I’ve been thinking about teen/parent relationships lately. Very rarely in YA books are there functional parents around all the time. That would hamper the growth of the protagonist and the story as a whole if he/she had a perfect parent that could swoop in and fix everything. There may be books out there with them (tell me if you know of some), but none of my books are that way. Some examples:

In The Book of Esther: A Faerie Tale, Esther’s parents are both dead. I personally didn’t choose this scenario. The story in the Old Testament is told that way; Esther is orphaned and raised by her cousin Mordecai. However, I don’t think I would have had it any other way.

In my middle grade novel, the protagonist’s mom is single and works so much she is rarely home. When she does have time off she frequently goes out on dates.

In my historical fiction story, the protagonist has grown up with no mother and her father dies during the story.

I read about a boy whose mom was single. What he hated was how all his friends were always saying she was hot. He didn’t fault his mother for being beautiful, but sometimes wished she wasn’t.

Not all the relationships I’m thinking about are necessarily dysfunctional. My own teenage daughter and I are often thought to be sisters (I guess I look younger than I am and she looks older). While we are very good friends and it would be easy to be buddies, I know that I’m still her mom, that I’m still responsible for correcting her behavior and guiding her to make the right choices in life. I know of some moms who do act like their kid’s best friends and the boundaries of parent and child are not so clear.

What are your observations (either personal or others) of teen/parent relationships? Do you see ones that work, ones that don’t? Do you envy other friend’s parents, or are you thankful for the ones you have? Do you see situations that would make for a great setup for a YA novel? What do you think about the way parents are portrayed in YA books?