CHILDREN & SOCIETY VOLUME 16 (2002) pp.

295–305
Published online 25 July 2002 in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI: 10.1002/CHI.715

Parenting and the Harry Potter Stories:

A Social Care Perspective
Janet Seden This paper analyses the capacities of the parents in the Harry Potter
School of Health and stories, written by J. K. Rowling, from a social care perspective. It
Social Welfare, The argues that there is a synergy between what the social sciences have
Open University discovered about ‘good enough parenting’ and the insights that can
be gathered from entering the imaginative world of literature. This is
illustrated by a discussion of the qualities of the parents and parent
substitutes in the four books published between 1997 and 2000. It
concludes that fictional experiences of childhood create empathy in
the reader and enable us to confront the need for imagination as
parents and practitioners, while the social sciences keep knowledge
grounded and evidenced. Copyright # 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Introduction

The study of what it means to be a parent is a discourse that

spans the disciplines of psychology, sociology, social policy,
education and others. Social work has gathered knowledge
from these disciplines to frame its own perspectives on
parenting, to enable social care professionals to carry out their
role of supporting parents to bring up their children well and of
intervening when parents are struggling with their parenting
tasks. These twin aims of supporting families and safeguarding
the welfare of children are the basis of the Children Act 1989,
the legislation that gives professionals guidance about when to
become involved in the family life of others. The attributes
which society expects good parenting to embrace are sum-
marised well by Campion (1995, p. 255). She lists,

physical care; health care; adequate nutrition; opportunity for

cognitive development; protection from environmental and
social dangers; stability of close relationships; affection and trust;
development of independent living skills; development of social
skills; economic support; spiritual development; preparation to
be an adult who contributes to the community; education; moral
guidance; development of identity; teaching and self-regulation;
Correspondence to: Mrs Janet modelling of desirable adult behaviour.
Seden, School of Health and
Social Welfare, The Open It can be argued that these attributes are the objectives of many
University, Walton Hall, Milton
Keynes MK7 6AA. parents for their children. The state is also concerned with
E-mail j.p.seden@open.ac.uk identifying the kind of parenting capacity that enables children

Copyright # 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

296 Janet Seden

to reach their optimal development. Recent government initiatives in relation to the

Children Act 1989 (Department of Health, 1995, 2000, 2001) have developed in more detail
some concepts of ‘good enough’ parenting capacity.

In this paper consideration is given to the role of literature in developing psychosocial

understanding. It is then applied to the parents and parent figures in the highly successful
books of J. K. Rowling. It is argued that literature contains the universal themes that pre-
occupy human endeavour and show us ourselves. The pull of the most popular children’s
books is always the same in that through the fictional characters readers see their concerns
and themselves. Literature offers an expression of psychological understandings and
social perceptions about the human condition, which are expressed both personally and
powerfully. The vividness of stories both illuminates our thinking and connects with our
feelings, at conscious and unconscious levels.

Literature and social work

Psychodynamic psychotherapists have always used literature and folk stories to illustrate the
collective unconscious of humankind. Bettelheim (1978) in The Uses of Enchantment articulates
a view of the way literature captures the imagination, weaves a spell and in so doing mirrors
the inner world of the psyche: ‘Each fairy tale is a magic mirror, which reflects some aspects of our
inner world, and of the steps required by our evolution from immaturity to maturity’.

Stories reflect societal ideas and show us how we see ourselves. Thus, it will be argued that
the ideas around parents in the Harry Potter books connect with themes that are
recognisable in the professional literature on parenting and childhood.

J. K. Rowling’s work, published between 1997 and 2000, has been extremely popular with
children and their parents. The fascination that the Harry Potter stories have for both
children and adults is first of all that they are gripping stories well written, containing
humour and excitement. Another factor is that the imaginative world that has been
created is one which resonates with the inner world of the reader and shows them
something of themselves with which they had not been consciously connected.

Literature of all kinds can show us who we are, our struggles, and the way society shapes
and views those struggles. It also offers the opportunity for a range of individual
experiences to be articulated and shared. As literature mirrors life it sheds light on social
attitudes, customs and practices. These can be at a practical level and can also reflect less
conscious drives and pre-occupations. Social scientists, perhaps looking for rigour in their
studies, have sometimes made less use of literature than psychotherapists, but some
writers link the two disciplines. For example Wilson and Ridler (1989, p. 112) suggest,

The use of literature and to a lesser extent the arts by social scientists to further their understanding
of human activity has an honourable if somewhat fluctuating tradition. Freud is supposed to have said of
Dostoyevsky that he knew more about psychology than the whole international psycho-analytical society
put together.

They are not the only writers to have demonstrated the relevance of literature and to
argue for its inclusion alongside the literature of social sciences in the training of social

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 Parenting and the Harry Potter Stories 297

workers. However, care does have to be taken with inferences drawn from literature
because:

Although we may criticise social scientists for over simplifying, the novelists too may falter in their
evocation of the complexity of human experience: either because the need to abstract from reality for an
artistic purpose, to impose a form on the chaos of life, leads them to over-simplify in their turn; or because,
wishing to exemplify a theory, or to pursue a particular line of argument or an interest, they twist
character or story line (1989, p. 113).

Care professionals from all agencies, can also see what they want or expect to see, and fail
to see what they might, as past and present inquiries into the deaths of children who
tragically weren’t safeguarded, show (Department of Health, 1991; Corby, 2000; Climbie
inquiry, 2002). Empathy, that ability to see into the child’s world, is an essential capacity
for adults (Rosenstein, 1995) and yet can be missing from parental and practitioner actions
towards children. Reading and listening to stories, perhaps internalising the insights of
children’s authors, is a way of entering into the world of another, learning about different
situations, sensing how it feels to be someone else and sharpening the capacity for
empathy. If this is combined with psychosocial knowledge this can build a more holistic
and empathic understanding of children and their world. Wilson and Ridler (1996, p. 19)
promote this view in relation to understanding and communicating with children,
arguing that both ways of knowing can be used.

Freud, for example, admired artists, especially creative writers, for their intuitive access to the
unconscious. ‘Storytellers are valuable allies’ he wrote ‘In psychological insights they are far ahead of us
ordinary people, because they draw from sources that have not yet been made available to science.’ (Freud,
1956). But he also stressed the value of the psychologists’ detailed and systematic exploration of the
human psyche, and in doing so reminds us that it is important not to overstate the case for the value of
literary accounts in furthering our understanding of human activity. Novelists, in drawing on their own
experiences, are evoking memories which are individual and inevitably too reflect the particular history
and point in culture in which they are writing. Moreover, just because, as we suggest above, literature
communicates to some extent at an intuitive level, our responses in a professional context need to be
tempered by reference to psychological research and study. Thus we would argue that these evocations be
used to supplement knowledge gained from the empirical sciences.

It is not just writers who are products of their own cultures, particular histories and times,
so are practitioners and the academic discourses from which they work. Social
construction of events is as much part of the social sciences as it is of literature. J. K.
Rowling, through her imaginary world, supplements our empirical psychological
knowledge about parenting. She also gets under the skin of our defences, drawing the
reader into identification with Harry and his struggles to find safety and care. This is
achieved through engagement with an enjoyable narrative and the device of metaphor. At
one level, the stories might be seen as Harry’s journey to find himself and to test his
strength in adversity, a bit like the knights of old and other adventure story heroes. At
another level, it might be a modern Cinderella story, the unwanted, orphaned child who
triumphs over those who reject him. At another level he is the figure at the centre of the
primeval struggle between dark and light in the complexity of the world he inhabits. At
another level he models the management of chaos. In the telling of story, the author can
simply offer the reader a journey through narrative where they can both identify and at the
same time add meaning. Each person unconsciously brings his or her own lens to the
printed page. What we see shows what is within ourselves as much as what the author

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298 Janet Seden

intended. This paper shares what I see and perceive from my background. It cannot speak
for what J. K. Rowling intended or for what another may find. So, what might be seen
about parents in these stories of Harry Potter and his world?

Parents, families and other caretakers in the work of J. K. Rowling

This paper now draws from four books: The Philosopher’s Stone, 1997 (PS); Harry Potter and
the Chamber of Secrets, 1998 (CS); Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, 1999 (PA); Harry
Potter and the Goblet of Fire, 2000 (GF). First some of the families in the books and their
characteristics are discussed. Second some more general observations about predominant
themes are drawn out.

For all that the settings are fictional and magical, the homes and families in the books have
conventional points of reference that children can recognise. The homes, the station, the
school are recognisably in a real world. While the school is for wizards, it is also very
conventional, with its emphasis on being good at academic subjects and sport and
expecting certain standards of behaviour from its pupils. Many of the features of
conventional school stories are kept, the tale of the journey, terms, holidays, exams,
dormitories, uniforms, equipment, parents letters, a pre-occupation with food, friend-
ships, bullies, secret outings at night and so on. The parents are figures with whom
children can identify. Whether they are muggles (non-wizards) or wizards, they retain
recognisable features of parenting in the real world. The parents do seem to engage with
the kinds of issues that Campion (1995) suggests are the concerns of adequate parents.

The Dursleys—Harry’s uncle and aunt (substitute parents)

The Dursley’s are described as complacent and prejudiced people. They are snobbish and
provincial. They are very inward looking and very afraid of difference or being seen to be
different. They do not like the fact that Harry is not like them. He is the child of wizards
and this is extremely threatening to them. They dislike Harry’s origins intensely; Uncle
Vernon says ‘I will not tolerate mention of your abnormality under this roof’ (CS, p. 8).
They do not understand magic, it scares them and they find it unpleasant. They are
uninterested in exploration, inquiry or imagination. As Harry puts it, ‘Don’t ask questions,
that was the first rule for a quiet life with the Dursleys’ (PS, p. 20). They cannot understand
Harry and they favour their own son quite outrageously, for example lavishly celebrating
his birthday and forgetting Harry. For Harry, there are ‘no cards, no presents and he
would be spending the evening pretending not to exist’ (CS, p. 11). He is like Cinderella or
any child excluded from mainstream society. Harry has no celebrations and also gets the
worst chores to do. He is made to feel that he is not welcome; ‘Harry was about as welcome
in their house as dry rot’ (GF, p. 23). Like other reluctant substitute parents, with little in
the way of parenting skills, they are not really interested in Harry’s welfare or his origins,
which frighten them, even though they are his uncle and aunt. Harry therefore puzzles
over what little he knows of his parents and wants to know who he is and where he comes
from. The Dursleys are not particularly good parents for their own son either, as their
partiality and overindulgence of his whims make him increasingly unable to fit with
society outside the home.

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 Parenting and the Harry Potter Stories 299

Mr Dursley stands in the tradition in children’s literature of unreasoning authority

personified, pompous and comically wrong. He treats Harry badly. He shouts at him, ‘you
stand there in the clothes Petunia and I have put on your ungrateful back’ (GF, p. 35).
J. K. Rowling by caricature shows this attitude to be wrong and we see that the family is
unkind and lacks imagination. The reader is invited to laugh at the Dursley’s attitudes,
‘Uncle Vernon tended to judge other men on how big and expensive their cars were’ (GF,
p. 40). This is further developed when Aunt Marge his sister appears. She is a female
version of Uncle Vernon and equally prejudiced and self-centred. Mr Dursley remains
bigoted to the end, about Harry and also about minority groups in society. We see the
difficulties too of rescuing a child like Harry from his misery; he is powerless and it takes
supernatural powers to even get a letter to him (PS, p. 35). In the closed world of the
Dursley household no letters or information about Harry’s background or his parent’s
friends get to him easily. He is uneasy, he knows he isn’t a Dursley, he has no affinity with
them . . . but he doesn’t know who he is. ‘What he really wanted was someone like a
parent, an adult wizard, whose advice he could ask without feeling stupid, someone who
cared about him, who had experience of Dark Magic’ (GF, p. 25).

The Dursleys would not be accepted as suitable foster carers by current criteria. They fail
to provide the basic standards of physical care. They cannot nurture Harry’s sense of
identity or self-esteem. The emotional climate in the family is low on warmth and high in
criticism. They operate as a closed unit with little contact with the wider world, and show
no empathy for anyone else, let alone anyone disadvantaged or different. In creating them
J. K. Rowling has mirrored much of what is considered poor parenting skills. Seen against
Campion’s list, they would fail on all counts in relation to what they provide for Harry,
apart from allowing him to go to school, which they do under duress. Further, the family
system is so closed that harm might have come to Harry had he not had contact with his
parents friends and the community of wizards. Conversely, the large friendly wizarding
family of Harry’s school friend, Ron, would probably be viewed as a good placement for a
developing child.

The Weasleys

Harry describes the Weasleys as the family he would most like to have (PS, p. 76) and by
the end of the series of books he is spending more and more time with them. There are two
parents, five children and not a lot of money. They are ‘old wizarding families’ who live in
the world of muggles (non-wizarding families) harmoniously. While they can argue and
disagree, they show strong affection, loyalty and warmth for each other, with acceptance
and good humour. They are a ‘good enough’ family. The mother is concerned for the
children, but because there are five, she doesn’t have much time (PS, p. 76). Like all
ordinary good mothers she embarrasses her children from time to time (PS, p. 147). She
knits them jumpers which aren’t always to their own taste, and there is much make do and
mend. When Harry is around ‘she obviously makes more effort if you’re not family’
(PS, p. 149). Mrs Weasley when roused on behalf of her children is more than a human,
kind parent, muddling along doing her best. She is the children’s champion until they do
something she thinks is wrong and then she can be quite terrifying: ‘Mrs Weasley, was
marching across the yard, scattering chickens, and for a short, plump, kind faced woman, it was
remarkable how much she looked like a sabre toothed tiger’ (CS, p. 30).

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300 Janet Seden

She is both motherly and human. She is seen patting her hair in place before going to the
handsome Gideon Lockhart’s book signing (CS, p. 49). She cooks well and provides treats
such as fireworks. Even when Harry knows that he has inherited wealth from his parents,
he envies Ron his warm, chaotic and loving family (CS, p. 52). Mrs Weasley has a great
deal of maternal pride, ‘a second head boy in the family, she said, swelling with pride’
(PA, p. 51) but also worries about appearances when her oldest son grows his hair long
when about to apply for a job (GF, p. 59).

The father’s character is developed slowly across the books. He fits many of the
stereotypes and realities of working men who are fathers. He experiences work pressures
and is often called to work to resolve a crisis (GF, pp. 132, 143). He is the one who
pays when his sons drive illegally and have car accidents (CS, pp. 34, 35). He represents
authority and when Ron steals the car he says, ‘Dad’ll kill me’ (CS, p. 60). Typically he likes
to read the paper (PA, p. 50). He is well mannered and manages the social niceties when
faced with the Dursleys, saying politely, ‘A very nice place you’ve got here’ (GF, p. 44). He
is a shadowy figure in the early books but is developed into a genial, ordinary, active,
authoritative father. He appears quiet but is far from meek, and challenges the Dursleys
for not saying goodbye to Harry (GF, p. 47). He gets angry with Fred for misbehaviour
(GF, p. 50). ‘It isn’t funny Mr Weasley shouted. That sort of behaviour seriously
undermines wizard-muggle relations. I spend half my life campaigning against the
mistreatment of Muggles and my own sons’ . . . (GF, p. 50). Mr Weasley explains the
external world to his children, he keeps things in order and arranges trips and outings
with great precision (GF, p. 67) ‘we’ve made good time, we’ve got ten minutes’. He
disapproves of betting and worries about what his wife will think (GF, p. 81). ‘Don’t tell
your mother you’ve been gambling’ Mr Weasley implored Fred and George (GF, p. 106).
He spends time chatting with business friends (GF, p. 84). It is the Weasley family that
shows that identity and difference can be maintained harmoniously. They live as wizards
in a non-wizard community and make it work (GF, pp. 76, 77). They appear to have values
about honesty, fairness and caring.

‘Life at the burrow (Weasleys) was as different as possible from life in Privet Drive
(Dursleys). The Dursleys liked everything neat and ordered, the Weasley’s house burst
with the strange and unexpected’ (CS, p. 36). However, they have standards, and care
what people think. There is to be ‘no wizarding in public’ (CS, p. 54) because it is against
wizard law. They have their squabbles too (PA, p. 51), and row over what is best for Harry
(PA, pp. 51, 52). Ron and his mother quarrel about school uniform when Ron doesn’t like it
being second hand (GF, p. 139). For Harry, ‘The Weasleys were Harry’s favourite family in
the world: he was hoping they might invite him to stay any time now’ (GF, p. 25). They
also treat Harry like a son (GF, pp. 620, 706).

This is a family that scores highly against Campion’s criteria and there is much with which
most parents can identify. They do their best to provide physical care, they are concerned
with the cognitive, emotional, moral and spiritual development of their children. They are
outward looking enough to include Harry and be concerned with their neighbourhood
and community. They are warm, but they have standards and seem fair. Above all they are
able to be constructive and network with anyone they meet or have to work with. They do
their best to develop a positive link with the Dursleys and value Harry’s individuality
while including him warmly alongside their birth children. If they had applied to foster
Harry they would hardly have been turned down.

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 Parenting and the Harry Potter Stories 301

The Grangers (Hermione’s parents) and the Malfoys

There are other families, apart from the two main ones portrayed in the books. There are
also parent substitutes such as the teachers at Hogwarts School. Most of these characters
are less well developed, but none the less represent recognisable parenting styles. Harry’s
main female friend is Hermione Granger, whose parents seem to come across as
representative of concerned but distant middle class parents. They are dentists, and stay in
the background in a supportive and caring way. They are not wizards (CS, p. 47), but
provide a kind of touchstone for ordinary involved, but ‘hands off,’ parenting. They do
what is needed with great consistency, but no magic. They are predictable and reliable.
They ‘dropped me off this morning with all my Hogwarts things’ (PA, p. 38) and ‘Mum
and Dad gave me some money to buy an early birthday present’ (PA, p. 47). They holiday
in France (GF, p. 210), they have views about what is good for Hermione, for example they
send her sugar free snacks to school (GF, p. 30). Hermione happily takes them completely
for granted. The Malfoys are even more of a stereotype. In Draco Malfoy, the classic school
snob is introduced. His father depends for his status on rank, blood and ‘the old school tie’
(PS, p. 60). The parents are described as ‘strutting around in a manor house’ (CS, p. 28) and
as snobby, imperious and superior, while possibly ‘on the fiddle’ (CS, p. 43). Mr Malfoy is
powerful and uses his influence (PA, p. 87) to affect the school, ‘Malfoy’s dad frightened
the committee into it’ (PA, p. 215). Mrs Malfoy would have been nice looking, ‘if she hadn’t
been wearing a look that suggested there was a nasty smell under her nose’ (GF, p. 92).
While they are undoubtedly presented in a fairly one-dimensional way, the presence of
the rich ‘superior family’ who appear to easily use power and influence to achieve what
they want, flags up for readers the power of money and position in avoiding social
exclusion and having influence.

The teachers as caretakers, and Harry’s absent parents

Parenting has never been solely about biology and kinship, although the idea lingers on
somehow that it is, and that substitute carers are more likely to be less good parents. In
these books some of the complexity around these ideas is mirrored. First, there is a strong
hint that mother love has particular power. Harry’s real parents are shadowy figures,
because they are dead, but their influence pervades the books. They have left Harry
money, and their friends oversee Harry at a distance. There is a suggestion that it is the
power of Harry’s mother’s love that preserves him and keeps evil at bay (PA, p. 138). This
strong positive view of mother love is also attached to Mrs Weasley. She is the one who is
there for him when he most needs care.

Mrs Weasley, set the potion down on the bedside cabinet, bent down and put her arms round
Harry. He had no memory of ever being hugged like this, as though by a mother. The full weight
of everything he had seen that night seemed to fall in upon him as Mrs Weasley held him to her
(GF, p. 620).

It is also clear that such was the love of Harry’s real parents that they once saved his life. In
Rowling’s world ‘Real parents will die for you’ (PA, p. 178). Harry longs to belong and to
have an identity in his parent’s community. It is the power of this community that rescues
him from the neglect and abuse of the Dursleys.

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302 Janet Seden

Alongside this, the teachers in the school come across as taking the place of parents in term
time. There is only room here to look at Albus Dumbledore (headmaster) and Professor
McGonagall (senior female teacher). These teachers become the boundary and moral
arbiters of the children’s world. They are protectors, careful and authoritative (PS, p. 13).
They are compassionate about Harry’s situation, and come across as firm but caring. They
also are shown to have a sense of humour. Professor McGonagall can be very angry about
what she sees as wrongdoing, and represents, far more than any of the ‘mothers,’ a female
authority (CS, p. 63). She is also a very practical kind of carer, for example when Harry is
anonymously sent a new broom to play the sport Quidditch, she checks it in case it is jinxed.

It is Dumbledore, however, who gives the philosophical messages of the book and can be
seen as the bringer of moral guidance to Harry. He is Harry’s mentor throughout. He is
powerful with a ‘penetrating light blue stare’. He is relied on throughout and when he
appears to fail it is unthinkable. ‘Harry stared up into the grave face and felt as though the
ground beneath him was falling sharply away. He had grown used to the idea that
Dumbledore could solve anything. He had expected Dumbledore to pull some amazing
solution out of the air. But no, their last hope was gone (PA, p. 288).

As Harry grows up he learns the necessary truth that no parent or parent-figure is

infallible, but in each book Dumbledore, like a wise father, shares with Harry his
philosophy of life:

 ‘After all, to the well organised mind, death is but the next great adventure’ (PS, p. 215)
 ‘Fear of a name increases the fear of the thing itself’ (PS, p. 216)
 ‘You think the dead we have loved ever truly leave us? You think that we don’t recall
them more clearly than ever in times of great trouble? Your father is alive in you, Harry,
and shows himself most plainly when you have need of him’ (PA, p. 312)
 ‘You fail to recognise that it matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be’
(GF, p. 614)
 ‘Understanding is the first step to acceptance, and only with acceptance can there be
recovery’ (GF, p. 590)
 ‘It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities’
(CS, p. 245).

Discussion of some themes

The parents in these books begin their lives as rather one-dimensional representations of
certain aspects of parenting. This serves to make them recognisable and accessible quickly.
Their characters are then developed over the four books, so that certain ideas and themes
emerge which can be compared with other contemporary ideas about both desirable and
less desirable parenting.

Family and parenting styles

There are strong messages in these books about what kind of parenting style is good for
children. For example, physical nurture, warmth, care, stability, loyalty, guidance, love,
companionship, appreciation, challenge, comfort, standards, security, moral guidance are
all valued. In the Weasleys we see these qualities in action, in the hurly burly of their lives.

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 Parenting and the Harry Potter Stories 303

In the Dursleys we see what is the converse, neglect and emotional abuse. The Grangers
and Malfoys give a glimpse of other ways of being a parent. In the teachers we see adults,
with a care taking role, giving support, security, guidance and boundaries. Through
Harry’s thoughts we hear a child saying what he is searching for, nurture and belonging,
which he finds through a range of parent substitutes and the wizarding community.

Accepting difference

The Dursleys are unable to accept Harry, the wizard child. It is not difficult to think they
would reject a disabled child or people from other ethnic groups than their own. The fact
that the Weasleys, the family readers are invited to like and admire through the way they
are portrayed, respect difference and don’t want muggles and wizards to have poor or
hostile relationships gives a message about accepting and valuing such differences. This
modelling is part of positive parenting. As Bates (2001, p. 2) comments, Rowling’s
worldview comes from a

secular mind which sees the limitations of materialism and rationalism. Her concerns are
contemporary, even politically correct. The wickedness of racial prejudice is exposed, whilst
compassion for victims of social oppression and disorder is evoked‘ . . . ’the values that win
through are courage and honesty and loyalty to friends and others on the side of right.

Kinship, identity and the role of community

Harry’s search to find himself, to find who he is and to find a family, is an old theme in a
new setting. The power of the biological bond is seen as stretching beyond death, and
mother love as very strong. In Mr and Mrs Weasley, if not in the Dursleys, it is seen that
such love can be given to a child to whom the mother and father have not given birth.
Good parents can be biological or surrogate, the main factor is that they are committed to
being parents and have the qualities for providing nurture. Biological ties can still be
special. Kinship to a wider community (the wizards) is a key factor in enabling Harry to
grow to his optimal development, because through it he comes to know his origins and
himself. Strong communities, with loyalty to shared, ethical, values are seen to foster a
sense of belonging and of self-worth.

Magic, imagination and growing to maturity

Harry has to grow from being a neglected and rejected person with no security, who
doesn’t know his origins, to self-knowledge and independence. He achieves this
development through interaction with a series of parent substitutes, and a sense of
belonging to his parent’s cultural world. He does this in a fantasy setting with spells and
dark and light forces, where risks are taken and the people involved have to keep their
nerve. There are messages here too. Parents need imagination to be parents and to be able
to enter into the child’s world. They also need the courage to engage with the unexpected
with their children as they grow to maturity in an increasingly unpredictable world. It is
tough and risky being a parent. Staying with a child through anything that happens, and
having the empathy to interpret the world to the child and make sense of it makes all the
difference, even when you feel you have lost control. The headmaster, Dumbledore,

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304 Janet Seden

doesn’t remain infallible, but when things seem to be going very wrong, he stays alongside
Harry. The resilience in the face of adversity that Harry shows in the later books has come
partially through magic, but also through the way his character has been formed in the
company of reliable, nurturing adults. These last messages about being a parent, are ones
which literature, with its capacity to place recognisable issues in a mythical world of story
can convey well. Tensions and themes can be highlighted through metaphor, thus raising
them to consciousness in new ways. Above all, what can be gained through literature is
the capacity to use the imagination to enter the world of another, and have the empathy to
offer support where needed.

Conclusion

Over the years there have been swings in perspectives about child welfare. The ‘scandal’
of Maria Colwell, a child in state care, who died when placed back home with her parents,
led to the procedure driven, child rescue approach of the 1980s. This was replaced in the
1990s by a refocusing towards family support. This was influenced by research findings
(Department of Health, 1995), concerns about too intensive state intrusion into family life,
and an international move towards the view that most families are capable of raising their
children if they have adequate services and support (Scott and O’Neill, 1996; Maluccio,
1997). Ambivalence about state intervention into the private sphere of family life, coupled
with an evident need to protect some children from serious harm, has produced a
literature about the elements that need to be balanced when practitioners are involved
with particular children and their families. (Millar and Warman, 1996; Parton, 1997;
Davies and Aldgate, 1999; Seden, 2001; Department of Health, 2002).

There are failures of the system such as poor interagency working and communication.
However another concern is the seeming inability at times of practitioners, in all care
agencies and despite tools and checklists, to enter empathically into the world of the child
who needs support and/or substitute parenting, and then intervene to support or
safeguard from harm. There is a synergy between what social sciences have discovered
about ‘good enough parenting’ and the insights that can be gathered from entering the
imaginative world of literature. In J. K. Rowling’s work all events are seen through the
eyes of the child, with whom the reader is invited to identify and so understand his
struggles and concerns. Staying child-centred in this way, despite the distractions of other
more powerful elements, is something that still needs to permeate social care practice.
Practitioners who have the capacity for empathy, care and concern will be more motivated
to act, alongside parents wherever possible, to improve children’s circumstances. It is not
simply the ability to follow the guidelines that makes for best practice, if supporting and
protective interventions don’t follow. The fictional experience enables us to confront the
need for this kind of imagination as parents and practitioners, while the social sciences can
keep us grounded and evidence based about intervention.

However, the strongest messages of J. K. Rowling’s books are those about the qualities
needed for parenting, as the contrast between the Dursleys and the wizarding community
to which Harry really belongs is played and replayed. The Dursleys, as well as being
neglectful and dismissive of Harry, are also materialist, immune to music, poetry, beauty,
fun, imagination, magic, or happy feelings. Children’s needs are more than material.
They embrace the physical, social, psychological, emotional, cognitive, cultural and
spiritual (Central Council for Education and Training in Social Work (CCETSW), 1996;

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 Parenting and the Harry Potter Stories 305

Seden, 1998). Parenting that can foster a sense of the magic of everyday life, joy, wonder
and creativity offers children tools to combat other adversities and builds the inner
strength known as resilience in adversity.

References

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Contributor’s details

Janet Seden has been a social care practitioner in several settings, is author of Counselling Skills in
Social Work Practice (2000 and 2001) and has published on the assessment of children in need and
their families, on other topices related to the implementation of Children Act 1989 and on social work
process.

Copyright # 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. CHILDREN & SOCIETY Vol. 16, 295–305 (2002)