Right Minded Online

Dan the Baptist made the comment yesterday on his blog that “Today as I was driving home I jokingly asked my daughters if either of them got any Harry Potter valentines today. My oldest daughter said ‘NO Daddy and I know I know Harry Potter is the devil’ Man I was so proud.”

As a result, the liberals over at Nashville Is Talking are completely blown away, as they have fallen for the “fundy family” stereotype trap they have laid for themselves.

(Disclosure: I have never read any of the Harry Potter books, nor seen any of the movies, so let me defuse the inevitable questions before I go any further. “But Mark,” you ask. “How can you comment on Harry Potter if you’ve never read a book or seen a movie?” Answer: Because this is my blog, and I can.)

I absolutely love these quotes in both the NIT blog post and the comments that follow:

Maybe this is a big joke I don’t get, but it seems that Dan (author of Conservative Corner) is seriously proud his daughter “knows Harry Potter is the devil.” Is this still an issue in churches and scools [sic] after all the books and films that have been released?

I guess Dan is proud that his daughter is responding to her father’s spiritual mentoring. It may not be such an issue in churches and schools, but it apparently is in Dan’s house (and mine). Believe it or not, but some parents take such great care in raising their children that they HAVE more influence than the schools, and have the churches at their back.

That’s another thing about the fundy family – no imagination – and no understanding of how the imagination works, or of how children actually grow up.

Ah, fallen for the old fundamentalist caricature, I see. This is about as old as the arguments against the Harry Potter books themselves — that if parents deprive their children of the experience of Harry Potter, then their imaginations are forever stunted. Of course, Harry Potter has been around for what, 7 or 8 years? Well, children somehow had imaginations long before Harry Potter came along, but now, apparently, the only way a child can have an imagination in 2006 is to read Harry Potter.

And by the way, I’ll put the Chronicles of Narnia up against Harry Potter any day.

As Dan says, “I know that it is make believe and if you like it then fine but I do not want my kids to see it.” And that, folks, is a parent’s job: to filter out things he doesn’t want his children to see or hear. Dan’s made his call. I’m sure his little girl isn’t any worse off as a result, and that her child-like imagination is just as vivid and robust as if she were reading Harry Potter.

Funny how fundamentalist families, some of which are quite large, have great experience at raising children, but somehow have no understanding how the imagination works or how children actually grow up. Well, I don’t quite have the imagination to process such a contradiction. I’ll leave it for the more cerebral Harry Potter readers.