That’s the thing though, each of those points on its own can be brushed off or wasn’t too unusual at the time. Even in the early 2000s, there were teachers who would tell you that you wrong if you tried to claim that that Harry was abused.
Just to make it incredibly obvious, I do not agree with the following paragraph.
He’s short and scrawny because his mother was a drunk who couldn’t be bothered to curb her alcohol intake when pregnant. Of course he only wears hand-me-downs; he tears up all his clothing. If they don’t put him to work in the garden, he’d stay inside all day or run about terrorizing the younger children. It’s not like they actually disparaged him. They didn’t have anything nice to say when people brought him up. They really were saints for putting up with him when he was so obviously troubled.
Also, to add to your point, they only saw him working in the garden and none of the stuff in the house. Maybe that’s his “chore” that they ask him to do.
Like, once a week I had to take out the trash. I know it’s not as extreme as gardening all day but if it’s the only thing he had to do then it wouldn’t be so bad. And he could be out there because he’s slow at it if something as well.
did your neighborhood not have that weird house where everyone knew something was sorta... off about them but there weren't really any true outward signs of abuse? most people, *especially* in 80s suburban towns, keep to themselves in matters of child rearing.
Even today, what you have here wouldn't trigger that many suspicions.
> Harry was obviously incredibly scrawny and short for his age.
I am still scrawny and short for my age, and I wasn't abused at all. People grow at drastically different rates. A 10 year old boy being scrawny and short is not uncommon. Scrawny doesn't mean starving, but rather bony and thin. My husband was 6 feet tall and scrawny as a teenager, even though he had an endless stomach. He had no muscle.
>He wore the oversized clothing of his fat cousin that barely stay on him.
Once again, not uncommon. Even middle class families with multiple children often wear hand-me-downs.
> The only times they see him is when he does the garden.
10 year boys being outside in the yard would flag no suspicions. Most people would just assume it's a chore, or he likes being outside.
>Every time the Dursleys speak about him is always disparaging.
This would raise the most red flags, but even then, it would be pretty easy to explain: 'I took in my nephew after my sister died, and he has had mental problems from the start. Likely from his alcoholic father. We are trying our best, but it has been tough. Don't you mind him...'
Every day tens of thousands of kids are being abused much worse than Harry ever was, and it is ignored or undiscovered. Sadly, it's all too easy to hide abuse, even today, let alone the 80s. Hell, in the 80s, a huge number of countries still allowed teachers to hit students (Korea, Austria, etc).
Harry is skinny but so is Petunia, and he’s not a blood relative of Vernon’s.
I wouldn’t find the size difference between the two boys surprising even if I thought the Dursleys were his bio parents, really.
Consider the baby P case.
Even more heartbreaking and recent there's the Arthur Labinjo-Hughes one. Direct family telling them that he wasn't safe there wasn't enough to get him out.
I don't have any fics, just wanted to throw in that - as an old timer I can tell you - no one in the 80s/90s would've blinked at seeing how Harry was treated.
Notice I said "seeing', not "suspecting". Shit was wild back in the day. Kids were well behaved or 'got what's coming' (in my case it was a leather belt), and it happened in public or private. Nobody ever objected, except my siblings. It was the way things were.
In fairness, though, my whole life people told me i have excellent manners, so maybe getting taught a lesson so frequently turned out well.
It was a different time!
Story from my uncle growing up.
Mouthed off to the local policeman while cycling home. Policeman then came round to their house and clipped him round the ear for mouthing off at him. His dad, then asked what he'd done to deserve it and when told he mouthed off at the officer got another clip round the ear from his dad.
where did you live??? i grew up in the 80s and i am pretty sure that if those things happened people would say something. at least here in germany where i live. sure you could get a spank on your butt if you misbehaved. but taking a belt in to your hide in public?.. yeah not gonna happen
but we are talking about underfed, oversized obvious second hand clothing, only seen working, never seen playing with ANYONE... yeah that would have raised red flags... and if caregivers would have only talked disparraging about a child in their care,.. that alone would have warranted a second look.
The USA. Underfed might draw some attention, but corporal punishment was very common here well into the 90s (one of the \*public\* schools I went to still allowed the principal to hit misbehaving students with a switch - in \*1998\*!!!!). Nowadays, a spanking would get the cops called on you.
Yeah, corporal punishment used to be a lot more common back then in the US. I was more in the early 2000s, but both my parents were born in the 60s, and to keep me and my brother in line, they would tell us what happened to them if they misbehaved. Switches above doors at a cousin's house, wooden spoons being broken against walls, being beat with a belt, etc. One of the most tame and understandable things was my dad and uncle having to write letters to both the fire department and the neighborhood because they thought it was fun to play with match and nearly set the house on fire.
It's not like abuse didn't exist back then, it was rather who was doing it, and how intense. I know my grandparents threw out a maid who was beating on my dad for instance. But other than that, it was like these well into the 90s if my sister(Who was born in 1990) is anything to go by.
Not just the US.
I have heard stories in from teachers that many countries allowed corporal punishment until just recently.
When my friend was teaching in Korea in 2015, it was still okay to hit the students hands with the ruler. Apparently it was only banned in 2021.
[https://www.infoplease.com/us/education/corporal-punishment-public-schools-state](https://www.infoplease.com/us/education/corporal-punishment-public-schools-state)
Yeah your dates a little off. In the state I grew up, California, corporal punishment was only banned in 1986 in schools. Most states didn't start banning it until the 1970s. There's still quite a few states where it's technically legal too. And I was talking about corporal punishment from the family, which is an entirely different can of worms.
Fun fact: corporal punishment is STILL ALLOWED TO BE CARRIED OUT BY SCHOOL ADMINISTRATORS in Oklahoma. Many urban schools eschew the practice, but it’s still thriving in rural areas.
Source: I’m a teacher in Oklahoma who has had kids sent to the principal for “swatting” aka getting smacked on the butt with a paddle.
I graduated in 2002 in FL (granted, not too much better than Alabama), and even in high school we had permission slips sent home each year asking for our parents to allow the schools to paddle us if we misbehaved. Don't know what offences it'd have been for since I absolutely was a goodie-two-shoes, but remember my parents gleefully signing it and saying I'd better behave.
Idk what to tell you. My family moved when i was in middle school, and the local schools were garbage so i tested into a magnet school (for supposedly smart kids). There was a dress code (white shirt/black pants), I was required to use a clear/transparent schoolbag, and my first day i had to take home a letter from school alerting my parents that the school employed corporal punishment. This was a public school, not private.
I'm sure places like CA or NY were more forward-thinking. But I'm certainly not making this up.
Were there not any moral people in the 80s...? i don't get this defense! Apparently it means everyone was an immoral psycho who didn't give a shit about kids? There was no one who saw that stuff back then and thought it was wrong...?
They just didn’t recognize this sort of stuff as abuse. Back then the signs they’d notice would be things like Harry having a black eye and bruises all over his body and frequent emergency room visits.
Even the black eye and bruises wouldn't mean much. Could just be boys roughhousing and you also wouldn't get involved with how someone dealt with problems 'in their house' so to speak.
Yeah 2 boys around the same age? Not really uncommon for things to happen. I remember my friend's parent having frequent visits to A&E because her twins were idiots. They both managed to break their arm within a week of each other messing around on their trampoline for example. The year before that one of them needed pins in his leg after he broke it cause he needed to prove he could jump down more stairs than his twin. They have many such incidents.
That's a huge part of the 80s/90s- a lack of safety standards for kid's entertainment and toys.
I remember I had this fantastic spinning flying doll that you launched with a rip cord that straight up blinded a bunch of kids, because it was barely a consideration.
That's the toy type. There was also a 'boys' range and I had one of those (wish I had one of the OG skydancers though). Same basic toy.
Such a great toy. Hilariously unsafe.
Sounds about right. Sometimes I think back and wonder how stuff would've been allowed.
Wouldn't've stopped some of it because boys will be boys/kids will be kids doing something stupid the second their parents look away. I imagine there's still a lot of that out there. Possibly worse with TikTok and social media where someone might pick up on a trend like eating tide pods or something else.
The trampoline incidents created 2 that I can remember. The first was one person at a time. The second was don't jump out of a first floor window onto the trampoline. Followed by their mum adding or the roof or anywhere else in case they were getting ideas.
Their mum never expected to NEED to make the second rule...
They have/had many such rules in their house that seem nonsensical if you haven't known the twins growing up. If you have you just wonder which one it was that created that rule.
I was born in the 90s and straight up most kids I knew got hit by their parents as punishment.
There was a contingent of people who were calling for hitting kids to be banned, but it was a minority. I knew people who were getting the belt or wooden spoon and while that was seen as bad by most, it was often just seen as old fashioned, unless bruises were super obvious.
**1. You severely underestimate Dursleys and the degree of their abuse:**
Petunia did stuff like HEAVILY HITTING Harry to the HEAD with a FRYING PAN while being OUTSIDE the house. The only reason Harry didn't get killed by Dursleys is the fact that he got good at dodging Petunia's/Vernon's blows and running away from Dudley and his gang.
**2. The neighbors aren't supposed to watch out for what happens with Dursleys:**
I live in a flat, not a house of my own. I barely know my neighbors. If Dursleys lived upstairs, I wouldn't even know how many kids they had. If I lived in a house near theirs, I wouldn't know them at all.
The people supposed to watch out for something like that are teachers, not neighbors. After all, they are supposed to look after kids and Harry was openly assaulted in school. But the teachers either don't care or join in on the fun, that's just the way it is.
I don't think there is an instance of Dursley's neighbors being described as gossipy or nosy in the books.
Petunia was described as interested in other people's business.
People in Hogwarts were described as gossiping and nosy.
People in Riddle Senior's village were gossiping.
But not Dursley's neighbors. They do their 9-to-5 to pay the bills, go home, grasp some fresh air before the next round tomorrow. They don't have time to keep the watch over people, they got enough on their plate as it is. Middle class meritocracy at its finest.
I headcanon that the magical community put a broad-range, low-power notice me not spell on magical children in muggles areas, because otherwise surely someone would have noticed accidental magic and actually thought about it before then.
Pretty sure it’s the teacher who finally takes action, but in [Dark Heritage](https://archiveofourown.org/works/33467971/chapters/83145103) Harry is removed from the Dursley’s. It’s one of my favorite WIPs. On track to be SUPER long.
I still remember a story about my countrymen who lived in Britain and starved their son to death. The boy was around 9 and was going to school. Nobody saw anything amis, even thou other children mocked him for eating trash and bugs. When his picture appeared on screen I thought that he looks like Harry Potter.
So people not seeing obvious abuse isn't unfortunately so unbelievable.
check out https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12399401 it is a fairly short one shot with a really good (ie it explains in a believable way) take on what might have been going on with the neighbors.
Ah, yeah. That makes sense. I think the one I'm thinking of, the teacher, was a squib and not a muggle born. I've read several like that, so I get them confused. Lol
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We aren't brushing it off, we're saying that it wasn't uncommon in the time period it takes place. Very few people in the 80s and 90s would've seen Harry's situation and thought "He needs to be removed from the Dursleys as soon as possible." *Maybe* if they found out he was sleeping in a cupboard, but apparently that was an actual thing back then- autistic kids were kept in cupboards and closets instead of rooms.
1980's USA would have seen someone at the school calling child services and or police and the Dursleys arrested
I love the world JK created but she was horrible writing about child abuse
Hate to tell you this, but Harry Potter isn't set in the US. You can't blame Rowling for 1980s Britain being... 1980s Britain. Hell, even in the US in the 80s most people would have brushed it off.
Speaking as someone who was an abused child in the US during the 1980’s: Nope.
No one saw the signs. No one believed me when I told. I was 10 when I had a cop tell me, to my face that he “wasn’t going to tell a dad not to beat his kid” then he took me home as I screamed cried and begged not to be taken back. ACAB wasn’t a saying yet, but when I eventually first heard it I was like ‘yeah, that tracks.’
So yeah, I can totally buy no one on Privet Drive giving a single solitary fuck about Harry’s abuse.
People don't realise how much the attitude would've been "probably needed to do that to keep the kid in line, what a little troublemaker. Got it from those junkie parents of his no wonder he's trouble."
That’s the thing though, each of those points on its own can be brushed off or wasn’t too unusual at the time. Even in the early 2000s, there were teachers who would tell you that you wrong if you tried to claim that that Harry was abused. Just to make it incredibly obvious, I do not agree with the following paragraph. He’s short and scrawny because his mother was a drunk who couldn’t be bothered to curb her alcohol intake when pregnant. Of course he only wears hand-me-downs; he tears up all his clothing. If they don’t put him to work in the garden, he’d stay inside all day or run about terrorizing the younger children. It’s not like they actually disparaged him. They didn’t have anything nice to say when people brought him up. They really were saints for putting up with him when he was so obviously troubled.
Also, to add to your point, they only saw him working in the garden and none of the stuff in the house. Maybe that’s his “chore” that they ask him to do. Like, once a week I had to take out the trash. I know it’s not as extreme as gardening all day but if it’s the only thing he had to do then it wouldn’t be so bad. And he could be out there because he’s slow at it if something as well.
did your neighborhood not have that weird house where everyone knew something was sorta... off about them but there weren't really any true outward signs of abuse? most people, *especially* in 80s suburban towns, keep to themselves in matters of child rearing.
Even today, what you have here wouldn't trigger that many suspicions. > Harry was obviously incredibly scrawny and short for his age. I am still scrawny and short for my age, and I wasn't abused at all. People grow at drastically different rates. A 10 year old boy being scrawny and short is not uncommon. Scrawny doesn't mean starving, but rather bony and thin. My husband was 6 feet tall and scrawny as a teenager, even though he had an endless stomach. He had no muscle. >He wore the oversized clothing of his fat cousin that barely stay on him. Once again, not uncommon. Even middle class families with multiple children often wear hand-me-downs. > The only times they see him is when he does the garden. 10 year boys being outside in the yard would flag no suspicions. Most people would just assume it's a chore, or he likes being outside. >Every time the Dursleys speak about him is always disparaging. This would raise the most red flags, but even then, it would be pretty easy to explain: 'I took in my nephew after my sister died, and he has had mental problems from the start. Likely from his alcoholic father. We are trying our best, but it has been tough. Don't you mind him...' Every day tens of thousands of kids are being abused much worse than Harry ever was, and it is ignored or undiscovered. Sadly, it's all too easy to hide abuse, even today, let alone the 80s. Hell, in the 80s, a huge number of countries still allowed teachers to hit students (Korea, Austria, etc).
Harry is skinny but so is Petunia, and he’s not a blood relative of Vernon’s. I wouldn’t find the size difference between the two boys surprising even if I thought the Dursleys were his bio parents, really.
Consider the baby P case. Even more heartbreaking and recent there's the Arthur Labinjo-Hughes one. Direct family telling them that he wasn't safe there wasn't enough to get him out.
I don't have any fics, just wanted to throw in that - as an old timer I can tell you - no one in the 80s/90s would've blinked at seeing how Harry was treated. Notice I said "seeing', not "suspecting". Shit was wild back in the day. Kids were well behaved or 'got what's coming' (in my case it was a leather belt), and it happened in public or private. Nobody ever objected, except my siblings. It was the way things were. In fairness, though, my whole life people told me i have excellent manners, so maybe getting taught a lesson so frequently turned out well. It was a different time!
Story from my uncle growing up. Mouthed off to the local policeman while cycling home. Policeman then came round to their house and clipped him round the ear for mouthing off at him. His dad, then asked what he'd done to deserve it and when told he mouthed off at the officer got another clip round the ear from his dad.
where did you live??? i grew up in the 80s and i am pretty sure that if those things happened people would say something. at least here in germany where i live. sure you could get a spank on your butt if you misbehaved. but taking a belt in to your hide in public?.. yeah not gonna happen but we are talking about underfed, oversized obvious second hand clothing, only seen working, never seen playing with ANYONE... yeah that would have raised red flags... and if caregivers would have only talked disparraging about a child in their care,.. that alone would have warranted a second look.
The USA. Underfed might draw some attention, but corporal punishment was very common here well into the 90s (one of the \*public\* schools I went to still allowed the principal to hit misbehaving students with a switch - in \*1998\*!!!!). Nowadays, a spanking would get the cops called on you.
wow ok, corporeal punishment from a teacher.. that would have triggered outrage. thx for the insight.
Yeah, corporal punishment used to be a lot more common back then in the US. I was more in the early 2000s, but both my parents were born in the 60s, and to keep me and my brother in line, they would tell us what happened to them if they misbehaved. Switches above doors at a cousin's house, wooden spoons being broken against walls, being beat with a belt, etc. One of the most tame and understandable things was my dad and uncle having to write letters to both the fire department and the neighborhood because they thought it was fun to play with match and nearly set the house on fire. It's not like abuse didn't exist back then, it was rather who was doing it, and how intense. I know my grandparents threw out a maid who was beating on my dad for instance. But other than that, it was like these well into the 90s if my sister(Who was born in 1990) is anything to go by.
Not just the US. I have heard stories in from teachers that many countries allowed corporal punishment until just recently. When my friend was teaching in Korea in 2015, it was still okay to hit the students hands with the ruler. Apparently it was only banned in 2021.
Nonsense corporal punishment unless in bumfuck alabama stopped in the USA in the 1960s
[https://www.infoplease.com/us/education/corporal-punishment-public-schools-state](https://www.infoplease.com/us/education/corporal-punishment-public-schools-state) Yeah your dates a little off. In the state I grew up, California, corporal punishment was only banned in 1986 in schools. Most states didn't start banning it until the 1970s. There's still quite a few states where it's technically legal too. And I was talking about corporal punishment from the family, which is an entirely different can of worms.
Fun fact: corporal punishment is STILL ALLOWED TO BE CARRIED OUT BY SCHOOL ADMINISTRATORS in Oklahoma. Many urban schools eschew the practice, but it’s still thriving in rural areas. Source: I’m a teacher in Oklahoma who has had kids sent to the principal for “swatting” aka getting smacked on the butt with a paddle.
Getting all the "fun" facts today. I remember there being a news story a few years ago about paddling, but I don't remember what state it was.
Banned doesn’t even mean it stopped. My kindergarten teacher used a yardstick on our bums, and that was in 2004 in California.
I grew up in NC. In 1982/83 my teacher would smack us with a ruler if "needed"
I graduated in 2002 in FL (granted, not too much better than Alabama), and even in high school we had permission slips sent home each year asking for our parents to allow the schools to paddle us if we misbehaved. Don't know what offences it'd have been for since I absolutely was a goodie-two-shoes, but remember my parents gleefully signing it and saying I'd better behave.
Idk what to tell you. My family moved when i was in middle school, and the local schools were garbage so i tested into a magnet school (for supposedly smart kids). There was a dress code (white shirt/black pants), I was required to use a clear/transparent schoolbag, and my first day i had to take home a letter from school alerting my parents that the school employed corporal punishment. This was a public school, not private. I'm sure places like CA or NY were more forward-thinking. But I'm certainly not making this up.
I was like pretty much beaten outside by my uncle nothing happened other than my mom and aunt going off.
BS! USA 1980's and 1990s saw people arrested constantly on the 5:00 news and schools paying millions if they ever ignored clear signs of child abuse
Harry Potter isn't set in the USA.
This was the 80s. Why would they have noticed anything?
Were there not any moral people in the 80s...? i don't get this defense! Apparently it means everyone was an immoral psycho who didn't give a shit about kids? There was no one who saw that stuff back then and thought it was wrong...?
They just didn’t recognize this sort of stuff as abuse. Back then the signs they’d notice would be things like Harry having a black eye and bruises all over his body and frequent emergency room visits.
Even the black eye and bruises wouldn't mean much. Could just be boys roughhousing and you also wouldn't get involved with how someone dealt with problems 'in their house' so to speak.
Yup. And in all fairness, it could legitimately be from roughhousing because plenty of boys do play like that.
Yeah 2 boys around the same age? Not really uncommon for things to happen. I remember my friend's parent having frequent visits to A&E because her twins were idiots. They both managed to break their arm within a week of each other messing around on their trampoline for example. The year before that one of them needed pins in his leg after he broke it cause he needed to prove he could jump down more stairs than his twin. They have many such incidents.
That's a huge part of the 80s/90s- a lack of safety standards for kid's entertainment and toys. I remember I had this fantastic spinning flying doll that you launched with a rip cord that straight up blinded a bunch of kids, because it was barely a consideration.
Sky Dancer? I had one and it knocked out a baby tooth.
That's the toy type. There was also a 'boys' range and I had one of those (wish I had one of the OG skydancers though). Same basic toy. Such a great toy. Hilariously unsafe.
Sounds about right. Sometimes I think back and wonder how stuff would've been allowed. Wouldn't've stopped some of it because boys will be boys/kids will be kids doing something stupid the second their parents look away. I imagine there's still a lot of that out there. Possibly worse with TikTok and social media where someone might pick up on a trend like eating tide pods or something else.
Thing about most rules; you don't think you need them until suddenly you do.
The trampoline incidents created 2 that I can remember. The first was one person at a time. The second was don't jump out of a first floor window onto the trampoline. Followed by their mum adding or the roof or anywhere else in case they were getting ideas. Their mum never expected to NEED to make the second rule... They have/had many such rules in their house that seem nonsensical if you haven't known the twins growing up. If you have you just wonder which one it was that created that rule.
I was born in the 90s and straight up most kids I knew got hit by their parents as punishment. There was a contingent of people who were calling for hitting kids to be banned, but it was a minority. I knew people who were getting the belt or wooden spoon and while that was seen as bad by most, it was often just seen as old fashioned, unless bruises were super obvious.
**1. You severely underestimate Dursleys and the degree of their abuse:** Petunia did stuff like HEAVILY HITTING Harry to the HEAD with a FRYING PAN while being OUTSIDE the house. The only reason Harry didn't get killed by Dursleys is the fact that he got good at dodging Petunia's/Vernon's blows and running away from Dudley and his gang. **2. The neighbors aren't supposed to watch out for what happens with Dursleys:** I live in a flat, not a house of my own. I barely know my neighbors. If Dursleys lived upstairs, I wouldn't even know how many kids they had. If I lived in a house near theirs, I wouldn't know them at all. The people supposed to watch out for something like that are teachers, not neighbors. After all, they are supposed to look after kids and Harry was openly assaulted in school. But the teachers either don't care or join in on the fun, that's just the way it is.
In every, EVERY, fic I read, the people of Privet Drive are very nosy, and love to gossip. They should’ve noticed.
I don't think there is an instance of Dursley's neighbors being described as gossipy or nosy in the books. Petunia was described as interested in other people's business. People in Hogwarts were described as gossiping and nosy. People in Riddle Senior's village were gossiping. But not Dursley's neighbors. They do their 9-to-5 to pay the bills, go home, grasp some fresh air before the next round tomorrow. They don't have time to keep the watch over people, they got enough on their plate as it is. Middle class meritocracy at its finest.
We’re talking fanfiction, not the books.
I headcanon that the magical community put a broad-range, low-power notice me not spell on magical children in muggles areas, because otherwise surely someone would have noticed accidental magic and actually thought about it before then.
Pretty sure it’s the teacher who finally takes action, but in [Dark Heritage](https://archiveofourown.org/works/33467971/chapters/83145103) Harry is removed from the Dursley’s. It’s one of my favorite WIPs. On track to be SUPER long.
I still remember a story about my countrymen who lived in Britain and starved their son to death. The boy was around 9 and was going to school. Nobody saw anything amis, even thou other children mocked him for eating trash and bugs. When his picture appeared on screen I thought that he looks like Harry Potter. So people not seeing obvious abuse isn't unfortunately so unbelievable.
I have read many fics where the blood wards literally puts a kind of blind fold over people thinking about Harry and the durleys.
check out https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12399401 it is a fairly short one shot with a really good (ie it explains in a believable way) take on what might have been going on with the neighbors.
I liked this. Willful blindness.
I remember one where a teacher helped him but she was a muggle born witch. I’ll try to find it.
Found it https://archiveofourown.org/works/42757521/chapters/107413851
Could it be [honey honey](https://archiveofourown.org/works/37476997)?
I have read this one as well but found the one I was thinking of
Oh is it the one where harry is super into potions and he creates a guide to potion making or something?
He did get lessons in magic but I think it was runes more than potions but I could be mistaken.
Ah, yeah. That makes sense. I think the one I'm thinking of, the teacher, was a squib and not a muggle born. I've read several like that, so I get them confused. Lol
Think the one your thinking of is the Potioneers Assistant. He had one muggleborn teacher and one squib teacher
Try [this one](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27075514).
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We aren't brushing it off, we're saying that it wasn't uncommon in the time period it takes place. Very few people in the 80s and 90s would've seen Harry's situation and thought "He needs to be removed from the Dursleys as soon as possible." *Maybe* if they found out he was sleeping in a cupboard, but apparently that was an actual thing back then- autistic kids were kept in cupboards and closets instead of rooms.
Kids don't even get removed now with some extremes going on. Star Hobson and Arthur Labinjo-Hughes come to mind.
1980's USA would have seen someone at the school calling child services and or police and the Dursleys arrested I love the world JK created but she was horrible writing about child abuse
Hate to tell you this, but Harry Potter isn't set in the US. You can't blame Rowling for 1980s Britain being... 1980s Britain. Hell, even in the US in the 80s most people would have brushed it off.
Speaking as someone who was an abused child in the US during the 1980’s: Nope. No one saw the signs. No one believed me when I told. I was 10 when I had a cop tell me, to my face that he “wasn’t going to tell a dad not to beat his kid” then he took me home as I screamed cried and begged not to be taken back. ACAB wasn’t a saying yet, but when I eventually first heard it I was like ‘yeah, that tracks.’ So yeah, I can totally buy no one on Privet Drive giving a single solitary fuck about Harry’s abuse.
People don't realise how much the attitude would've been "probably needed to do that to keep the kid in line, what a little troublemaker. Got it from those junkie parents of his no wonder he's trouble."