Being a mom in fiction is a rough deal. If you haven't been killed off to make way for the Evil Stepmother, you're probably wasting away with illness. Or hopelessly out-of-touch, like Coraline's mom. Or, like Eloise's, simply absent from your child's life.
There's a good reason for these tropes. Much great literature for children is focused on the child, and the child's ability to solve problems for herself, or grow into an adult role. Removing adults, especially mothers, from the story often provides the space and motivation for children to have these adventures. You'll notice that it's much more common to be an orphan in literature than it is in real life.
As Sharon Lamb and Lyn Mikel Brown put it in their excellent book, "Packaging Girlhood," "As in children's literature, myths and fairy tales, these books also tend to show parents are useless or dead. Perhaps this is a common concept because mothers are so important to children; however, it also means we rarely see good mothers represented."
While there are many wonderful stories that focus on children who have been separated from their parents by death, boarding school or a serendipitous fall down a rabbit hole, it's refreshing to be able to share a tale with one's daughter that doesn't fall into these stereotypes.
Flashlight Worthy Books recently posted a lovely list of stories in which children connect with their moms. I'll be watching for these titles at the library.
Here are a few of my favorites from our home collection:
Tucking Mommy In, by Morag Loh
Little Bear, Elsa Holmelund Minarek
On Mother's Lap, by Anne Herbert Scott
I note that these are all books for Very Young Children. I wracked my brain a very little bit, and can think of almost no Good Mothers in literature for older kids or young adults. A few of L.M. Montgomery's books, and Little Women. I hope that as my daughters and I grow through their childhoods, we'll find many more images of powerful moms to treasure in our library.
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Thank you! I'm totally sending this to my sister (who is soon starting her family planning).
I've often wondered why Disney characters (aside from Mulan) never have moms, and it's great to see the role of Mother appreciated and respected.
I'm not sure how old your girls are, but I recommend going to a bookstore with a reputable childrens department (independent only, the chains will not be able to help you with this!). I just worked in a kids department for two years and this is the kind of question we would have loved. We would have spent hours if you would have let us racking our brains for titles for you and stacking up huge piles for you to check out with no expectation for you to buy! It is harder in the picture book age range, but the 5-7/8 year old range gets a little better. People who work in these independent kids departments are kid lovers, book lovers, ex-librarians, aspiring teachers, etc. and read all these books themselves. At the library they don't really have time to give you all that attention, but I really recommend trying out the bookstore, see if you can find some passionate booksellers! Also there are lots of people blogging about kids lit these days too if you want to search around.
I am trying to think of some titles myself right now, but just wanted to shoot this idea off to you because as a bookseller I feel we still have a ways to go, but there really has been an explosion in books with great girl characters and great mom characters!
The main function of a librarian, especially a children's librarian, is to devote the time to answer a question like this. Incidentally, a librarian may be able to formulate an answer much quicker than a bookstore employee as we are trained in reader's advisory services. I am not trying to disrespect the knowledge of a bookstore employee, but please do not underestimate the knowledge a librarian has regarding literature.
In reply to all the people who took offense to my comment about childrens librarians, I have to say this is only from my personal experience, and I really didn't mean to disrespect all those fabulous librarians out there. My mom is a childrens librarian and that is one of her major complaints; when we would talk about work she always felt I had much more time and resources to devote to research on kids lit,and felt frustrated and spread too thin to serve kids the way she would like, but maybe I just worked at an ideal bookstore, and she admittedly works at an underfunded library. I worked with an ex-librarian from the New York City library system, and she often felt the same as I did. And I live in a major city, and have very rarely had a positive experience with any kids librarian, they rarely knew what I was talking about when I was researching books or asking questions. However, I definitely think that has to do with the individuals , not libraries themselves, because their library website has great resources and recommendations for kids. Another thing I've notices is bookstores have publishing reps bringing them new books on a daily basis, so they often have more knowledge about newer books.
Anyway, I just wanted to say I apologize if I offended any librarians out there, I love you and what you do for this world, I just wanted to share how passionate for great kids literature many of us booksellers are and especially a lot of us are really dedicated to bringing great books to girls and women!
"(independent only, the chains will not be able to help you with this!)"
I think it's hit or miss with the chains. Additionally, I've known people who knew very little about children's literature and worked in independent bookstores with notable children's collections, just as I've known people who had a deep love and knowledge of children's literature and worked in chain bookstores.
"At the library they don't really have time to give you all that attention"
I'm curious why you think that. I worked in the children's department of a public library for many years and this was a big part of the librarians' job. I think children's librarians are far more likely to be helpful on this front than booksellers, even independent ones, unless perhaps it is a specialty store like Books of Wonder in NYC, The Blue Marble in Kentucky, The Children's Bookstore in Baltimore, or Hicklebees in San Jose.
Mrs. Weasley is a good mom! (Harry Potter books)
Seconded! I was going to mention Mrs Weasley.
Yes, love the part in the final book when Bellatrix tried to kill Jenny, Mrs Weasley said,
"NOT BY DAUGHTER,YOU BITCH!" and proceeded to kick Bellatrix ass !
In addition to Mrs. Weasley...I liked the Harry Potter books altogether for their lack of gender-stereotypes!!! The girls in it are not afraid to speak out, and the boys are not portrayed as sex and power hungry. The main characters in Harry Potter are great role models for kids!
I agree. It really bugs me how people decide to not like them solely on the argument that wizardry or whatever is bad. But you're right - they are good for kids. They relate to real-life problems without seeming to. The genders and races are equal but they have equality stereotypes surrounding pure-bloods, mud-bloods, and muggles.
I wouldn't say she's a great mom. She really harps on her kids about a lot of things, and does a lot of guilt-tripping them, if I recall correctly.
I like the mother in the Wrinkle in Time books--she's a scientist, smart, and there for her kids.
Yes! Those books are wonderful. Lots of good women/girl characters.
Me too— I clicked in just to speak up for Mrs. Murray: so phenomenally strong, alone to care for four kids; brilliant mind; presented as this amazing, beautiful ideal: the hero her daughter aspires to live up to.
I'd suggest the Laura Ingalls Wilder books
That series of books, just like Little Women as Jessica F. pointed out below, is wonderful as long as you talk to children about how women were portrayed and thought of in the past. Another topic that needs to be discussed as a caveat with the Ingalls Wilder books are race relations in the pioneer days because the native people that appear in the books are portrayed as vulgar, thieving savages.
I'm not saying you're wrong, but its just odd how little I remember o that. I read all of those books when I was a kid, and I remember things like an old indian warning them about the long winter coming and turning out to be right. I remember Ma being scared of them and then having it turn out that they weren't being threatening. I dunno, maybe my parents explained away anything bad, but I never got a sense from those books of Indians as savages or anything, just as people who had a different culture and knew more about the land. I also remember Pa totally trying to steal land from the Indian reservation on some vague rumors that the US government might let them get away with it, and then its hard to feel too bad for him when they have to move.
I re-read "Little Women" last summer and I was actually mildly distressed (understatement: some of the characters' monologues about marriage made me want to barf) by the messages regarding womens' roles and aspirations. Granted, the book was written in the 1800s and so reflects the mores of that time. But the girls' mother is always hoping for her girls to find a good husband--and that's it. Her advice to the eldest daughter, who is overwhelmed with twins and feels her marriage suffering, is to pamper her husband--not a word about how he could help her. And she several times discusses her own marriage and mentions how lucky she was to get a husband who has "taught her so much"--though she is never mentioned as a teacher to him, only a helpmate and housekeeper. I guess I would be slightly wary of giving "Little Woman" to a child who wouldn't be able to firmly grasp that it's historical.
Ma of the Little House books is certainly a caring and loving mother, if you can overlook her inculcations of gender roles. She certainly is a tough cookie, and Laura defies many gender stereotypes (unfortunately, though infrequent,race depictions in these books are very dated and ignorant--though a black doctor does save the family from malaria in the second book).
Sandra Boynton has some nice moms in her board books--they don't have a lot of character development, but they are there.
Robert Munsch tends to have good moms when they are present--the nice thing about his books is that the fathers tend to be nurturing caregivers/coparents, so mothers are good parents and dads are too.
The Runaway Bunny has an extremely good mother--Eda LeShan and other therapists look at this as a model story.
Lois Lowry's Anastasia books feature an smart, attentive and loving mother. She works from home as a book illustrator, though unfortunately, she does take on most of the second shift.
My question--how do you find the good moms who don't play into all the stereotypes of mother having sole responsibility for family nurturance?
I remember a scene in one of the later books, I think one of the Rose books, where Laura as an adult participates in a debate on whether the Indians (as they called them then) or the Black people had been treated worse by the white Americans. I remember her being very articulate about it, and also saying something like "it might be counted as an offense even to compare the two in a debate like this." And she talked about her first hand view of how the indians were persecuted.
I don't remember as much about the race depictions in the early books but I'm not surprised that they were more dated.
Joan Gould in Spinning Straw into Gold: What Fairy Tales Reveal about the Transformations in a Woman's Life, she notes that when the Brothers Grimm and a few other writers were penning their versions of the female fairy tales to sell to the bourgeoisie in the 18th and 19th centuries, they knew that the concept of the heroine's birth mother doing evil things would not go well at night in the children's bedroom by candle light. So, they transformed the stories so that the birth mother, in other words - the Good Mother, died giving way to the Terrible Mother figure (the evil stepmother, the wicked witches, etc.). The role of the Mother in these stories is always to push the child to become a woman, from innocence to fertility, out of her birth home to found another home where she herself would become mother and queen, and is usually done in a violent way without much empathy. Killing off the Good Mother Figure allows the memory of her to stay pure, while the Terrible Mother Figure can get all the blame, and often death in the end.
I love the Little Bear series!
I think children's books by Judy Blume and Beverley Cleary in general have good mothers. Little Women; the Anne of Green Gables series; Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder; Catherine, Called Birdy by Karen Cushman . . . I'm sure I'll think of more later.
So far as picture books: Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak; The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown; Love You Forever by Robert Munsch; The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn; Mama, Do You Love Me? by Barbara M. Joosse and Barbara Lavallee; A Chair for My Mother by Vera B. Williams; Just Me and My Mom by Mercer Mayer; Olivia by Ian Falconer; and Kevin Henkes books in general.
Catherine Called Birdy has a good mother figure? I remember the mother being mostly quiet and dull and pregnant all the time. Catherine loves her mother but doesn't seem to have anything in common with her, and she hates her father. Good book though.
Hmm. Yeah, the connection between mother and daughter really only comes towards the end. Shouldn't have included that one.
But Anne was an orphan and, at least at first, Marilla tried to give her away since she wanted a boy.
Maybe at the very beginning of the first book, but the series spans 8 novels. In the last two Anne is a mother. Despite the fact that Marilla is not Anne's biological mother, I think she develops a deep love for her through the course of the book. I don't think mother/child literature recommendations here should exclude adoptive mothers.
I'm going to ask my sister about this, she's a public librarian with an intrest in children's lit.
I love the Little Bear books, the pictures are wonderful too.
I acknowledge there is an absence of "good mothers" in literature, and I'm glad you acknowledge the reason that many timeless stories weaken the role of the parents is to let children be the self-reliant protagonist, as well as just being good writers in terms of making things hard for their characters. A good story, even a good children's story requires more than just minor discomfort for its characters. The reason fairy tales and modern tales in a similar vain (like Coraline) eliminate parents is because if Coraline's mother was in touch, we wouldn't have a conflict. No conflict, no story. The more conflict, the more resistance, the better the story.
It frustrates me as a young feminist when we as mothers demand "better representation" in our children's books, because the books aren't for us. They are for our children. Our children, especially our daughters, need to feel that though we love them and they love us, they can and will get along without us someday. It's entirely natural to worry about whether your child will need you, but I want my daughter have confidence that she can handle things without me. The fact that she will be without me one day is what helps her to grow up, so I am not going to be Victorian about what she reads. Fantasy and fiction are more useful to children because of their departure from normality. They prepare us for extreme circumstances. Very few people read books because the characters are "just like them." Why should we ask this of our children's literature?
The reason "good mother" stories are more common for younger readers is that dependence on our parents is part of that stage of our lives. As we grow up we have to convince ourselves that we can handle it on our own, without our parents. That is the purpose that young adult books have.
You want a powerful mom? Mrs. Coulter in His Dark Materials. Morally complex, honest about her ambiguity about being a mother, but loves her daughter more than the world.
Mrs. Coulter is certainly an interesting character but I think its very debatable whether she really loves Lyra, let alone loves her more than anything else. And she's definitely not a Good Mother-- she's pretty terrifying, and she spends her time tricking children into being kidnapped so she can cut off their souls. Powerful, yes, but not exactly a role model for real life mother-child relationships. (Not that I think a book character has to be, but that seems to be what the OP was looking for)
Mrs. Coulter is at least a full-bodied character, neither completely good or bad. There is a twisted nature to her in that she does want to take care of Lyra, and does sacrifice her life for her in the end, and regrets her actions in connection with the Arctic base, but she did perpetrate evil in the first place.
I would never suggest that she's a Good Mother, but she's a really interesting factor for me in terms of demanding strong older women characters. She's no evil witch, though she at first appears to be. It all sort of goes back to the fairy tale division of the Good and Bad Mother expressing a psychological construct that kids grow out of. Mrs. Coulter functions as both Wicked Stepmother and Good Fairy Godmother: the source of this division in literature that refuses to show women as good and evil at the same time.
Mrs. Coulter is wonderful. I had her in mind as I was writing, actually. She's certainly not a Good Mother in pretty much any sense, but she's a fascinating, powerful character who breaks all the rules of maternal stereotypes in fiction. Lyra appears first as an orphn, but the it turns out her mom is alive! but also evil! possibly intending to murder Lyra! or to save her!
what a refreshing change from the tropes of fiction. though again, her initial absence and ongoing failure to offer Lyra a meaningful, safe mother/child relationship is essential to Lyra's ability and motivation to go on the adventures the book centers on.
I think the reason that there are a lot of stories where the parents are dead or absent or evil (or the kid goes into another world without the parents) is that it leaves the children, who are the main characters, to rely on themselves. Its hard to tell a very interesting story about a 10 year old who has competent, nurturing, protective, and involved parents. Your story is going to end up being mostly about interactions with other kids at school, or something.
I'd say that books like the Little House books are really more about the whole family and the historical setting than they are about 6 year old Laura.
When I was a teen I remember reading "Memo to Myself When I Have a Teenage Kid." It was written in the '80's, but in the late 90's/early 2000's I didn't find it foreign at all. On goodreads it's described as "Reading the diary her mother wrote when she was thirteen helps Karen understand both her mother and herself better."
I have to agree with you. Karen and her mother connect over her old dairy which I really liked. It was a long time ago though, I'm surprised someone else remembers that book!
I'm a library science student with a focus on kids and YA services, and while I haven't spent much time at all on this, I would also recommend British author Michelle Magorian's books Back Home, Cuckoo in the Nest, and A Spoonful of Jam for middle grades and up. While the mother figures aren't the focus of these books, they are positive role models for kids and teens struggling with huge life and societal changes. And the books are fantastic historical fiction!
I've just picked up Ally Carter's Gallagher Girls novels, which aren't exactly feminist (the girls are students at a spy school, but the books are somewhat wrapped up in their interests in boys; the third one, which I've got an ARC of, is better!) but do have a powerful mother, who is a spy, the principal of the school, a widow, and the main character's caring mom.
Ramona Quimby and similar books are great too, in addition to the ones already mentioned by other posters.
Other than that I have to agree with the lack of positive mother figures in kids fiction.
Some of my favorite female-positive kids' fantasy fiction is by Tamora Pierce; her female characters are all strong, real girls and women who become powerful knights, mages, and even spies. There are only a few good mother figures in her books though, as parents are mostly dead or out of reach. One mother becomes a minor god, though, and another defended a castle against pirate attack, inspiring her daughter to earn her knighthood despite being a girl.
Yes, I love the Tamora Pierce books. Not so many parents around, since they're mostly about young people making their own way in the world, but very strong female characters.
They do have some (mostly implied) sex in them, but it went completely over my head when I first read them.
I was just about to mention Ramona Quimby! I loved those books! :)
If you'd like to see a good mother, Dr. Murray in any of Madeline L'Engle's books is one. "A Wrinkle In Time" is my particular favorite. She is a Nobel-prize winning scientist and makes dinner over a Bunsen burner in her lab.
Her daughter, Meg, in the later books, becomes a mother of seven (to one particularly fabulous daughter, Polly, in "A House Like a Lotus", which also contains a loving lesbian couple who befriend the teenage Polly) and a very compassionate aunt to her niece.
If there are any young teen girls in your lives I HIGHLY recommend any of Madeline L'Engle's books. Her characters are intelligent, curious, respectful and save the universe in diverse settings.
Yeah, those are great books, and overall the female characters are very strong. There are a few dated bits though-- I remember Vicky's father said he preferred her mother in skirts, or something like that. Also as I reread them I find that some of the books are a bit preachy for my taste.
I really like the original set of four books that start with A Wrinkle in Time. After that there are a bunch of other books that are either closely connected (Meg's family) or loosely connected (Vicky and Polly both meet Zachary at different times in different books). Some of them are better than others. I think I read ALL of them, but I wonder if I missed any. Does anyone have a complete list? I remember one of my editions had a flow chart in the front showing how all the characters are connected in different books.
Regarding A House Like A Lotus, isn't there some shock when she finds out that they're lesbians? But it all ends up all right, I think. I only read that one once so I don't remember the same level of detail as some of the others.
Oh, and will all the talk about A Wrinkle in Time, I think I should mention that although the mother in it is great, the kids do go off and have adventures without her. Because if she was there, she'd be in charge, and it wouldn't really be about the kids having an adventure. I can't think of a single book where the mom goes along on the quest into another world.
A good YA book, thought not particularly feminist, is It's Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini. It's told from the perspective of a 16 year old boy who is suffering from depression. His mom is just really supportive and he does thank her for all that she does. She's not a major character, but it's a story based on the author's life so it's heartfelt.
Delurking to give my list.
Mrs. Weasley of the Harry Potter books
Mrs. Quimby of the Ramona series by Beverly Cleary
Most of the other moms in Beverly Cleary's books
Paula Danzinger's mother characters
Madeline L'Engle's mother charcters (even though I never really cared for the books)
Not a mother, but Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle is a strong female character
Cynthia Voigt's mother characters (in some of the books - not all, and certainly not the one where the mother ran off) are fairly strong.
I agree with an earlier comment that Little Women reinforces patriarchal roles for women. I think Alcott was being subtlely subversive when she wrote it; I wrote a paper once about how the overall tone conflicts so strongly with the on-the-surface message (like an earlier poster, some of the extended passages about finding a husband are so over the top it's difficult to not read them as sarcastic) and how the backdrop of the civil war functions as a symbol for the internal conflict of the text. And Alcott would never have been able to publish an openly subversive book at that time, so she had to hide it well. But yeah, I don't think any young adult should read the book until they're old enough to understand the context.
On a totally random note that is unrelated in any way at all, does anyone here ever watch Bravo? Specifically the Real Housewives of NYC? I'm not a regular viewer, but I do find it kind of a "guilty pleasure" and I watch when I see it on. If anyone else watches, did you see the episode where "Countess" LuAnn De Lesseps tells Bethenny that the "problem" with women today is that they are "too equal" with men, and that men don't won't find you attractive if you are aggressive or "sharp as a whip"? I could hardly even believe what I was hearing.
What about the Weetzie Bat books for the YA crowd? Specifically Weetzie herself as a mom...I think that character is written beautifully and is portrayed as a great mother to Cherokee Bat and Witch Baby.
Also, the foster mother in The Great Gilly Hopkins is another solid maternal figure, especially when contrasted with the suckiness of Gilly's actual mother.
And how 'bout those VC Andrews books? (kidding!)
I recommend "The Green Glass Sea," by Ellen Klages. The sequel is "White Sands, Red Menace," and I think it's even better. It's written for the young side of YA, recent enough that nobody here would remember it from their own childhood. The main protagonist is an unconventional clever girl who starts off without a mother, as is traditional in children's books. Her best friend becomes a second protagonist, though...and *her* mother is wonderful strong figure, parenting her own daughter, taking in an orphan and growing to love her, and dealing with various career and activist issues.
Speaking of the Little House books, did anyone ever read Caddie Woodlawn? Its a similar type of book, although I think its fiction. I think the mom in those is pretty good.
Enid Bagnold's NATIONAL VELVET contains a superb mother/daughter relationship – Mrs Brown, a former endurance swimmer, is a strong character who plays a pivotal role.
Bagnold was also a great writer on childbirth and motherhood.
Todd Parr has some picture books called "The Mommy Book" and "The Daddy Book" that show moms and dads doing all sorts of things
"Some moms work in big buildings. Some moms work at home. Some moms like to shop. Some moms like to fish, Some moms ride motorcycles. Some moms drive minivans. Some moms like to cook. Some moms like to order pizza." etc
If we're talking books for older or precocious kids, David Copperfield is interesting for its treatment of the ineffective mom trope: David's loving but infantile widowed mother gets duped, silenced and in a way killed by evil stepfather, who has a sister and semi-stepmother in tow. But then David seeks out his great aunt Betsey Trotwood, from whom he had always been estranged and who then becomes his surrogate mother. Betsey is a riot as far as mother figures go: She's blunt, eccentric, independent, loving and obsessive about keeping donkeys off her lawn. (Actually, the infantile sickly mother thing recurs eventually with David's own wife later in the book.)
Anyway, that's all just to say: Some books, especially Copperfield, exploit those old contrivances about disastrous motherhood while also offering other surrogate characters a new, less traditional shot in the mother's stead. I know I've read other books that do something similar but I can't think of them offhand, sorry.
I tried reading David Copperfield maybe 3 separate times when I was about 8, 9, and 10 or thereabouts. Each time, I got bored and stopped reading at the point in the book where he grows up and becomes a lawyer. It was only interesting to me while he was still a kid.
I think what's really frustrating to me is that in books for little kids, the mother almost always stays home, takes care of the kids, and spends her entire day on domestic labor. And they're often only seen wearing dresses and impractical/uncomfortable looking shoes. Even in Little Bear the mom is always in the kitchen wearing a dress. It's one of the things I liked so much about Dora, is that her mom is an anthropologist, and Diego's mom has some job at the animal rescue center.
As usual, the TV Tropes Wiki is excellent for all things fiction:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MamaBear
It's not a children's book, but what comes to my mind is the character of Linden Avery in The Runes of the Earth by Stephen R. Donaldson. (It happens to be book 7 in a series.)
Mrs. Frisby!!
I was hanging out last night with a friend who's two weeks away from giving birth to twin daughters (who will be named after brilliant feminist icons), and a discussion of the movie Coraline turned to this topic.
She came up with Mrs. Frisby, who is a kick-ass Good Mother who goes on adventures not because she's brave or clever or strong, but because her kids are in danger and no one else is willing to step up.
The whole literature idea, could work fine as a sweet sunny day for a summertime lover, like a lotus notes to sharepoint for a mother with a child or even a few children.
E-books are getting popular right now (not as popular as digital video and audio but pretty popular).