87% of Mothers Want Their Children To Attend Hogwarts!

There's a fun little poll over at iVillage that posits the question: Would you want your kid to attend Hogwarts? As the mom of a 10-year-old who, I suspect, hopes in her heart of hearts that a letter confirming her admission to Hogwarts will be flown in by owl when she turns 11, I'm unequivocally with the majority on this one.

My kids are already at least 87% convinced that the world of wizards and witches is real, that Hogwarts really exists, and that You-Know-Who is out there lurking somewhere. My seven-year-old son is half-certain he's really Harry Potter (hey, he does have the unruly hair that won't stay in place no matter how much it's combed), but then again he's also pretty convinced that the Transformers are hiding in every semi-truck, police car and fire truck we pass.

More so than most fictional creations, though, the world created by JK Rowling has captured the fancy of adults and children alike. When my husband and I schlepped off with four kids in tow to Barnes and Noble last week for their big Midnight Madness party around the long-anticipated release of the final book in the series, we were pleased to see how packed the store was, even here in Oklahoma City, the buckle of the Bible Belt, where there have to have been preachers on their pulpits warning their congregations against the evil of the boy wizard the next Sunday.
The book store was swarming with families -- kids dressed up in Hogwarts robes, "flying" their broomsticks around the store and flourishing wands with lighted tips (we bought the last two of those they had in the store, one "Harry" wand and one "Hermione" wand -- those set us back $30 a pop from our pile of gold at Gringotts). We saw at least four Hermiones and a couple of Harrys (my son being one of the latter) frolicking about.

The store was also packed with witches and wizards of the grown-up sort, from store employees all dressed up as Hogwarts characters giving out autographs (the kids got autographs from Tonks, "R.A.B," and Professor McGonagall, and my son got to flirt with "Ginny Weasley," his intended future bride), to packs of teens looking remarkably unselfconscious in flowing robes and pointed hats, to what was probably a significant portion of the OKC pagan community having a ball actually blending into the scenery. And then there were the normal folks -- it would have been a great place for single Harry fans to pick up a date, and I nearly got plowed over by a blue-haired old lady with a walker who was rushing to get one of the last sets of Wizard Chess for her grandson.

So yeah, I can definitely see 87% of moms (and dads) saying they'd send their kids to Hogwarts -- heck, I want to go to Hogwarts, and I'm a few years past the admission age for First Years. The integrated Hogwarts curriculum has got to be more exciting, anyhow, than the endless worksheets and homework public schools have in these days of hyper-focus on standarized test scores; what kid wouldn't rather be learning to make potions or practice "Wingardium Leviosa" than sit at a desk all day, even if they did have to deal with Severus Snape? And then there's the fun and excitement of Quidditch matches -- football, basketball and wrestling are so ... Muggle.

How about you? Would you send your kids to Hogwarts?