AIBU to think the Weasleys were not actually poor?

[Jane379]

With the HBO show coming up I've been rereading the books and on several forums discussing them I've noted people describing the Weasleys as poor, saying they're a good portrayal of a poor family etc
I'd seen this before and assumed I must have missed those details but rereading (although not fully finished the series yet), they don't strike me as particularly poor. They have 7 kids which means money is tighter, Ron has hand me downs etc but overall they seem comfortable. Arthur has a steady job, Molly is a SAHM - presumably if they were really in financial trouble she would get a paid job too. A lot of families might find 7 kids financially tricky, rely on hand me downs etc, not holiday abroad much but is that necessarily poor?

I will say my own experience growing up with a single mother in fairly low-paid work was that we did scrimp on various things including holidays (which we never did when I was a child), but we could always afford good enough food, necessary clothes, had a warm house & books etc that I wanted (living in a place with good libraries and various cheaper services helped). A bit like Ron, I went to a school where a lot of people were much more well-off, but I'd never have considered myself poor. That would have felt insulting given far too many people (even more now) lack money for essentials or have enough for basics but not much else.

AIBU?

I don't think Hogwarts is a free school, 7 lots of school fees is probably a significant amount.

Oh and if you want to feel old, watch 'The fortune' - I was watching thinking, he looks familiar, and finally some switch went on and I realised it was Neville Longbottom AKA Matthew Lewis.

Neville is a proto-squib until he gets his own wand. He has to work really hard. Probably character-forming, but a bit cruel really.

The adults are so oblivious to stuff, so much of the time. Largely incapable of dressing for the muggle world. Poor magic outside their specialism. I don’t know if it’s a child-centred view of adults not being interested in important (to a child) things. Or magic makes life so easy that their brains turn to mush.

Even the LEGO burrow was nearly £100. They definitely weren't poor

@sashh The message above says JK Rowling says Hogwarts is paid for by the Ministry of Magic. I added a link to the magazine article which the filter apparently didn’t like.

Marietta Edgecomb, who dobbed in the DA, her mother works in the ministry.

but surely if the whole point is that there is a specialist shop selling individual wands matched to the wizard, that people DO have a general understanding that it makes a difference, even if they don't know the whole inns and outs of wandlore.

Sorry, I don't buy that people don't know that an individual wand is better. Olivander literally tells Harry that in book 1 - "and of course you will never get such good results with another wizard's wand."

For Charlie to have had his own wand for Ron to inherit, it suggests that at least the oldest two (and probably the oldest 5 as none of the others are mentioned as having second hand wands) all went to Ollivanders and were given the full sales pitch he gave Harry. They would have had at least one parent there AND Molly and Arthur would have also had the same experience themselves when they got their wands. You really think that he only mentioned such a basic fact to Harry and not any of his other customers?

If there wasn't a clear advantage to having your own wand why would anyone bother going to a specialist shop for a new one anyway? Ollivanders would go out of business if everyone just used hand-me-downs.

Even if there wasn't any magical benefit to it, it's clearly a very significant tradition that marks the beginning of adulthood for a young wizard, and it's really shitty to not give Ron that experience solely because he was born the second-youngest, but then spaff money on an expensive holiday as soon as you get your hands on some. Literally could Molly have not sold some cakes or jumpers or something? Arthur done some overtime? At that point they only had one child left at home, what else were they doing?

Apparently the Malfoys came over with William the Conqueror so as close to proper old aristocracy as you can get!

I think the coding doesn't always match up because the wizarding world is in many ways decades behind the muggle one. If you think of them as living in 1891 rather than 1991 then the 'old money' trope then WASN'T genteel aristocracy in rural poverty stomping around in ancient mud covered boots (and to be honest even now that's still not 100% the case - look at the Grosvenor's 21st birthday and wedding parties, for example, aristocracy are very much happy to splash the cash on some things) but was more 'spend spend spend and let's tell everyone about it.'

Yes the adults are somewhat oblivious...it' probably a bit of both, but also necessary for the plot. I like pp's idea also that part of the reason Neville did badly early on was because he didn't want magic at all.

She must have had 7 kids in about 7 years! And then multiple toddlers for years while being pregnant , st one point with twins!

She was due a good rest when her kids started going off one by one or two to Hogwarts.

mind you she’s never idle. I bet she is busy & purposeful most of her life.

Ive thought about this far more than I should have and actually I think we’re being completely unfair to Molly. She ran the household, a farm, probably sold her knitting and her crafts and local goods kept on top of all the organising of everything else. Suddenly getting a paid job after having 7 kids and being out of work for 10-15 years makes it hard to suddenly get one and actually their costs probably went down once Ginny started school.

I dont think she ever stopped and she probably started thinking about starting a new career project and war happens.

Thank you, I don't remember that.

This is such a fascinating thread, discussing a fictional family.

I always think this when Lupins shabby clothes are mentioned - he's simply not bovvered

They're the cosy kind of poor that authors like to invoke when they want to cast one character as a rich snob and the other as the underdog. They are always well-fed, well-clothed and adequately housed, they have everything they need, but it's cute to make them "poor" by giving him a packed lunch and a homemade jumper, without actually having to portray the grinding struggle of actually being poor.

Very well said. I think it's one of many examples of J.K. Rowling's sloppy, poor and inconsistent writing.

It’s a relative thing: they’re poor in that they struggle to keep up with the requirements of the school each year (having to buy secondhand and such), and scrape by on the other things (no holidays a scant supply of floo powder and such) . But they’re far from being at the bottom of the wizarding pile. Theirs is certainly not an example of extreme poverty and hardship.

It’s what you might call a genteel poverty. They suffer from having a large family and Mr Weasley being in a middling job and an old crumbling house to maintain. It’s a great example of a family being (generally) happy and creative without that being through material things and at the same time shows that what Harry has (for all he’s lost and all he suffers) can make his best friend struggle with envy at times - they both envy the things the other has. A wonderful family. I love them!

I don't think it's that, exactly, more that she's working hard to make Harry be seeming to befriend another ostensible 'outsider' or underdog on the train on the way to Hogwarts (poor, likeably uncool, not good at magic, has a crappy pet etc) rather than rich, smoothy snob Draco Malfoy -- when in fact the Weasleys are an old, well-connected Pureblood family, and pretty much as insider as you can get.

And Harry, of course, is the ultimate rich, famous, insider, though he only realises it once he leaves the Dursleys!

I disagree. The "poor but kind and good people" trope is a very popular one that has been used in many works over the centuries. Many revered classical authors have used it. The Ballet Shoes has been mentioned on this thread, and its used there.

This! JKR references a lot of classic children's fiction (and some adult) in various ways, this is just another example.

In Ballet Shoes:

• The children are withdrawn from school because they can't afford the fees
• The family are required to take in lodgers in order to make ends meet
• Petrova feels forced to pretend to enjoy participating in dancing and acting despite hating it and being routinely humiliated, because of the pressure she feels to earn a wage for the family
• Sylvia is often up late at night, stressed and strained, trying to settle the family accounts
• Both Sylvia and the children are forced to sell beloved heirlooms and pawn precious possessions in order to afford basics

In Harry Potter, Ron sometimes wears scruffy clothes and has to bring a packed lunch to school.

Re-reading the Ballet Shoes and just come across where Pauline needs a new dress for her first audition. Nana said that it would need to be "4 or 5 guineas" as it has to last. After a bit of googling it seems that that price in the 1930's would high class couture prices for a grown woman!

In modern terms it would be between £400 and £500!

I can't speak to inflation rates or Noel Streatfeild's mathematical prowess, but considering the dress needs to be worn to every audition until outgrown, then by Petrova, then by Posy, and will be the ONLY special occasion wear to be shared between 3 girls, it does need to be high quality. And clothes making was a lot more labour intensive with no cheap imports from China then, so you'd expect clothes to cost more.

In ballet shoes Sylvia and the children keep 3 servants.

They’re not in poverty. They’re poor compared to other full blood old magical families. It’s like saying an aristocratic family is poor because they have a big house and land but it’s ramshackle and they have to scrimp and save etc.

Compared to Harry - who is rich NOT because of his parents (who died age 21) but because his grandfather got incredibly rich from inventive potions - and the Malfoys aka other old magical families families they are poor.