Now, I know it’s common in young adult novels–especially urban fantasy and paranormal–to remove parents from the picture, or at least relegate them to secondary or tertiary roles. I mean, who wants Mom calling your cellphone in the middle of a secret tryst with a fallen angel? Who wants Dad grounding you for battling demons over the weekend? Occasionally, a parent proves their fictional worth by giving the protagonist magic blood, a shameful secret, or some other deep motivation. Mom is slain by the forces of evil, and this provides the protagonist a burning desire for revenge. Or Dad is actually the leader of those forces of evil, which provides the “I am your father!” plot twist we all saw coming. Fathers also have their moment in the limelight when they play the role of Wise Older Man passing on advice to the new hero.

Oliver Twist at his mother's tomb

Mothers, however… do they provide more helpful wisdom than nagging? Do they stay in the home, or do they get to adventure alongside the protagonist? Do they play an active role in the plot, or are they a passive victim for the baddies to hold hostage? Prime examples: in Spiderman, Peter Parker’s aunt and uncle. On the wimpiest end of the Mom Meter, we have the angelic dead mother of Oliver Twist, as depicted by George Cruikshank in this maudlin print. When I was a kid, I owned an abridged children’s version of Oliver Twist which had an even sappier print of Oliver’s mother weeping with happiness in the clouds of heaven. The End.

On the nastier end of the Mom Meter, we have a smorgasbord of nagging mothers and even more evil stepmothers. I’ve seen plenty of stories where the protagonist’s emotional scars result from their mother’s horrible treatment or neglect. Look no farther than the original Grimm’s fairy tales and their Disney derivatives. Apparently, the only good mother is a dead mother. If she’s alive, she’s busy meddling maliciously.

Even if the hero’s mother isn’t really dead, she’s often absent. I’m noticing a slight trend in YA fantasy to have Mom alive, but not really existing.  She might worry over the phone, but she isn’t often physically there. In Twilight, Bella leaves her mom behind and goes to live with her dad. In Carrie Jones’s Need, Zara’s mother ships her off to Maine to live with her grandmother. Now, Zara’s grandmother is undeniably badass, similar to the badass great-aunt character in Amber Kizer’s Meridian. “Badass” as in tough, smart, sensitive, witty, and wise. It’s allowable to have an older woman fill this role. I’m just not sure I’ve seen any mothers do it.

A badass mom

But wait: we have the undeniably badass heroine of Kill Bill. If you haven’t seen Volume 2 yet, spoilers! Beatrix Kiddo is equally capable of slaying vast numbers of baddies with her katana and playing mommy by tucking in her little girl at night. This isn’t to say that to be a badass mother, you must also be badass in every other respect. That treads into the realm of unrealistic Mary Sue characters. But Kiddo is certainly an example of a fictional mother who isn’t confined to a passive gender role.

Why, I ask, are there no Kiddos of the YA world? I think urban fantasy, in particular, would lend itself it a badass mother character who’s adventuring right alongside the heroine, teaching her how to swing a sword and deal with her paranormal problems. But the YA part of the equation might be what keeps this from happening: a mother this powerful might overshadow her daughter (or son, for that matter). Is that the crux of the problem? We can’t have strong mothers play too big of a role because they steal the limelight? But still, YA fiction doesn’t seem to be accurately representing how, in reality, most mothers play a significant positive role in the lives of their children. Mine certainly did.

Now, of course, I want to know what you think about mothers in YA. What do you think of their current portrayal, and what would you do about it?