Harvard Grads Need To Get Over Themselves

I was pretty amazed to read this week that several members of the Harvard graduating class of 2008 were not pleased to have had mega-successful "Harry Potter" author JK Rowling as their graduation speaker. Many of them thought they "could have done better."

Really? Hmm... I pondered this because I truly could not believe that anyone could be snobby enough to think that a woman who truly by her own wits and imagination had pulled herself from poverty and become one of the most powerful and successful women in the world wasn't good enough for them.

When JK Rowling wrote the first "Harry Potter" book she was a divorced single mom working a not-so-high paying job at Amnesty International while she worked hard to make her dream of becoming a writer come true.

Now as the mother of a young woman who just graduated from Wellesley College I know like us, not everyone who goes to a prestigious and expensive college is wealthy. Many families like ours were blessed with financial aid that put this great education within reach. So I had to check myself and not react by thinking, "What a bunch of snobby, spoiled brats." But I have to admit, it is what I thought.

I can't think of anyone more inspiring than a woman like Rowling who had a dream and brought it to fruition. Anyone who soley characterized her as a "children's book author" needs a reality check and a swift kick to the head.

Hopefully once these complainers get out into the real world, the one beyond the ivy covered halls, they will see that what Rowling has accomplished is beyond anything most of them will ever do.

As a writer I have complete respect for others who like me, can't not write. To see someone make it to the level Ms. Rowling has is humbling. Anyone should be thrilled to listen to what she has to say. Maybe she didn't go to Harvard, but she created Hogwarts, and that ain't too shabby.