shplb big lookback post
or, what does it mean to “outgrow” something?
So, important fact about me: I am super sensitive and really socially awkward most of the time (if you’re actually reading this you probably already know this).
If I had a dollar for every time my parents told me that I would “outgrow” being sensitive, develop a thick skin, “outgrow” being socially awkward, learn how to talk to people, I would have a hell of a lot of dollars.
If I had a dollar for every time my dad in particular mocked stuff I liked, especially when I read it over and over again, I would have... even more dollars.
And if I had a dollar for every time both of my parents pretend that these things never happened I would have enough dollars to buy a nice laptop, probably.
It’s important that I mention this because of something that I don’t bring up often: when I was in elementary school, for a period of a few years my parents banned me from reading any of the Harry Potter books outright. (Is it any wonder I turned to fanfic? But I digress.) They retracted the ban after I discovered Twilight, of course, because better Harry Potter than Twilight, right?
The argument was that I needed to learn to read things besides Harry Potter. I did read rather a lot of Harry Potter. But since this came also at the same time as my dad was trying to get me to like the things he liked such as Ender’s Game and some more adult books like The Count of Monte Cristo (note: The Count of Monte Cristo is not appropriate reading material for a nine-year-old) it came off as him hoping that being forced away from Harry Potter would make me “outgrow” it and get into what he thought of as “adult” literature.
When I mentioned the Harry Potter reread project I just finished to my dad he scoffed and nearly said verbatim that I’d read it so many times, why would I want to read it again? I’d read it so many times as a child, surely anything I loved about it was just nostalgia, right?
This is beginning to turn into a childhood rant rather than a lookback at my shplb project. But, the point of all of that is:
I have not “outgrown” Harry Potter. I haven’t “outgrown” anything my parents claimed I would “outgrow” (this no longer looks like a word to me, is that normal). Yes, these were formative books for me. Yes, I’m not a kid anymore. But no, these books have more than nostalgia value for me. Harry Potter is a fully drawn world with a compelling story and even more compelling characters; there is depth there that becomes obvious if you’re only willing to pay attention.
Yes, the teenage phase is incredibly frustrating, but it’s also for the most part totally understandable. Maybe I’m more sympathetic because I’ve been a teenager more recently than my parents have, so while both my parents hated the fifth book for the teen angst and sheer length, I found it a lot more interesting now than I did in elementary school.
And the problems I have with Harry Potter now (underrepresented groups for the most part, and the disappointment of the epilogue) are very different from the problems my parents find in the books. But that’s to be expected.
I don’t know if Harry Potter is a universal classic, but I do know that I still count the series as a favorite despite the passage of time, over books that other people (read: my parents) count as classics.
This lookback/rant post sounds kind of bitter but it’s really not. Rereading Harry Potter made it clear to me how it shaped the stories I think about and imagine now and, by extension, how it shaped me. In that sense it’s entirely impossible for me to have “outgrown” it in any sense because of the way the series influenced my growth.
Harry Potter was the starting point for my childish imagination: there are so many things I dreamed up in my head because of it, and every last one of them is very real.