Muggle Parents and Their Magical Children

Muggle Parents and Their Magical Children

Twenty years ago, when I first read Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, I was like most readers: deeply indignant at the way Harry Potter’s aunt and uncle treated him. I could never help imagining that if Harry’s biological parents had still been alive, his childhood would have been many times happier. Part of the reason, of course, was the closeness of blood ties. But the more important reason was that Harry’s parents, like Harry himself, were wizards, while his aunt and uncle were Muggles who knew nothing about the magical world. Even though they lived under the same roof, wizards and Muggles seemed to exist in two parallel worlds that did not truly touch. Yet today, twenty years later, now that I am a parent myself, after finishing The Magic Years: The Spiritual World of Children Aged 0–6 in one sitting, the first image that came to mind was, unexpectedly, that same Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.

Perhaps in the eyes of every child between 0 and 6, Mom and Dad sometimes turn into those annoying aunt and uncle from Harry Potter. They do not believe people can fly through the sky; they do not believe Dementors wander the street outside the door; they do not believe that passing through Platform Nine and Three-Quarters will let you board the train to Hogwarts... Perhaps Rowling’s aunt and uncle were always a metaphor for all biological parents, and parents who can live in a magical world the way children do can exist only in imagination. Even though every parent was once a child, we have long forgotten that childhood age filled with magic, and like Muggles we dismiss the magical world of children with scorn. But if Harry Potter’s aunt and uncle had been willing to love and understand Harry—as most parents in the world sincerely wish to do—how could they have done it? How can Muggle parents educate Harry Potters with a gift for magic? Although The Magic Years has nothing to do with Harry Potter, it is still a book every parent who hopes to understand a child’s inner world and raise that child better ought to read carefully.

According to the translator’s introduction, this book was first published more than half a century ago. That fact made me feel a little sad. More than fifty years have passed, and yet these valuable ideas about raising children still have not been widely known or accepted by most parents. It is hard not to marvel that throughout the long years of schooling, most people are stuffed with countless pieces of useless knowledge. Most knowledge is of little help in how we live with the world; even for researchers, only a small portion of it remains truly useful. And yet when it comes to what is genuinely important, we know almost nothing. We never had the chance to learn anything in school about educating children, even though that knowledge is what truly shapes the future. In a country like ours, overflowing with job qualifications, certifications, and credentials, it is astonishing that becoming a parent—something so important—requires neither preparation nor examination of any kind. A considerable number of parents raise the next generation based on instinct, hearsay disguised as “knowledge,” or “experience” steeped in mysterious taboos and ignorance. It is hard not to find that deeply sad.

The Magic Years uses a light style and a rigorous spirit to introduce how children in their earliest years (0–6) perceive the world and what characterizes that process. Drawing on the author’s own understanding and experience, it offers parents extremely valuable material for better understanding children and raising them more wisely. There is a small detail in the book that particularly struck me. It says that if you want to make friends with a child around the age of two, a Band-Aid can sometimes be an extraordinary bridge. Children of that age often imagine their bodies, like stuffed toys, to be merely containers. If there is a tear in the container, perhaps the stuffing inside might spill out, and a Band-Aid becomes a magical repair tool. The afternoon before I read that passage, I saw the same idea perfectly confirmed in my two-year-and-one-month-old son, Yuanyuan. When he noticed a small cut on his finger, the surprise and fear he showed far exceeded whatever pain the wound itself might have caused. Normally, Yuanyuan is very tough; small bumps and falls almost never make him cry. But after we took him to the pharmacy and put a Band-Aid on it, he immediately became lively again, as if he were completely healed. Of course, this is only one tiny detail amid the wealth of material in the book, but it is enough to testify to the care and thoroughness of the author’s observations of children.

Overall, The Magic Years adopts an attitude of attachment parenting, which happens to align closely with our own general approach to raising Yuanyuan. The book also criticizes another, more “old-fashioned” style of parenting—one that still has quite a following today. This criticism includes certain ideas promoted in the name of so-called “scientific parenting,” such as feeding strictly by schedule rather than on demand, or refusing to pick up a crying baby too readily for fear of encouraging bad habits. The book’s critique of these methods is much the same as that found in other books advocating attachment parenting: newborns do not possess any supposed “capacity for conspiracy.” Their crying is simply a way of expressing need and anxiety. Parents should give their children enough security in their earliest years so that they can learn to trust the world more deeply. In short, attachment parenting benefits both the mental and physical well-being of children. Although those benefits often require parents—especially mothers—to invest more effort and endure more hardship, such effort is worthwhile in the larger sense. These ideas are very close to William Sears’s attachment parenting, and our own philosophy in raising Yuanyuan is also similar.

Naturally, the parenting ideas and content in The Magic Years go far beyond these few points. It presents a complete system of thought, one that is coherent and persuasive on its own terms. For parents like us—Muggle parents, so to speak—this book can be seen as a simple map to the magical world of children. It helps us better understand the magical world of our little Harry Potters, so that we can get along with them more harmoniously and offer them more helpful guidance. And if, by drawing enough nourishment from it, we can ourselves become wizards in the world our children inhabit, that would be better still.