Parents in Kids' Books
Can we make some broad categories of how parents are represented in children’s books? I was reading All-of-a-kind Family to Sylvia tonight and thinking, the portrayal of Mama is really nauseating — it’s not enough for her to be wide awake instantly when she hears Sarah crying, the narrator has to say “wide awake as she always was when she knew one of her children needed her” (quoted inexactly from memory). And this type of portrayal is pretty common I think — I seem to remember the parents in the Little House books being painted at every turn as superlatively competent, and I’m sure there are many other similar titles I’m not thinking of right now. What are some other parental types?
Danny Champion of the World came to mind right away. My memory of it is pretty unclear but I seem to remember Danny’s father being very competent, yes, but in a pretty roguish way — is that an accurate memory? Moominmamma (who may be sui generis) is loving and motherly but quite unconcerned with always knowing what to do. Absent parents of course abound. What else? Are there any parents who are presented as actively incompetent, always messing things up, without being “bad guys”? Are there any parents who are presented as bad guys — talking about children’s books here, not young adult where bad parents are a common trope.
3 Comments
The great thing with the father from Danny, Champion of the World, is that he and Danny are genuinely friends and co-conspirators. But at the same time he does (if I remember correctly) properly act like a parent rather than as a pseudo-kid.
The interesting thing about the Little House parents is that they are, indeed, presented as being very competent, and possessing an unquestioned authority, but you get a sense that some of this is Laura being polite after the fact. It seems evident that Ma was, in fact, exceedingly exhausted and sometimes thoughtless and unkind. She certainly doesn't have unfailing springs of nurturing. The episode with giving away Laura's doll springs to mind, but examples of her being fairly unsympathetic to Laura's feelings abound -- I think the actual portrayal of her involves a fair amount of scrupulous fairmindedness rather than simple Perfect-Motherism. I appreciate it, actually -- it would be so easy to underappreciate how hard she worked, and how much things cost her, and overall I think the books do a good job of painting a sympathetic picture of a parent that I suspect actually the author had some difficulty appreciating at the time. As for Pa, well, clearly Laura saw him as fantastically wonderful, and we do see him being obviously quite competent and admirable in many ways, but he also insists on taking his family out of stable situations and into risky ones, over and over again. The books sympathize very much with the wanderlust that motivates this, but the behavior is there for you to interpret otherwise if you please.
Link to this comment | 4:35 PM | September 3, 2007
(Ooh cool! When'd we get the lovely new logo?)
Thanks for the info about Little House -- I do not remember that since the long time ago I read the books but will keep it in mind for next time I'm reading. I did not see that kind of self-consciousness in All-of-a-Kind (though I guess I'm not saying a closer reader wouldn't).
Link to this comment | 5:44 PM | September 3, 2007
Full site sprucing going on at this very moment! Is it not exciting? Now if only we could get the commenting process to be smoother and less obtrusive, everything would be truly grand.
Link to this comment | 6:09 PM | September 3, 2007