’ve had kids with totally different personalities in our home, and with each one, you have to assess, because each child is different. We have a young man who’s 15, who will be moving into our home in a week, and he absolutely loves horses.
Eric: Really.
Andrew: Aw.
Cherise: Yes, so thank goodness… I mean, so we live in Kansas City. We live closer to the outskirts of Kansas City, so farms are very accessible to us, so we’re able to accommodate this child’s needs to maybe work through because we deal with a lot of kids with trauma, so the horses can help them work through the trauma. But also, we had a 11-year-old boy who we believe is autistic, and when he came, Elena was still two, and at two years old, you’re still learning what you can and can’t do. And the 11-year-old saw everything very black and white; he’s like, “Well, she shouldn’t be doing that.” Well, yes, she should not be doing that, but she’s still learning. Sometimes we have to learn the hard way, and she might get hurt, but that’s okay.
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Eric: I think we all probably have those stories of things we did as a kid that was not smart. I remember putting my finger in a electrical outlet that was exposed. My dad was dumb enough or unfortunate enough to leave it exposed, and I got a zap.
Andrew: Oh, gosh.
Eric: I mean, but there’s always the near death experiences. I rode my trike into the street once by accident, and…
Andrew: Oh my gosh.
Eric: Yeah, it’s a miracle I’m alive here, guys, today. But as kids, we get into danger, we get into trouble, and that’s just exacerbated if we were witches and wizards and magical. [laughs]
Micah: When we were growing up, I would say baby proofing was not what it is today. I think far more extensive measures are being taken than when we were crawling around or walking around.
Eric: Oh, really? Have you seen…? I’ve not seen it improve. We used to just have those links, those little plastic links that prevent cabinets from opening all the way.
Micah: Well, that said, your story about the power outlet, I did that a couple years ago, so I don’t know what that says.
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: Micah is still a child needing parenting supervision.
Andrew: We need to baby proof your home, I guess, still. Micah proof it.
Micah: It wasn’t… I didn’t go ahead and put my finger into the outlet; it was actually I was plugging something in and got a nice shock up the side of my right arm.
Cherise: I could give you some good baby proof pointers, Micah.
Micah: Okay.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Micah: There are not any babies that I’m aware of at this point, but I’ll come back to you maybe in a couple years. [laughs]
Cherise: You have to stay safe too.
Andrew: Yeah. My next question was going to be “Would we ever let our child touch our wand?”, but I think we’ve kind of answered that question. I don’t even think I’d let Micah, an adult, touch my wand.
Eric: [laughs] We’ve got to keep Micah away from all our wands when he comes to Chicago next week.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Eric: This is good info.
Andrew: Actually, I don’t think you can come over to my place, Micah. When I was getting it inspected, they were pointing out how some things need to be baby proofed, and I was like, “Oh, you don’t have to worry about that.”
[Eric and Micah laugh]
Eric: Did you show them your nonverbal magic thermostat, though? That’s pretty cool.
Andrew: Yes. Yeah, yeah. What did you want to bring up, Cherise? These two points.
Cherise: Just how with the different stories, as in Deathly Hallows, when Scrimgeour is giving Hermione Tales of Beedle the Bard, and she’s like, “Okay,” and Harry is like, “Okay,” and Ron is like, “Oh, yeah, these stories.” And then Hermione is like, “We grew up with Cinderella and these other stories,” so it’s just kind of, I want to say, different lore, stuff like that. Different stories to do morals and stuff like that. That’s where I wanted to go with that. It’s just different cultures, so different stories.
Eric: Yeah, they’re whole… I mean, we’re talking bedtime stories. Ron is… Molly Weasley would read, and she would always say “twilight” instead of “moonlight,” or whatever the thing is, when she read Beedle the Bard, “The Tale of the Three Brothers.” This is true, though; the stories that we’re telling our kids from early ages all have morals associated with them more than not, and the morals are in some cases the same, and in some cases different. And The Tales of Beedle the Bard, which is my favorite companion novel, has a lot of dark stories. It’s as if somebody read the non-watered down Grimms’ Fairy Tales to children, where witches and wizards actually die. And Cinderella has it pretty rough, but I think Beedle the Bard… “The Warlock’s Hairy Heart,” which is, again, my favorite story of that, is just so, so, so dark. The idea that they’re teaching this to wizarding kids or telling these stories is changing the way that they see the world around them like fairy tales do us. I think fairy tales tend to instill our kids a sense of hope, like want to be a prince or a princess, with some exceptions of “Don’t be greedy like the Evil Queen” or something like that. And Beedle the Bard isn’t that much different, but it is a little bit different, because all of those stories involve performing magic that presumably is in this child’s future. It’s not like… when we listen to stories about witches and wizards, we’re like, “Oh, that’s cool. We could never do that.” There’s no expectation that we will be able to create an enchanted apple or drink a magic potion that becomes bigger or smaller. But if that’s in a kid’s book in the wizarding world, those kids could actually learn to do that one day, and I think that changes things.
Cherise: Like you were saying, we read princess stories every night to Elena Jane, so that’s what she likes. But I mean, she’ll never kiss a frog and he’ll become a prince and whatnot…
[Andrew laughs]
Cherise: … but with magic, that very well could happen. And so it’s… these stories are true in some form in Tales of Beedle the Bard, so they can come true.
Eric: I know; it’s kind of a cool angle. It would be like us reading historical nonfiction to our kids, in a way.
Micah: For Beedle the Bard, though, if I’m remembering correctly, the two stories that jump to the very top of Ron’s mind are “The Wizard and the Hopping Pot” and “Babbity Rabbity and her Cackling Stump,” so I wonder if there’s almost a progression to reading The Tales of Beedle the Bard, because as you do mention, they do get darker as you move through them. And honestly, I don’t remember every scene from the two stories I just mentioned, if there’s anything specifically that’s very dark to them, but those seem to really elicit a positive response from Ron, like he’s going back into his childhood and he’s very excited to talk about these stories, so I wonder. And what about for Harry, though? I mean, Hermione may very well have had Cinderella and other Disney tales to learn from, but Harry was shut in underneath the stairs. And I wanted to talk about that for a minute, too, because the experience for him growing up, Petunia and Vernon would have done pretty much anything to forcefully have Harry repress his magical ability, even though he had absolutely no clue that he possessed this. I’m thinking about always trying to cut his hair but his hair would grow back, and how he magically ended up on top of the roof at school when he was being chased, right? There’s these mentions of things that he does, but yet, I wonder how much more he actually exhibited that Petunia and Vernon just wanted to explain away and not have him think much about.
Cherise: On that, Micah, I definitely… I think Harry has so much Gryffindor in him that he never let Petunia and Vernon get him down. Because I could so see, if Harry hadn’t been as strong as he was, he could have easily become an Obscurus, because they would try to stamp out the magic. And if he was like, “Oh no, I don’t want to get into trouble, so I’ll just do exactly what they say,” but he’s like, “Oh, I turned my teacher’s wig blue. Okay, whatever.”
Eric: [laughs] Harry is a sad case, and I don’t think Petunia will be winning the mother of the universe awards. I don’t think she would have read to him, and frankly… I mean, the only thing I can think of is in the movie version – in extended scenes, they make a little bit more of a deal about it – but he has tiny little knights that he plays with inside his cupboard, and that strikes me as being like, “Oh, you know the context of… there’s probably a knight in shining armor in a story that you heard or something.” But I mean, apart from maybe being left to sit in front of the TV and watch a children’s TV show as a kid, it’s unclear just what, if any, stories Harry was raised on as a kid, and that’s… we know it’s because they shied away from his “abnormality,” but in general, that was a huge deal of child abuse, and that’s not what we hope for any child, to be raised in those conditions.
Cherise: Oh, heavens, no. But then again, I mean, Harry did go to primary school, so I’m guessing he heard stories there.
Eric: That’s true. Harry actually did receive normal Muggle schooling, which is a consequence of them wanting to treat him normal, and that’s a huge thing, right? That’s actually… he can read and write up to a… he knows some stuff.
Cherise: Yeah, and he gets maths.
Eric: Yeah, he gets maths, he tells Hagrid, who… Hagrid brushes it off. [laughs]
Micah: One question I wanted to go back to was the age at which you all think that witches or wizards start exhibiting these signs, right? Because I’m almost thinking about… is it Addam’s Family Values where Gomez and Morticia have another kid, and he’s in the cradle and he spits fire out? He does something crazy? And I’m wondering…
Eric: [laughs] I forgot about that.
Micah: Is it like that?
Eric: That’s like Jack-Jack, too, in the upcoming trailer for Incredibles 2. I think it… well, Teddy Lupin, right? Baby Teddy; wasn’t his hair already turning bright blue?
Micah: Yeah, but that’s not exactly the same, I mean.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Well, why not? I mean, not everybody’s a Metamorphmagus, that’s for sure.
Andrew: Well, the hair can’t… it’d be one thing if the hair, like Medusa, was coming to life and choking people or something.
Eric: It’s still magic!
Andrew: Yeah, I guess so.
Eric: People’s hair doesn’t change right away.
Andrew: I’m going to guess it varies by age that you start exhibiting signs.
Cherise: Yeah, because you remember they thought Neville was nonmagical, and they kept trying to force the magic out of him. And I think it’s normal… I mean, it can start very young – and this is probably just canon according to Cherise – it can start very young, but if it hasn’t exhibited by a certain age, say 8 or 9, then they’re probably chalking them up to be a Squib.
Eric: Yeah, it’s got to be interesting the pressure that wizarding families put on their kids to be magical. That’s something that, as you mentioned, Neville, his family is definitely known for, at least internally to us as readers of the Harry Potter series, because his great uncle Algie threw him out a damn window, and luckily he bounced, but these are real stories that existed because everyone in Neville’s family thought this child of these great witch and wizard Aurors, who thrice defied Voldemort, was a Squib, was a non-magic person. And that’s its own set of pressure to live up to your siblings, like Ron experiences as well.
Micah: They also do that in Addams Family Values, by the way; they throw the baby… I’m wondering now, did J.K. Rowling get her inspiration…?
Eric: Just rip off Addams Family Values?
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Eric: Probably. I remember a guillotine in a scene for some reason.
Micah: There is. Yeah, and then he just puts up his fingers and he holds it right there.
Eric: Oh, that’s right! Oh, I love that movie. [laughs]
Andrew: Well, I think it also varies, because it’s like sexuality or just developing an interest in a particular television show or hobby. You just develop these things at various ages as you’re growing up.
Eric: Yeah, I think the key is to provide a fostering environment for that.
Andrew: Yeah, yeah.
Cherise: Exactly. With the fostering environment, because poor Neville… I know that his grandmother loves him, and I know we’ll get to this further in the doc, but I don’t think she provided the most nurturing environment for Neville.
Eric: I would agree, yeah. For sure.
Micah: That’s fair. But I do like the point you have here about magical plants and creatures. How do you go about teaching kids in the wizarding world, “Hey, don’t touch that Venomous Tentacula; don’t go pull that Mandrake out”?
[Eric laughs]
Micah: “Stay away from the Flobberworm.” I don’t know; I’m just making stuff up as I go along here, but…
Cherise: I think some of it is just like with us. “Don’t touch the roses, because you’ll get poked by the thorns.” It’s just part of raising children, and it’s just part of raising children in the Muggle versus wizarding world, because we have different plants and different animals or creatures on both sides, so it’s just a matter of, “Okay, well, don’t touch the rose thorns, or don’t touch the Venomous Tentacula.”
Eric: [laughs] I hope a parent never has a Venomous Tentacula near a young child in the wizarding world. I hope that’s not a common enough household plant. We see it at Hogwarts because it’s the Herbology department, and yeah, maybe there’s a justification there, and maybe there’s not.
Micah: I just thought, too, could Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them be a possible resource for parents to use with some of their kids?
Andrew: Yeah, but I think part of it is just learning the hard way. These kids are going to get bit by creatures and plants, [laughs] and sometimes these kids have to experience pain, right? Otherwise they don’t know why they shouldn’t really be doing it.
Eric: “Did you stick your finger in the gnome’s mouth? Yeah, don’t do that. They’re going to bite.”
Andrew: No electrical outlets for them to stick their fingers into, so maybe a good place for Micah too.
Eric: [laughs] When that happened to me, I’m pretty sure I was in my dad’s arms, so that’s all on him.
Andrew and Micah: Wow.
Andrew: Way to go, Dad.
Eric: Yeah, right?
Andrew: So let’s move on a little bit. What do you think the most difficult part of parenting in the wizarding world would be? And we have been touching on this, but Cherise, you wrote down having to homeschool your children.
Cherise: Oh, I would kill my kids if I had to homeschool them.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: As wizards? Why? Don’t you want to teach magic?
Cherise: I love my kids, but I could never. Bless those parents that are able to homeschool. I just don’t have the patience, and I need that break. Like, “Okay, it’s school time.” But like you guys were saying, hopefully maybe we’ll see something in Fantastic Beasts, because it does cover such a large span. Hopefully we’ll get to see Newt and Tina’s children very young and see if they do homeschool them, or do they have a special school for young witches and wizards?
Eric: That would be an interesting point because if Newt and Tina are romantically involved, will we see the fruit of their love? Will we see their kids? Or will the series end before it happens?
Andrew: I could see it in a flash forward at the very end of the series.
Eric: 19 years later?
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: 20 years later.
Eric: It’s the ’60s, yeah. No, I find that really interesting, the idea that even if we’re thinking about the Fantastic Beasts franchise and whether any new characters will be parents. Right now, I don’t think there are any. I mean, Mr. Shaw in the first one was a parent. We don’t know about President Picquery, but pretty much everyone else is not a parent. None of the main characters are parents, but they’re all adults, and so they could perceivably have a kid or adopt a kid or be around younger kids at some point, like if Grindelwald, I don’t know, raids an orphanage or something. But it just kind of… we know a certain child is growing up for the next four movies, who will one day become Voldemort in a less than ideal setting. It’s possible we’ll see some of what younger kids have it like in the wizarding world in upcoming movies. Kind of an interesting thing to ponder.
Andrew: Cherise also brings up another good one: teaching the Statue of Secrecy and why it needs to be obeyed. That would be so difficult. Kids would not be able to grasp why they need to conceal their magic.
Eric: Yeah, why they can’t talk to other kids around the other side of the hill. I just wonder if Molly Weasley took them on a field trip, took her kids on a field trip to the Muggle town of Ottery St. Catchpole and was just like, “Here’s some Muggles. They don’t have magic. We shouldn’t interact.” And Fred and George messing it up and her having to fix it.
Andrew: Cherise, how would you teach it to Elena Jane? Little witch Elena Jane? What would you say to her?
Cherise: I would say… oh, heavens.
[Andrew laughs]
Cherise: Maybe “Everyone has talents, and us being magical, we have this talent to produce magic. Some people are scared of it, so because of that, we don’t want other people to think we’re doing something mean or wrong. They made this law that we can’t do it around Muggles unless it’s a very special circumstance, to save a life, for example.”
Andrew: You could also make it into a sort of game, like, “Can you keep a secret? Are you good at keeping secrets? We have a secret to share. Be my Secret Keeper.”
Cherise: I mean, just me being a foster parent, I can see that going both ways about playing a game with it to do that, but with the other things in their life, I wouldn’t want them to think it’s okay to keep a secret.
Micah: I think, then, that goes back to what time they start to exhibit magical abilities, because if you’re 3 or 4 years old, I don’t know how much control you may even be able to exhibit – or sorry, any restraint that you may be able to show. It may just be that things start happening, and there’s not much you can do about it, and it’s just the nature of who you are at that time. So if you’re not showing those abilities at 3 or 4, that’s probably different, but otherwise, I would think you would need to do your best to keep your kids at home, unless, as a parent, you can put some kind of spell on them that restricts their abilities when you’re out looking to just have dinner at a Muggle restaurant or something along those lines.
Eric: [laughs] Like the equivalent of a leash for your kid, but magical.
Micah: But Eric, you said if you want to talk to the person on the other side of the hill. I would think, though, generally, for the most part, witches and wizards would live in their own communities, right?
Eric: They don’t, though.
Micah: They don’t, yeah, and so that’s hard.
Cherise: Well, and I mean, in Harry Potter it does say that there are a few wizarding communities spread out through Britain, because they say that they do have a lot of families that live close to each other, and I think they do that for that reason. They do have other “support” on… like you were saying, Micah, I don’t think these young children really have control over when magic comes out. Because in fact, Dumbledore said that Tom Riddle was… it was odd that he had so much control over his magic at such a young age.
Eric: Right.
Cherise: So I think that’s one of the reasons why the community is so tight-knit, is so that those accidents don’t happen. Because if you’re at a Muggle playground and someone takes a toy away from your child, and your child decides to turn the toy into a spider, you can’t really control that.
Micah: [laughs] Right.
Cherise: So I mean, it’s going to scare all these Muggles.
Eric: And it’d be even harder to punish your kid. You can’t lock them in the room, because they’ll just get out of their room.
[Andrew and Eric laughs]
Eric: “You’re grounded.” “Don’t think so; going to take my broom.”
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: I don’t know.
Andrew: Yeah, it’d be tough to regulate all that.
Cherise: And I think it would be kind of hard to punish your children for using unconscious magic.
Eric and Micah: Right.
Andrew: Yeah, no. Right, it’s not their fault. But you could avoid giving them a broom; you could avoid giving them [laughs] access to a wand to make sure that these sort of escapes don’t happen until it’s time for Hogwarts. I’m all for this stuff at Hogwarts, but until then? Ehh, a little too early.
Micah: It’s funny, though, that we’re talking about, really, wandless magic, because in this series, it seems like it’s something that is very, very advanced and very, very complicated, but yet we seem to think that kids who are very young can exhibit those types of actions.
Eric: Right, and almost accidentally.
Micah: Yeah, but the difference here being that it’s uncontrolled; it’s just them coming into their own and growing up.
Eric: Yeah. I mean, wandless magic… I think it goes into this on Pottermore, but the wand directs the energy, or the flow. Every witch or wizard is magical and capable of wandless magic; it’s just the wand is how you focus it. So it is weird that wandless magic is taught as an advanced form of magic and nonverbal spells are year six or year seven stuff, but oftentimes, that’s what kids are doing when they have heightened emotions. But it’s accidental; they don’t know what they’re doing.
Andrew: Let’s talk about specific mothers and their contributions.
Eric: Yeah, now that we recognize the full weight of the challenges of being a mom in the wizarding world or a mom to wizards, let’s see who did it successfully and who did not do it successfully.
Andrew: [laughs] Well, I think we’ll start with Lily, one of the most important mothers in the series. [emotionally] Without her, we wouldn’t have Harry and there’d be no story.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: It’d be “Ron Weasley and the Scary Spiders.”
Micah: Or Neville.
Andrew: Neville, yes.
Eric: It is interesting, in talking about Lily Potter, but also especially for Mother’s Day, to remember that Lily did something apparently no mother ever had done [laughs] in the Harry Potter world, and she put herself in front of her son.
Cherise: Well, on that, Eric, I think maybe nobody had done in recent history, because Dumbledore says it’s an old magic that Voldemort doesn’t think is useful.
Eric: Yeah, by that, I take it to mean it’s ancient, kind of primal in its origins, like the kinds of magical bonds we have with one another. We’ve seen the Unbreakable Vow; that can kill you if you break it, apparently. These sorts of interactions between witches and wizards, the magical bonds that form… I just take Dumbledore’s statement to mean that it’s almost endemic or inherent to magic in general, and it’s not something that gets a lot of attention, but is some of the most powerful kind of protection you can give to someone is what Lily gives to Harry. But I think realistically… I’m not trying to salt the bed of plants here, but I find it a little unrealistic that in a wizarding war, parents wouldn’t be sacrificing themselves for their kids on a daily basis. So whatever, that’s what thwarted Voldemort; fine. He wasn’t anticipating it. We know he has a problem with really going the distance of trying to predict what happens. But it’s Lily’s… I’m sorry?
Andrew: To push back on that, though, I mean, it could have just been that Lily was the only one who was specifically put in that situation where she was able to jump in front of her child.
Eric: Yeah, that’s true. And people might also point out that the prophecy kind of enabled it, because the prophecy said that he would mark a child somehow, and so when the spell rebounded, it allowed that prophecy to be fulfilled, so maybe that was an additional reason why Lily’s particular sacrifice worked. But I mean, there is no cause for the death… or there’s only one survivor ever of the death curse, and that’s Harry Potter – I think he actually survived it twice – but it’s because of this old magic and Lily’s protection, so her love for her kid, I don’t think we can dispute it, right? She loved Harry. And there’s that scene in Cursed Child where she plays with him and giggles when he’s in the pram or when he’s in the stroller, which is really, really heartwarming.
Andrew: A heartwarming moment in Cursed Child; who would have thunk?
Eric: Who would have thunk?
Micah: And I also wonder in that moment, because when you’re experiencing it in the theater, you get a sense for how many opportunities Voldemort gave Lily to stand aside, and… no, go ahead.
Cherise: I think that’s what enacted the protection, is that Voldemort did not go there… he didn’t care if he killed James; he was probably ready to kill James. But he did not go there to kill Lily.
Eric: Right, Snape had asked him to spare Lily.
Cherise: Yes, and so I think that’s what makes it unique, because I think any parent would jump in front of their child to save them.
Eric: I agree.
Cherise: But I think that it’s… he’s like, “Step aside, step aside,” and she’s like, “Oh, hell no.”
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Yeah, you’re right. There’s more to it about the intentionality of Voldemort was choosing to spare her, and she still sacrificed herself. But then the other thing to talk about when we talk about Lily is what she passed on to her son. And I mean, she loved him, and I think that he deeply has a sense of… after he starts hearing her sobbing, after he starts hearing her pleading with Voldemort in year three, he’s coming to terms with the fact that he was very loved as a child, and anytime he sees pictures… I mean, the book Hagrid gives him at the end of year one of him as a kid with his parents playing with him… there’s this tremendous sense of “You were loved,” and I think that that goes on to affect Harry in deep, deep, deep ways the rest of his life. But also, genetically, he has her eyes, and it’s that which is a reminder to Snape to keep protecting him, and Harry survives because of the gifts that his parents gave him. And even though he mostly looks like James, who Snape revolted, his eyes alone are what Snape chooses to be the last thing he sees in his life.
Micah: It’s not just Snape, though – although he is the prime example – because so many people throughout the series will tell Harry about his looks and his eyes. But I even think about Lupin, who in looking at Harry, and tells the story of how basically Lily was always there for him, too, so it’s a reminder to a lot of pivotal characters in the series who Lily was and what she represented.
Andrew: Thank you, genes.
Eric: [laughs] I thought you were thanking some denim or something.
Andrew: Thank you, Levi.
Micah: I wanted to see, can we just skip down to Narcissa here for a second? Because I think that she’s very much tied into Lily in the sense that she more or less does the same thing for Harry, except it doesn’t result in her being killed by Voldemort. She makes a sacrifice. I mean, she’s taking a massive risk when she pronounces that Harry is dead and he is, in fact, alive. It is again a mother’s love that is saving Harry, except in this case, it’s for her own son, Draco. But I think they’re very much aligned – start of series, end of series – with these two moments and these two mothers.
Eric: Do they pull the same trick twice? Is it, in fact, Narcissa’s lie that saves Harry’s…? I mean, I understand how technically it works, because she tells Voldemort that he’s dead so he doesn’t expect to attack him, but is it actually magical protection? Is that what you’re saying?
Micah: I’m not saying it’s magical pro… well, I mean, I think Harry’s sacrifice is the magical protection for ultimately how everybody on his side ends up winning the battle; at least that’s how I’ve always interpreted it.
Eric: Oh, right, right.
Micah: But no, no, I don’t think that she is… there’s no magic attached to it, but I think it’s a common thread, right? So the series starts off with a mother’s sacrifice and a mother’s love protecting a child, and it ends up saving Harry’s life, and it’s very much the same thing with what Narcissa does, even though she’s protecting Draco, but she’s ultimately protecting Harry. I mean…
Eric: She’s choosing her son over everything else.
Micah: And it’s the most unlikeliest, I think, of characters that you would expect to do something like this.
Eric: I actually really agree. I think it’s brilliant, and it’s great that you pointed that out. We don’t really get too much insight on Narcissa as a parent throughout the series to Draco. It seems like… I mean, we see Draco with his dad a number of times; Draco’s dad is doing all the manipulations, the machinations, that sort of thing. I really wonder what Draco’s relationship with Narcissa was as he grew up, what kind of a parent she was, because she obviously was in a position where Lucius, I think, was more vindictive and evil and interested in guiding their family a certain way. I think Narcissa was often that soft touch that Draco needed.
Cherise: I think she pampered Draco quite a bit, just by how she went to Snape, “You have to protect my son. You have to protect him, or he’s going to be killed.” So I think she was definitely a very nurturing mother, but like you said, we definitely see more interaction between Draco and Lucius than we do Draco and Narcissa.
Eric: Then again, doesn’t she…? Isn’t she in Diagon Alley with him a couple of times, buying his school books and stuff? Maybe?
Cherise: Yes.
Eric: Is she…? I think she’s actually in Book 1 in Madam Malkin’s. Maybe we see her more than we realize, more than what I realize.
Andrew: Let’s talk about Molly, who is regarded as one of the most motherly, most present mothers in the series. I mean, she’s regarded probably – and we’ll talk about this; we did a poll on Patreon that we’ll talk about a little later on – she’s probably the best mother because we see so much of her. We see her probably in every book, taking care of not just the Weasleys, but Harry, like Harry is her own son.
Eric: And Hermione.
Andrew: And Hermione, yeah.
Eric: Definitely. We definitely have the most evidence of her being a good mother. We have the most insight into what her style is as a mother. She’s pretty stern, pretty strict, but ultimately gives so much love. She’s knitting scarves, or knitting sweaters for people who aren’t her biological children, and really is there… she intervenes and actually overrules – or tries to overrule – Sirius Black, Harry’s own godfather, in matters that concern Harry’s wellbeing, and she steps in. She’s really his surrogate mother. I mean, she’s more of a parent to Harry than Sirius, than anyone else will ever be. Good for Molly. And she’s such a badass.
Andrew: [clapping] Give it up for Molly Weasley, everybody. Phenomenal.
Micah: Wow. Haven’t heard that in a long time.
Eric: Not to mention raising seven children of her own. Seven children of her own. I mean, I’m sure, Cherise, you have her beat, but…
[Andrew laughs]
Cherise: I’ve never had seven at once.
Eric: No? Okay, all right.
[Cherise and Eric laugh]
Eric: But yeah, I mean, Bill, Charlie, Percy… some of them turned out all right, definitely.
Andrew: I of course have huge respect for Molly, but having magic probably makes it a little easier to be a mother. For example…
Eric: The kids have magic, too. It’s like that line in “The Other Minister” chapter. We just agreed that they’d be harder to control, right?
Andrew: Well, yeah, but… well, yes, that’s a good point. But I’m also thinking there’s probably less to do around the house when you can have magic take care of it.
Eric: Do itself.
Andrew: Yeah, like cleaning the dishes. And I know this is like, “Oh, here goes Andrew, talking about women in the stereotypical roles,” but Molly was the stay-at-home mom who took care of the kids.
Cherise: We see that in the books, that she is someone that does the dishes. So I mean, I think it’s safe to say that, but yeah, when you can wave your wand and the dishes just start doing themselves… I wish I could do that.
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: Well, like you said, Cherise, too, the patience aspect of being home with your kids all the time, right? And homeschooling them. Molly did do that. Molly made the conscious decision to be a stay-at-home mother, we are meant to believe, and she has that patience where she did… she was with them 24 hours a day and did not seek another career, or did not seek… presumably didn’t even get a break, really, and that just shows how amazingly, I guess, equipped she was to fulfill that role, or how much pleasure she gets out of it, or something. But I mean, there’s just different styles. But I think Molly really… who she is as a mother is not ever to be seen as a weak thing, that’s for sure. And she got these kids to where they needed to be all on her own while Arthur worked.
Micah: I mean, let’s not forget the scene in Deathly Hallows where she takes out Bellatrix, so she’s…
Eric: She explodes Bellatrix, I mean, if I’m remembering the movie, but… [laughs]
Micah: Yeah, the movie.
Andrew: Yeah, that was a fan favorite scene, for sure.
Cherise: Yeah, I definitely was thinking the same thing, Micah, just with… even though she did stay at home, she’s still real badass. I mean, she was still able to duel even after… I’m going to say probably close to 30 years of raising children.
Eric: Yeah, and she held her own with Voldemort’s number one defender, number one Death Eater. The killer of Sirius Black, the crazy, torturing Bellatrix Lestrange. And I guess the thing is she didn’t realize she was killing another mother… dot dot dot. [laughs] A new mother, not to mention. Presumably, Bellatrix had a kid six months earlier, or four months earlier.
Micah: I’ve kind of wondered about this, too, now that we’re talking about Cursed Child: Why is the revenge factor never on the Weasley family for the fact that Molly killed Bellatrix? Why is the focal point on Voldemort and bringing him back?
Eric: What do you mean?
Micah: Well, Molly killed her mom, right? So don’t you think part of her revenge would want to be against the Weasley family?
Eric: Oh, yeah.
Cherise: But Bellatrix wasn’t the Dark Lord.
Micah: That’s true, but it’s still her mom.
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Eric: There should have been some kind of residual anger…
Micah: Terrible writing.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: … against the Weasleys, maybe, for that.
Micah: This is a massive plot hole that I’ve uncovered here, and I just want to make that point.
Andrew: [laughs] Well, I hate to put this into play, but maybe Molly Weasley isn’t alive anymore.
Eric: They mentioned Petunia being dead.
Micah: Well, it doesn’t have to be Molly. I mean, Molly has kids and grandkids.
Cherise: But wouldn’t it…? I mean, going after Harry’s children, that’s, to me, hitting two birds with one stone, because he married a Weasley.
Eric: Yeah, it’s also Ginny’s children. Maybe. But I mean, they’re wrong to not point out that element of it, where a Weasley was responsible for Delphi’s mom’s death. But I think Delphi is, in the play, really attached to her paternal connection, Voldemort, and it isn’t really mentioned, because she’s raised by… what is it, Rabastan? Or not Rabastan…
Micah: Rodolphus?
Eric: Just, yeah, some other Death Eater she’s raised by, and then Rodolphus does get out of Azkaban or whatever and then tells her who she really is. But anyway, I guess she never developed that attachment to her mother, because Molly killed her too quickly for that to happen. [laughs] It’s just interesting to think of Bellatrix as a mother now, which is not something I ever thought of until we were preparing this document. But presumably Bellatrix, if we could judge her as a mother… she was out fighting a war for nefarious causes. She was being super, super evil, trying to kill Ginny, when she had a newborn infant at home.
Andrew: I just think we should have no respect for Bellatrix as a mother because it was highly irresponsible to bring the Dark Lord’s child into the world. It wasn’t right.
Eric: And it’s not canon, so I guess…
Andrew: No, it’s canon. Sorry, it’s canon.
Eric: Oh, you believe that now?
Andrew: Yep. Well, I believed it from the moment J.K. Rowling said it was all canon.
Micah: Andrew’s always believed that.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Yeah, but I just… I always call it into question because I choose not to.
Andrew: Bellatrix… we don’t really know much about her way as a mother, but presumably it wasn’t too great. [laughs]
Cherise: I’m thinking she probably pawned that kid off as soon as she could.
Andrew: Ah.
Eric: Like, kids only get interesting when you can teach them stuff kind of thing?
Cherise: Yep.
Andrew: We have a couple more mothers to discuss, including Petunia and Hagrid and Augusta Longbottom, and then we’ll get to some responses from our patrons and those who follow us on Twitter. But first, it’s time to tell you about this week’s sponsor.
[Ad break]
Andrew: Let’s talk about Augusta Longbottom first, before we get to Hagrid and Petunia.
Eric: I love the dialogue earlier, like Cherise, as well, like you said, she probably wasn’t the greatest mother. She was kind of a little imposing, and we see her… basically, what they did to Neville was another form of child abuse. They not only verbally told him he was no good, or allowed him to believe that he was no good, which didn’t do wonders for his confidence, but Augusta… I don’t know where she was the day Uncle Algie threw Neville out a window, but I feel like there are some lines you don’t cross, and that might be one of them.
Cherise: I can definitely see her sanctioning that. She seems of an older generation…
Eric: That’s a good point.
Cherise: … that may be upset if their family produces a Squib, because he also got thrown into Blackpool pier, so I think… because it’s like she didn’t really start acknowledging Neville’s magical abilities until the sixth or seventh book. Well, I guess, technically at the end of the fifth because of the fight at the Ministry.
Eric: Oh yeah, that’s right. She has sort of a positive reaction to him risking his life with his friends and coming out alive. She sees his father in him, or his parents in him, for maybe the first time ever as a result of that.
Micah: Yeah, I wonder… sorry.
Andrew: But on the flip side, she did support Harry and Dumbledore when the Daily Prophet was going against them.
Eric: Oh, interesting.
Andrew: So at least she believed Harry and Dumbledore’s story when so many others who were wizards themselves did not, because they were being brainwashed.
Eric: Well, she realizes the… and I think this is a great thing for Neville too. She realizes the cost because her son – I’m assuming it is her son and not her daughter who are Neville’s parents, because of her last name is also Longbottom – but her son and his wife died, or were tortured to madness by Voldemort’s supporters, his followers, the other mother Bellatrix Lestrange, and all that other stuff, so she always has had a healthy understanding that the threat of the Dark Lord is real. But she didn’t really take the loss of her son and daughter in the way that Neville is a gem to be protected, the fact that he survived this horrible assault; instead, she kind of goes right on to hard love and assaulting him herself.
Micah: Right. But she does remind me of McGonagall a bit. I mean, we see more of McGonagall, but I think there are definite similarities between their personalities, in the sense that they’re very stern; they probably have a bit of an old school touch to them. But because we see McGonagall more, I think we also are able to see the more maternal side of her as well, especially with Harry. But I thought that they’re probably two individuals that come from generally the same timeframe going back, if we were to look at the history.
Cherise: I think that they’re right about the same age because in year six when they are going over their OWLs and Augusta told Neville that, “Oh, Charms is a soft option,” McGonagall is like, “Just because your grandmother did not receive an OWL in Charms does not mean it’s a soft auction. I will be sending her a note.”
Eric: [laughs] You know, I can’t tell if that’s because McGonagall was her peer and was unusually focused on what Augusta got as a rival, or if it was because McGonagall is so old that she also taught Neville’s grandmother. I couldn’t tell.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: I don’t know if she taught her; that’d be pretty amazing.
Andrew: That would be.
Micah: I think it’s more of a peer thing.
Cherise: Yeah, I think they’re probably peers. I can see them both being in Gryffindor House together.
Eric: I actually like that… I mean, you pointed out, Cherise, that Neville’s grandmother being an older person coming from a different era, right? But we see this with our parents. Capital punishment… or not capital punishment. Punishment in schools, for instance… even my mother was raised in a Catholic school where the nuns… you always hear about the nuns slapping your knuckles with rulers – metal-lined rulers, too – for discipline, things you cannot do in schools today. But in general, even parents spanking their kids; that’s frowned upon now.
Cherise: Oh, yes.
Eric: It is less common to even slap your kid’s bum, whereas in Augusta’s… when she was raising Frank Longbottom, and when she herself was raised, that was probably a lot more common.
Cherise: Oh, I agree. I was raised by my grandparents like Neville was, so I can definitely be on the same wavelength as Neville, because my grandmother had totally different ideas than my friends’ parents.
Eric: Ohh.
Cherise: Because she did come from a totally different generation and era. So like I said earlier, I think Augusta is definitely from an older generation where things were done differently. Though the magical world is definitely backwards in a lot of ways, or hasn’t caught up to the times, I think they had slowly… in a little bit, the parenting styles or the idea of having a Squib in the family had changed.
Eric: Yeah, and I think ultimately, Neville is able to prove himself. We find out in Cursed Child just how important Neville really was, [laughs] because Voldemort would still be around if it weren’t for his specific action that he took. But my point is, I think Neville is able to please and come to terms with Augusta’s demands and earn her respect.
Andrew: Hagrid. Yes, a mother. The mother of Norbert, Beaky… so many others, like Aragog, Fang… [laughs]
Eric: The Flobberworms.
Andrew: And also, really, a mother to Harry, Ron, and Hermione at school. The trio always trusted him. They went to him for help.
Eric: That’s a good point, actually. Viewing Hagrid as a mother figure to the beasts is funny but also very true, but as a mother to the trio, as a home away from home mom, that’s an interesting perspective.
Andrew: Yeah, and Hagrid was always… the trio was always going to Hagrid because they trusted him. I think Hagrid would have also welcomed other students who asked for help.
Cherise: It seems like him and Charlie might have had a close bond while Charlie was at school.
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Eric: You know what? That’s something I want a J.K. Rowling-penned story on really.
Andrew: Hagrid and Charlie?
Eric: Hagrid and Charlie. Yeah, and I think… doesn’t Hagrid…? Or Hagrid works with… is it Bill? No, it is Charlie, at the Triwizard Tournament in year four. Charlie is hanging out with Hagrid at some point, or they see each other, and it’s like a little reunion, a little mother/son reunion.
Andrew: Well, yeah, when he was there with the dragons. Did Charlie tip Hagrid off about the dragons? Was that it? I can’t remember.
Eric: But I mean, he also knows Hagrid likes danger. Hagrid is such an interesting character, because he is a mother, he’s a mother by choice, and he chooses to raise these creatures that otherwise would not be treated well.
Micah: And his brother, half-brother. Let’s not forget about the fact that he’s willing to take care of him.
Eric: Yeah, he takes care of him. He gets, I think… why did he even grab Grawp? Was it because the other giants would have killed him?
Cherise: Yeah, Grawp was a lot smaller compared to the other giants, so since he was smaller, they picked on him quite a bit.
Eric: He was like the runt of litter and he probably would have died or something.
Andrew: I know somebody who doesn’t like Hagrid. I’m like, “What the hell, man? Come on.”
Eric: Who doesn’t like Hagrid?
Andrew: He is a mother.
Cherise: How can you not like Hagrid?
Andrew: Right, thank you. And then finally, the only non-magical mom we’re going to talk about today, Petunia. Mother to Harry and Dudley. [laughs] Kind of a mother to Harry; not really, I guess, because of how poorly she treated him. Do we forgive her for how she treated Harry, given that she was dealing with Vernon? She was dealing with Dumbledore’s requests. I guess she was feeling some way about her sister, Lily. I don’t forgive her, because there’s no excuse for how they treated Harry. She should have stood up to Vernon to give Harry a better life. She should have introduced Harry to being a wizard much earlier, not needing Hagrid to do the introductions. There’s some good scenes with her in the Cursed Child in which she tries to keep the secret away from Harry, but Harry is looking at his parents’ graves and saying, “Well, there’s all these flowers here,” and then she’s like, “Oh, the flowers just must have blown over from other graves.” “Oh, but there’s letters addressed to Lily and James about how great they were and for fighting…” “Oh, awkward.”
Eric: That scene where she takes him to his parents’ grave strikes me as being not realistic canonically.
Andrew: Why? You don’t think Petunia would… what if Harry said, “I want to go see my parents’ grave”?
Eric: It wouldn’t have happened the way it happens in the play, that’s for sure. I mean, in the book, she swipes a frying pan at his head. It could have broken his skull. It could have given him a concussion and permanent brain damage. She absolutely is the worst. Now, when talking about Petunia, it’s always in the extreme because I think even Dumbledore says in order for the magical protection to work, in order for Harry’s and Lily’s blood to be the protecting thing that means Harry can’t be found on Privet Drive, he needs to be offered a home, and he needs to be able to call Privet Drive home, and they did the very bare most minimum, which makes both Petunia and Vernon the worst humans ever.
Micah: Harry for her is a constant reminder of not only Lily, but the fact that she herself is not qualified to go to Hogwarts, right? And I’m not in any way, shape, or form trying to give Petunia a free pass, but every time she looks at Harry, I think she’s probably feeling a lot of things. One is the resentment of not being accepted to where she wanted to go, not feeling as if she was as good as her sister, but also the loss of her sister. And I think we see that come to the surface in Deathly Hallows a little bit, but dealing with all those things, I think that really is directing her treatment of Harry. She also has her own son that she takes care of and spoils, and we would probably argue in a lot of ways raises just as badly as the way she treats Harry.
Eric: Yeah, Dumbledore has that line about “You as parents have done far more damage to him than I could ever,” right? Something like that he says to them, and they’re all confused. “What do you mean? Dudders… we didn’t… what’s going on?” But in spoiling him… but they fostered this environment where Harry and Dudley are against each other. They allowed that to happen, where they were rivals, and you’ve got to reign that shit in as parents. If you have two children who are fighting or arguing or bickering, sure, some is to be expected – I’m sure, Cherise, you agree…
Cherise: Yes.
Eric: … but you’ve got to put a handle on that. And Dudley’s gang of kids, which they somehow failed to see, were regularly going around beating up kids in the neighborhood, and that’s not good parenting.
Micah: No, but I think you could also make the argument that Dudley is learning from Petunia and Vernon how to treat Harry, so it’s not just like they’re at odds with each other and Petunia and Vernon need to step in and separate them and send them to their rooms and teach them different things. It’s that Dudley sees Petunia swipe at Harry with a frying pan, or how she speaks to him, or the fact that he lives under the stairs, or any number of things, and so he feels like it’s just his right to do exactly the same, if not worse, to him.
Eric: Yeah, and he’s getting…
Cherise: To go off of some of what you guys have said, I think Vernon follows a lot of Petunia’s lead when it comes to Harry, because he doesn’t want to upset her.
Eric: Right.
Cherise: Because it even says that in the opening chapter of Book 1, when he’s like, “Should I mention something? I don’t want to upset her.” So I think… and then also, I think they definitely took both boys to the extreme. I mean, I think Dudley would have been spoiled no matter what, but I think they probably went a step above what they normally would have if Harry hadn’t lived with them just to bring Harry down another notch so that he feels worse.
Listener Feedback
Andrew: All right, so on Patreon we did this poll: Who is the best mother in the Wizarding World series? Molly far and away has the lead. I only launched it a couple hours ago. She’s got 40 votes, Lily comes in second with 14, and nobody else is really getting any other votes. Narcissa actually got three, which is interesting. Three people found her to be the best mother in the wizarding world, maybe related to what we were talking about earlier, lying about Harry being dead or alive, lying about Harry being dead. Petunia, no votes so far. Bellatrix, one vote. Hagrid, one vote. [laughs] And that’s where it stands so far. But Rebecca said, “Is there any doubt? It’s obviously Molly. The woman has a heart of gold and would do anything not just for her own children, but for Harry as well.” Micah, what did we ask on Patreon and Twitter?
Micah: Well, we asked pretty much the same question that we’ve been talking about for most of this episode: What would be some of the challenges of raising a young witch or wizard? And first over on Twitter, we heard from Christine Davies, who said, “Wizarding parents have to teach their children about the need for secrecy and magical abilities. At the same time, they’d want to instill a sense of self-worth. As a parent, I’d be saddened to see my children hiding their true selves.” Meggie said, “It’s tricky to teach principles and values and not be able to see if your child is following them because you’re distant, you’re not a part of your child’s routine.”
Eric: I agree. Hermione probably was a diligent enough child to write to her parents, but just the fact that you’re without… your kid can’t come home from school every day. A lot of Muggle parents would experience your kid coming home from school every day, but if your kid’s at a boarding school, that’s not the case.
Andrew: Yeah, they don’t really talk about being homesick much, do they?
Eric: No.
Andrew: You go home for the holidays, and I’m sure that’s nice, but I would think most kids, especially being as young as 11/12/13/14, would really miss being away from their parents for so long.
Eric: It’s only the appeal of learning magic and learning and becoming your own person that really pries…
Andrew: Is that it? Is Hogwarts just so great that you don’t miss home? [laughs] I guess it is a lot better than home.
Eric: Well, for Ron, all his siblings are already there anyway. He’s pretty much… Hogwarts for Ron is a home away from home. Harry has nothing to get back to, so he doesn’t care. But somebody like Hermione…
Andrew: Yeah, but other characters, do they get homesick? I’m trying to remember examples of that.
Eric: I don’t know. It just… for somebody like Seamus or Dean, and one of or both of their parents have gone to Hogwarts, it’s seen as just the life, a natural progression, right? It’s just seen as what you do. This is Hogwarts. This is where you’re going to learn to be who you are because of what you are.
Cherise: I definitely agree. I think if you’re raised in a wizarding family, Hogwarts is just something that you do. It’s talked about from the time that you’re little to the time that you go, and if you have older siblings, it’s just a part of life. And I think if you are Muggle-born and you’re going to Hogwarts, learning that magic and seeing that magic for the first time… I think definitely for the first two months, oh my gosh, I don’t think they have time to comprehend being homesick.
Eric: Right.
Micah: We also heard from Rachel, who said, “Little ones’ magical powers starting to develop, and they have trouble controlling it.” Talked a little bit about that earlier. April said, “New mom here of an 8-week-old little boy…”
Andrew: Aww.
Micah: “… so sending my child off to school where I wouldn’t see them for a majority of the year.” And then, “Watching them wait for their magic to ‘come in,’ and then being anxious to see if they will even be magical in a wizard family.” We didn’t touch on that at all. What happens if you are a Squib?
Andrew: I would put them up for adoption. [laughs] Kidding.
Eric: Wow. [laughs]
Andrew: No. These are two very stressful questions. I mentioned getting homesick, but for the parent, watching your child go to school, that’s always a major rite of passage in the Muggle world, sending them off to preschool, kindergarten, elementary school for their first time. I can’t imagine what it’d be like as a parent to send your child away essentially for the next seven, eight years. So you’re going to see them over summers, hopefully, and the holidays, hopefully. But yeah, it’s like going off to college, but they’re going off to Hogwarts way earlier than they go off to college, so that would be so difficult.
Cherise: I know earlier I joked about not being able to do homeschool – which I probably wouldn’t be able to homeschool my kids – but I couldn’t imagine not seeing them every day.
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Andrew: And there’s no FaceTime. There’s no phones.
Eric: Right.
Andrew: There’s just owls.
Eric: Just owls, and the occasional Christmas break, right?
Andrew: Right.
Micah: Well, if you go home for it.
Eric: Yeah, if you go home for it.
Andrew: But it’s short, and from what we’ve read in the books, it seems like most people do go home for it. Parents would probably force you.
Eric: Yeah, I mean, but Hermione’s parents are just that anomaly. They’re just those… like, “We want what’s best for our daughter, and we’re happy that she’s going off and learning the skills because she’s special.” They’ve just always enabled her being special and unique, and at great personal cost of not getting to see her every day. They could have put their foot down and been like, “What is this? No, you’re not going off to this boarding school. We need you here. You need to become the third in a line of dentists.” I don’t know. They could have handled it differently.
Micah: Yep. A couple more here: Janet says, “I know other countries do it, but I can’t imagine sending my child away for ten months a year. Toddlers are hard enough without making things float or disappear.”
Cherise: Amen to that.
[Everyone laughs]
Micah: Teenagers Apparating. Enough said.” And then, “Molly Weasley was a badass.”
Eric: Agreed.
Cherise: Well, with teenagers, let’s just say we have alarms on all of our doors and all of our windows.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Micah: That’s one way to do it.
Cherise: So there is no Apparating in and out of our home without our knowledge.
Micah: And finally, Rachel says, “Not a mom, but your kids could illegally learn how to Apparate young (like the Marauders learnt becoming Animagi), and literally leave their rooms to gallivant around the country at a whim, without needing to save for plane tickets.”
Andrew: Yeah, Cherise, you mentioned alarms, but those aren’t going to do very good in the wizarding world, unless you’re referring to a spell alarm? An age alarm?
Cherise: Yeah, and I mean, they have… think about when the trio Apparated into Hogsmeade and that Caterwauling Charm went off. I’m sure parents can put anti-Apparition jinxes on certain rooms in the house.
Eric: You could… yeah.
Cherise: Or put alarms via spells on the windows or certain rooms.
Eric: Yeah, the classic tactics to prevent your kid from sneaking out at night.
Cherise: Yes.
Andrew: Okay, well, thanks to everybody who submitted feedback on Patreon.com/MuggleCast and Twitter.com/MuggleCast.
Quizzitch
Andrew: We’re going to wrap today’s show up with Quizzitch.
Eric: Okay, so last week’s Quizzitch question was as follows: In the trio’s third year, what is the Care of Magical Creatures exam? And the actual correct answer – I loved this one; we read it recently over on Patreon for our chapter readings – it’s that your Flobberworm has to be alive at the end of an hour. This was Hagrid’s exam after the stuff with Buckbeak happened, and he was just so… his heart was not in it, so the exam was just keep your Flobberworm alive. [laughs] And the funny part in the book is that because Flobberworms excelled when left to their own devices, the exam was basically to do nothing for one hour, so that’s why I’m pretty sure Harry, Ron, and Hermione all passed. The winners of this week’s Quizzitch were Justin Noel, Ryan Nolan, Jennifer St. George, Sean Brady, and Danielle Eatock. And again, to submit, you just have to find us on Twitter, @ reply us, and say, “This week’s Quizzitch answer is blank.” So this week’s question coming up, we have a Mother’s Day-themed one, and this is really, really, really, really hard, so good luck with it, everybody. But which mother in the Harry Potter series is named after a Roman Catholic saint whose feast day is famously preceded by a gathering of witches?
Andrew: Hagrid. Rubeus Hagrid.
Eric: Shh. Well, submit your answers through Twitter.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: I have some exciting news to wrap up today’s episode: All of the episodes that were broken on MuggleCast.com are now restored, except for the mini MuggleCasts and the LeakyMugs, those offshoot things. But all the main episodes are now working; there was close to 200 that were broken because of an old server. They have now been re-uploaded to a place where hopefully they won’t disappear from again. And feel free to go back and listen to them; you can download them, or you can stream them right on the MuggleCast website.
Eric: And we’ll fix the LeakyMugs too. We have them; we’ve just got to put them up.
Andrew: Yeah. Come on, Eric. Send them to me.
Eric: I know, I’ve got to send them to you. Well, we did get a lot of messages, though; people really like going back through old MuggleCasts. And I mean, I can’t possibly see what the value is of 90 minutes of us talking about whether Slughorn is evil, but I mean, I guess that’s still up for grabs.
Andrew: Well, I think what people want to do is listen to us speculating about Deathly Hallows and Half-Blood Prince. That kind of stuff is exciting to listen back to, knowing what happens now.
Eric: Yeah, yeah. So anyway, I wasn’t judging people. I’m really happy that they find some use in these old episodes that are now re-available. So thanks for doing that, Andrew.
Andrew: Yeah, and the MuggleCast website has links to our Twitter and our Facebook and our Patreon. Thank you to everybody who supports us over there; it is what keeps this show going weekly. And we have a host of benefits for those who support us at Patreon.com/MuggleCast. You can participate in polls. You can listen to our livestream. We’re recording live, usually on Saturday mornings, and people are chiming in as we record. And by the way, thank you to James, who points out that the the Petunia/Harry scenes that I was referencing earlier in the Cursed Child, those were actually dream sequences. Those weren’t flashbacks. My bad. That’s the kind of feedback we get with the livestream.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: We get corrected instantly when we make mistakes.
Eric: Do we think that they didn’t actually happen?
Andrew: Well, no, because apparent… James says that Harry wakes from it and says, “I never went to Godric’s Hollow with Petunia.”
Eric: Oh, yeah, that’s right.
Andrew: It was just a dream. Of course, of course, it was a dream. I should know this; I saw it twice two weeks ago. The smoke confirms it’s a dream. Smoke doesn’t happen IRL.
Eric: [laughs] No.
Andrew: Yeah, so I think that’s that. Cherise, thanks for joining us again.
Cherise: Thanks for having me. This has been a blast.
Andrew: Good.
Eric: Yeah, thanks for lending your unique perspective. I thought it was amazing.
Andrew: Yes, say hello to Elena Jane for us.
Cherise: I will do. She’ll be quite happy that mommy will be out of her room.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Oh, you’re in her room? Why are you in her room?
Cherise: No, I’m in my room. Out of…
Andrew: Oh, I see. Got it, okay. Yeah, and early Happy Mother’s Day to you.
Cherise: Well, thank you. And you three, don’t forget to call your moms.
Andrew: We will. We will.
Eric: But what do we call her? Ba-dum-tss.
[Cherise and Micah laugh]
Eric: I’m going to go spend the rest of the day with my mom, so I’m pretty happy.
Andrew: Happy Mother’s Day to all of you who are moms out there and listening. But not a Happy Mother’s Day to you, Bellatrix. I’m still upset with you.
Eric: And Petunia.
Andrew: And Petunia. But Petunia died, so that’s kind of mean to say.
Eric: Oh, that’s… well, I don’t know. Depends on what you read.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: So did Bellatrix.
Andrew: Yeah, that’s true. Darn it. All right, I take back my insults to Bellatrix and Petunia. Thanks, everybody, for listening. I’m Andrew.
Eric: I’m Eric.
Micah: I’m Micah.
Cherise: And I’m Cherise.
Everyone: Bye.