Parent protagonists in SF
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Moms and other people who are actively parenting while acting as protagonists. dealing with issues of feeding, clothing, potty-training, educating, entertaining, discipline, childcare --
While loads of SF features child and YA protagonists or major characters, very little SF features their parents as the protagonists. Indeed, SF protagonists are largely childless, parentless, unencumbered sorts; romantic/sexual entanglements are their closest relationships. Even when a protagonist is a parent, the child is often nowhere to be seen. Conveniently stashed with a family member, or off at junior Starguard Academy, or perhaps kidnapped as a major plot point. Actual parenting -- the day-to-day grind of feeding, clothing, educating, entertaining, disciplining, childcare; the occasional crises of sicknesses, teen pregnancy, college tuition -- rarely seems to occur; certainly not in proportion to how frequently parenting must actually occur in any universe!
These works are an exception to the rule:
- works by title
- Amazon Ink by Lori Devoti (mom of a early teen girl; her own mom & grandmother are also there)
- Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson (breastfeeding mom)
- Galactic Sibyl Sue Blue by Rosel George Brown (divorcée mom of a teenage daughter)
- Forty Days of Rain by Kim Stanley Robinson (stay-at-home dad with kids)
- notable protagonist-parents from multiple / serial works
- Cordelia Naismith Vorkosigan - mother of Miles
- Sarah Connor in Terminator 2, and in the TV series
- Buffy in season 6 had to deal with guardianship / parenting issues with her little sister, Dawn
- see also
- Don't Forget Your Spacesuit, Dear! (1996 anthology edited by Jody Lynn Nye)