YA Novels And The Parent Problem

If you’ve ever read much YA fiction you’ll notice that it’s pretty common for parents to be either dead or absent.

There are a few contributing factors for this, but essentially it’s because in YA fiction, parents are a problem that writers need to somehow solve.

The Parent Problem: The Parents Can’t Be In Control

This is probably the number one parent problem in YA fiction: If the parents are present and in charge, that means that the teenage protagonist isn’t.

And our protagonist needs to be the hero of the story.

Alive and present parents are an issue for our stories because they could put a stop to our hero’s adventures (aka: no you can’t do that saving-the-world thing because it’s dangerous) or by taking the role of the hero themselves (aka: they are the more skilled and logical choice to fight the bad guy). Parents can also represent too much of a safety net, through which the hero knows they are never really in danger because their parents can always swoop in to save the day.

We don’t want the parents saving the day. This story isn’t about them.

The Usual Solution: Get Rid Of The Parents

Not only can a lack of parents free up a YA protagonist to have more agency, but it can also provide convenient character motivation to drive the story forward.

For instance, there could be a mystery to solve (where are my parents?), a cause for vengeance (I want judgement for my parents!), or a variety of other personal and complex character arcs related to being abandoned or experiencing loss.

It may seem like an easy obvious strategy to just never have parents in YA fiction. And that’s definitely a trend within the genre, to the point that some readers struggle to think of a single story that contains a set of living, present parents.

Many very successful and wonderful YA novels use these strategies.

However… we don’t always need to kill off or totally get rid of the parents in our story.

Before we get rid of the parents in our YA novel out of habit or because it’s an easy way to force our hero into action, let’s consider that sometimes having parents present in our story may even make it even stronger.

Alternate Solutions

Our protagonist needs to have agency and be the center of our story, but there are ways to do that without killing off the parents. We just need to brainstorm a bit! A few ways to get parents out of the way are:

• Protagonists’s adventures happen away from home (ie: summer camp, school, with the local vampire gang, etc)
• Protagonist is part of separate and secret magical world (ie: werewolf pack, Narnia, etc)
• Protagonist is kidnapped/separated from family (ie: as tribute, because of prophesy, etc)
• Parents are away for short-term trip (ie: visiting sick family, emergency business trip, etc)
• Parents recognize protagonist needs to take special role in the fight (ie: they’re the chosen one, etc)
• Parents are in trouble and need protagonist’s help

Some Benefits Of Having Parents In Our Stories

Use Parents To Add And Show Layers of Emotion and Influence

Whether for good or ill, these family relationships contain a multitude of emotions and desires such as to be accepted, to belong, to protect, and to make others proud. They can also provide strength, comfort, and assurances of love. And obviously there can be less positive emotion and influences related to family as well! Showing these influences and interactions can be extremely powerful.

What lengths will the protagonist go to in order to make their parents proud? Does the hero feel accepted by their family, or do they feel they need to earn that somehow? Can their family’s love strengthen them so they can reach their goals?

These are core emotions that can strongly influence the protagonist as well as resonate with readers.

Use Parents To Make Things More Complicated

Along with adding emotions, family can also make anything more complicated!

And for writers, complicated can often be a good thing. We want to raise stakes and keep tensions high.

Maybe the hero’s parents are present in the story but need to be kept ignorant of some big mission for their own safety or they need to be protected or saved in some way. Maybe the hero needs to both save the world from being destroyed and also make it home in time for their Mom’s special birthday dinner.

It’s still vital to ensure that the parents aren’t taking over too much of the story’s action or solving problems for our protagonist because while having parents in our story can add interesting layers of emotions and complexities, it’s important for our YA hero to still be the hero.

Yet we just don’t need to immediately kill off the parents to make it easier for ourselves, either.

There really isn’t a one-size-fits all solution for what to do with parents in YA fiction because there aren’t one-size-fits all stories. Every story is different! The living situation and backstory of our characters should reflect that and be designed to serve and strengthen the story.

The important piece is that our YA character is firmly in the driver’s seat of their own story, regardless of whether or not they are old enough to have their license.

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For further reading:

Parents In YA- Love ‘Em or Hate ‘Em? – Emily Ross Writes

Where Are Parents In YA? Discussion – Hammock of Books

Jo Talks Books: On Parents In YA Fiction – Books Lovers Blog