Every Teen Needs a Family
(I know, I know, this should have been up hours ago. I promise to be more on the ball next week. Really.)
For a while now, agents have been complaining about how the parents in YA (especially paranormal YA) are either dead, neglectful, or oblivious. They want stories featuring teens with intact, functional families. On the one hand, I totally get it. I grew up in a big family, my parents have been married fifty years now. A lot of my friends from high school had similar backgrounds. Even those whose parents had divorced still had nice, functional familial units (at least as functional as anyone else’s).
So why not in YA novels?
Here’s the thing, that big, functional family of mine? Lots of drama, and when I say lots, I mean LOTS. We love each other and overall can get along, but get us in tight quarters and someone is going to blow at some point. It’s a given. I think this week on vacation I spent half my time holding my breath, just hoping I wouldn’t be the one to set off the explosion this time.
That would be great fodder for some YA stories. I’m thinking contemporary could do it without too much trouble, and it would be perfect to make fun of in a nice comedic YA. When you’re talking paranormal though, it gets a little dicier. Teens in paranormal are generally dealing with messed up, otherworldly stuff. Unless the parents are involved in that other world themselves, bringing them into it just means they are likely to take control of the story from the teens.
Does it have to happen that way? No. Sometimes an author can work it out where the parents are there and not completely oblivious to what is going on. But as often as not, to get to the meat of the story, the parents need to (in one way or another) be out of the way so the teens can deal with the issue at hand. Does it always mean they have to be dead? No. Of course not. But it would make it a lot harder for a teenage zombie hunter to sneak out at night if she has to share a room with her little sister or if her brother stays up till the wee hours of morning playing computer games. Not impossible, just unnecessarily messy.
Having said all that, it’s great when an author can pull it off. I just think expecting it to be the norm in the messed up situations that are the setting for YA paranormals is as bad as the dead parents being the norm. If the parents are dead, I want it to be necessary for the story beyond getting them out of the way. If they’re oblivious, I want something similar. I want everything to have a reason, and a good reason, within the confines of the story and the characters.
What about you? Does the parent/family issue in YA bug you? Can you name some examples of YA novels with whole, functioning families in them?
Posted: July 30th, 2010 under Uncategorized.
Comments
Comment from Danielle La Paglia
Time July 31, 2010 at 12:52 am
It’s difficult to judge what’s functional and what’s not. My parents were less functional when they were together. My daughter is split between two homes but has less issues than any of her friends or cousins who live in “functional” homes. It’s about knowing they’re loved.
I don’t normally read YA so I the only functional family I know of is the Cullens. LOL Don’t shoot me, but really! The parents are still together, they all live together, they have family meetings, family dinners, they’ve made it three times as long as most families! 
Comment from An
Time July 31, 2010 at 3:22 am
I, too, am not much of a YA reader, though I’ve read more in the past year or so than I probably did when I *was* a young adult. Before I got to the point where you wrote it yourself, I was thinking, “Duh, the adults would take over if they were together/involved.”
I almost wrote that I can’t think of any YA paranormal book with a “functional” family, but I remembered Kristopher Reiz’s “Unleashed.” The male lead has two still-married, living parents and a younger sibling. He did what any teen would do when his crazy antics got him turned into a wolf…He hid it!
I suppose it’s the same whether the parents are together or not…There are things kids don’t tell their parents. The dead/divorced aspect probably comes from (1) almost everyone knows someone growing up without a parent, but in some communities you might not know anyone who’s reached a certain age with both parents still together, or (2) maybe there are a lot of authors who don’t realize that most kids, regardless of parental situation will try and do what they want to do, and have a good chance of getting away with it.
Comment from Jax
Time July 31, 2010 at 11:49 pm
I can see it getting difficult to write in all the characters involved in a big intact family. And yet, in real life, a big family sometimes makes it easier to hide what you are up to. My parents are still together, but with 5 kids, there was a LOT that the middle 3 got into without my parents finding out, just because there was only so much time in the day. How to write that without making the parents look oblivous or negligent – well I leave that in the far more talent hands of my wrting friends.
I agree with An – I think adults forget how much we got away with as kids, or don’t want to think of our kids being able to pull one over on us. 
But even the most attentive parents can miss things that kids really want to hide. Especially if the parents want to respect their kids privacy or are uncomfortable broaching sensitive topics.
Comment from Kelly
Time August 1, 2010 at 1:01 pm
Coming from a family who put the “fun” in dysfunctional, I like reading about other tormented families. Maybe that’s the sadist in me, or maybe I’m looking for something to relate to. If the parents are dead, like you, I want to it be related to the paranormal aspects of the story. When the parents aren’t paranormal and are involved in the story, you need to get creative about how to be a “normal” teen and still be a “paranormal” hero without getting trouble with mom–I picture Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Comment from julie
Time August 1, 2010 at 10:26 pm
Thanks for all the comments.
Danni, I totally didn’t mean to imply that the original set of parents had to still be together in order for a family to be functional. (And to be fair, the Cullens were my first thought too, though I’m not sure they really count since the “kids” aren’t really kids )
I really like the different takes everyone has on this. In my PRT stories, Elle’s parents were killed in the attack that turned her into a werewolf and Cass’s mother killed her father after being turned into a vampire. Both girls were (finally) in a great foster home with caring parents, but Cass and Elle snuck out almost every night. I had some readers who said it wasn’t realistic that they’d get away with it.
Now, I personally got away with NOTHING as a teenager (the one time I had a party, I got busted because I moved my dad’s glasses so they wouldn’t get broken and I forgot to put them back), but I knew other kids who could have snuck out every night and they didn’t have supernatural powers. LOL
I might have to make it a personal challenge to do a YA paranormal with a big family now.
Comment from Nicole
Time August 2, 2010 at 12:37 pm
I didn’t get away with anything as a teen either… but I’m not sure I tried very hard.
I believe Rachel Caine’s Morganvill Vamps series has a “normal” family. Both parents still alive and not neglectful… but since the main girl has gone away to college the parents aren’t in the picture. Or if you want to go classic lit, the Narnia books seem to have fairly functional families, but events conspire to pull the kids away from normal life and parental supervision.
Oh – and most of you don’t know it yet, but Kelley Armstrong’s “The Gathering” has a very functional family for the MC. It’s nice.
I’ve written a YA where the parents are still together and involved in their daughter’s life. It’s not heavy on the paranormal, but it’s enough to prove to me that it’s possible.
Comment from angela addams
Time August 2, 2010 at 3:09 pm
It seems like the YA that I’ve read have missing parents merely as a device to give the teens free rein to do whatever they want, whenever they want. Whether it be parents who are dead or absent, either way, they’re missing…I don’t write YA so I just took it as a necessity…but I’ve heard the same complaints from agents too!
Comment from Pat Hollett
Time August 2, 2010 at 8:10 pm
I laughed at the section of your post about ‘drama’ and teens. It’s absolutely right-I have three teens and daily there is drama. It’s normal. It’s real. Yes, the idea of not having parents in the picture in a book allows the teens to deal with the issues at hand, but no it’s not the real world. However, you’re absolutely right! How do you do both? I can’t think of any YA novels where the family is ‘functional’ other than the Cullens either. But, what is functional these days? Every family has drama-maybe the key is including some of that drama into your story, that would also add plot and it’s a known fact that people have an unending fascination with our capacity to inflict harm on our fellow humans. Physical, emotional or psychological harm are key ingredients in best-sellers. There is nothing better than a dysfunctional family to show these sources of infliction.
Comment from Jessica Peter
Time August 7, 2010 at 11:54 am
Interesting topic! Um.. I’ve got a whole, functioning family in HUNT. Lol. Though it isn’t always perfect, the fact that my protagonist’s mother is in the picture actually spurs an issue in the end…
Comment from LitMouse
Time July 30, 2010 at 11:48 pm
I think you have some really good insights here!
In my YA Urban Fantasy, my MC’s parents are divorced, but neither parent is a jerk and generally speaking, her homelife is pretty happy.
Which caused some issues, because at almost every turn, my character was having to negotiate with her Mom, or towards the end of the story, flat out lie to her, before she could go off and get into trouble.
So I understand why some writers just kill off the parents or have the MC go to a boarding school, because parents really do get in the way of the plot sometime.