A while ago, Shannon Hale put up an interesting post about the trend of absentee parents in children’s literature. Here’s the bit I find most telling:
A few years ago, I read a Horn Book article about the lack of mothers in fairy tales and books, and it mentioned, among others, Princess Academy. The article’s writer (I’m embarrassed I can’t remember who) challenged herself to change that and write a book where the protagonist’s mother was a present, strong character. She talked about her work and how she had to scrap it. In a story, it’s just impossible for a child/teen to have any adventures, to grow on his/her own with a mother present. The mother would take care of everything, the mother would carry the burden of worry.
I agree. It’s really hard for children or teenagers to have high-stake, high-risk adventures (of the sort that make good stories) with strong, involved parents present. As a child reader living in a safe, protected family home, I wanted to live vicariously through characters who had dangerous adventures. I didn’t want books about children whose parents picked them up on time, checked their homework, and protected them from the travails of life. I wanted to read books about children who ran away, crash-landed on deserted islands, defeated the Dark Lord, and solved the mystery (thought not necessarily all in the same book!).
Part of growing up is wanting to have adventures without any grownups around. My own children, for instance, have often made plans to run away (only for the day, they want to be back by nightfall). I don’t see this as an indictment of my parenting, but a natural desire to test themselves against the world. After all, isn’t that what I’m supposed to be preparing them for? My parenting is supposed to equip them with the knowledge, skills, and character to deal with the world. Occasionally, they just want to get out there sooner than I am ready to let them *grin*. Fiction provides a safe way for them to experience the danger and adventure they won’t get while Mom and Dad are around.
That said, my favorite absentee parents are those of the kids in Arthur Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons. After her four children beg to be allowed to take their boat and sail around and camp onhe islands for a few weeks, the mother telegraphs her naval officer husband for his input. The father’s response? A terse but awesome telegram:
BETTER DROWNED THAN DUFFERS IF NOT DUFFERS WONT DROWN
A father who trusts his children to have adventures and take acceptable risks? How cool is that?
What are your thoughts on absentee parents in children’s fiction?
That’s the first thing I thought when I read the title of this post in my RSS feed: I know who the best absentee parents in fiction are – the ones in Swallows and Amazons.
LOL. Great minds…. 😉
I think you’re right…although our children are safe, and I’m pretty sure they want to be that way, they love to think that someone like them could save the world, and possibly have tea with a strange faun along the way. Those pesky parents just get in the way.
Swallows and Amazons has officially been added to my shopping list. Too bad there isn’t a kindle version.
Yes, through books they get the emotional experience of triumphing over adversity without leaving the comfort of their homes. I don’t begrudge them that at all, even if it means a distinct lack of strong, caring parents. 🙂
The children in the Swallows & Amazons series are pretty awesome. In one of the books they set up (I kid you not) a gold mining and refining operation. 😀
I wonder why the idea of strong, loving, present parents precludes an ability on the part of the parents to step back and let children explore, make their own mistakes/decisions. I’ve never read Swallows and Amazons, but perhaps the parents in it are the kind that can and do support their kids’ growth in such a way.
Growing up, I didn’t have the reliable parent figures. I had lots of adventures, many involving illegal things, even ing chased by the police, all before I was nine. I had to cope with serious parent absenteeism and I firmly believe it made me into the independent, self-sufficient, savvy, strong-willed, hard-headed person I am today. Some of those qualities are good, some, eh, not so much.
Not having concerned parents shaped me in good ways that I would like for my own daughter. However, not all is rosy in my personality and experiences because I didn’t have support and care. In fiction, as in life, I think it’s important for kids to have a balance. A “good” parent doesn’t have to be one who takes away all of a kids’ challenges; they don’t have to intervene and solve all problems; and I don’t think they have to be portrayed that way. A good parent in fiction can be one who listens when the child needs to talk (don’t we all like and need to know we can have someone to confide in) and who shows by their mere presence that they will be there when the kid is tired of bashing themselves up against the world, a haven of succor, until the next battle must be fought, the next adventure chased.
I think it’s easier to have strong parents who step back and let children face their own challenges in historical or fantasy fiction. Our contemporary culture just does not produce parents who leave their 13yo son in the Maine wilderness for months at a time while the rest of the family straggles in from Mass. (The Sign of The Beaver) or let their 5yo stay home alone and walk to school by herself (Ramona Quimby). Part of it is that in today’s world, good parents often have their hands tied when it comes to letting their kids take risks. Heck, so many of us are even terrified of leaving our elementary-age school children in the car for two minutes while we run into our small-town post office to mail a letter for fear some busybody decides we’re endangering our kids and calls the cops. 😛
Yes, good points!
The House of Aunts: http://giganotosaurus.org/2011/12/01/the-house-of-aunts/
Maybe not direct parents, but there’s some serious family going on here and adventuring allowed.
I always wish the parents would take the kids on adventures or send them on adventures and let them grow. There is no guarantee a mom will decide to stifle the kids or over-protect rather than protect. That’s pigeonholing and stereotyping moms terribly.
To be honest, I like both. And my favorite books growing up had a fair even split: the Anne books (she could manage tons of scrapes under the loving eye of many adults), the Chronicles of Narnia (absentee), and an anthology of horse stories where some serious adventuring was going on, parents present and accounted for OR absent.
Though I absolutely love that dad. Better drowned than duffers. I could hug him.
Also, the Austins in Madeleine L’Engle’s books. A Ring of Endless Light is one of my favorites, but there are others about the family, and in all of them, parents are very present, kids grow up A LOT, and adventuring is on a high level.
I think those novels set in or written in an age when it was acceptable for kids to spend all summer day outside wandering their small town streets and when parenting was more hands-off in many ways can strike that balance of “strong present grownups” and “adventurous children”.