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Reddit r/harrypotter |
TL/DR: We have raised our almost 8 yr old daughter to believe she’s a Witch from an old Wizarding family. We’re looking for more sophisticated and creative ideas from the r/HarryPotier community to keep this thing going.
Since our daughter was 5 and my wife and | first started reading her the Harry Potter books we have told her that she is a witch and that the Wizarding World is real. She is almost 8 and as her questions have gotten deeper, we’ve kept building the illusion with more details about our family genealogy and its connection to book characters, stories about times we used magic (and the life and moral lessons we learned about it). She has processed many difficult subjects like racism, climate change and even the Coronavirus through this lens.
Before other parents judge or lecture :We know it’s gas-lighting and that eventually she’ll have be disappointed and have trust issues with us when she learns the truth. We justify it that we are adding magic to her childhood, and giving her motivation to reach her full (magical) potential (since she needs to study hard to be accepted to Hogwarts). We’ve asked serious questions of her teachers and they think it’s more awesome and creative than damaging. (At the very worst case, my take is that it’s analogous to children being raised to believe that traditional religious stories are true and that when the truth hits it will teach her to ask critical questions and not accept everything she hears or reads at face value.)
We’re looking for more ideas for how to inject little bits of Harry Potter magic into every day life using technology, crafts and adding more details to the fanfic that is our lives
It’s not, and it is.
At least this seems like positive reinforcement, while Christianity is all about guilt-tripping and threats of eternal torture.
However, if this becomes like a religion for her, she is going to be alone in it. With Christianity and other religions, there’s strength in numbers and a community to support you in your existential crises when you doubt. A big reason religions are still relevant today is because of these large communities and the way they work to ensure people stay insulated from even thinking that there’s a possibility their beliefs are myths.
She will probably realize all of this is bullshit by the time she’s a teenager, which is the ripest age for developing trust issues with your parents and everyone else, as well as other related trauma. Because she wont have the support of a community behind her, it’s a certainty she’ll go through it.