What should I tell my kids if Harry Potter croaks?

[jay santos]

Originally Posted by BigFatMeanie

The current issue of People magazine (via mugglenet.com - one of Mrs. Meanie's Harry Potter websites) has an article about whether or not Harry Potter will die in book 7. What is lame is that they have a guide for parents about what to tell your kids if Harry Potter dies. Some of their snippets of wisdom about how parents should handle this challenging situation:



Are you kidding me? Are folks so devoid of intelligence that they would turn to People magazine for advice on how to handle a fictional characters death? Some thoughts:

• Any child that is so immature or so stupid as to truly worry about or be affected by Harry Potter’s possible death shouldn’t be reading Harry Potter in the first place.
• Any parent that is so immature or so stupid as to turn to People magazine for advice on handling Harry Potter’s possible death shouldn’t be having kids in the first place.

One of the lamest comments in the magazine was “to a kid, Harry Potter is very real”. Oh puhleeze. A kid that is smart enough to read and understand the Harry Potter books doesn’t really think Harry Potter is real. Kids that are too young to understand that Harry Potter isn’t real probably can’t read. Thus, I’ve got to wonder where kids that age are getting such a dose of Harry Potter that they think he’s real?

What’s that you say? They see him in the movies? Well, I suppose that’s possible - my three year old has seen all the Harry Potter movies. If it does indeed turn out the Harry dies, will I let her watch the last movie? The answer to that question is “yes” - because she will be old enough to understand by the time the last moving comes out (probably about 4 years from now). If I happen to have another three year old (unlikely) when the last movie comes out, and Harry happens to croak, will I then let my three year old watch the movie? Hmm, I’m not sure about that. I would watch the movie first and determine whether or not it was suitable for my kid. It’s called parenting. It’s just possible that I would end up letting my three year old watch it because my three year old would likely have more sense than the parents that let People magazine do their parenting for them.

We view things differently. I respect your opinion, but I seem to be on the opposite spectrum on some of these issues. As a parent I actually like having these kind of resources available to help me know how to approach topics with my kids, and I tend to believe that something like death of Harry Potter could be an important thing to talk through with a kid. I like to look for every life lesson possible to have meaningful communication with my kids and this can be one. And even as an adult, I can be disturbed or upset with a death of a loved character if I'm absorbed in a book or film.