Anyone noticed this lately? An overpowering working mother with no time for her kid because she's too busy making her place in the world?
How about this? The mother that just doesn't understand her child because she's SO old fashion
And how about an evil step mother?
I must admit I don't really like the rep a lot of mothers are getting in YA fiction, particularly in contemporary pieces. (And in fantasy half the time the suffer from off screen death)
So lets look at a few mothers done right.
Molly Weasley: We all know this woman. It's too bad because a lot of people considered her to be a typical housewife rather than a progressive female character. In fact a reporter (Female reporter, might I add) even told J.K. Rowling "But she's just a mother."
Which understandably irked J.K. Rowling. She didn't see what was so wrong about a woman choosing to raise a family and not throwing herself into the working world. In fact Rowling is a mother herself, adding insult to injury.
This little encounter was one of the things that led J.K. Rowling to the infamous "Molly kills Bellatrix scene." She was going to have Molly do something strong to show she was just as powerful as the men, even if she did choose to raise a family. And I respect her for that. Molly Weasley was a kind and caring mother who worked hard and cared deeply about her children. And that is not a crime. It's a choice.
Rachel Morgan: Heard of her? She's from the Gallagher Girl series. And this is one of the few series where I've seen a teenager who totally looks up to her mom and wants to be like her. A typical conflict is "My mom doesn't get me. So old fashion. I never want to be like her." Rachel Morgan however, is portrayed in a positive light.
She's a very strong woman (And a spy) and she cares about her daughter just as much as any mother so we don't have the "Strong working woman neglects her family scenario". And because Cammie likes her, we like her. I like the portrayal of strong mother-daughter relationships.
Natalie Prior: This is the mother from Divergent. And before we go any further, I would like to mention that I strongly dislike this book and most of the characters in it. Honestly. But that's going to a review for another time. Natalie Prior is one of the few characters I like because she was both selfless and kind but also brave so you could see why she transferred from Dauntless. And the lengths she was willing to go to to protect her daughter are quite admirable. She's also very smart and wary of the danger Abnegation faces. I mainly just like her for being a strong character who seemed submissive and classic "gentle woman" but turned out to be very brave. She was one of the only characters in that book who actually surprised me.
Which is why it's a shame that her daughter showed so little emotion towards her... but that's a review for another time.
In my book: Admittedly, my mother character doesn't have a huge role in the book because she doesn't get as much page time but I made an effort to make a good relationship between her and the main character, her daughter. I'll go ahead and say: Her name is Christina, since that's not really giving anything away. Christina is a working woman but she still cares about her daughter. She is strong and sharp tongued and doesn't cry much though this is largely due to the fact that she tries to be strong for the main character. And while she is still flawed (Because she sort of keeps a lot of secrets) she wouldn't give up her daughter for anything.
I wanted to see more positive mother-daughter relationships so I wrote one.
So that's my schpiel on mothers and making them three dimensional characters in YA fiction. Tomorrow I think I'm going to talk about villainous and their prose and cons. (But the Bella Swan rant is coming... oh it's coming)
Thanks for reading!
-Authoress Anonymous
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