Where Yo At, Healthy Fams in YA??

If anyone is curious, yes, this is an old family picture.

And I covered everyone's faces with letters so they wouldn't kill me for posting old pictures. Of course though, I wasn't able to cover eight year old Gray's face, so yeah. Look away! Look away!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I've glowed up over the years, hopefully..

Random person: Actually, you haven't.

Me: Shsssss, let Gray dream! :P

A quick note:

    Heyyyyy guys! I'm sorry for being SUPER irregular when it comes to when I post!! I've just been tired and not very busy (does that make sense? I think not). Buuuuuuuttttttttttt, yeah! I will try to get into more of a blogging schedule again, because I use to have one, but then I got busy! Let's get on with this post!!

      Have you noticed something off about the families in YA? Pretty much all of the families are dysfunctional. Think about it, for the most part the parents are either dead, divorced, ignorant of pretty much everything, or one of them is evil *coughs* stepmothers…

      As for the siblings, they're either evil or non-existent. And I did do a post on how to create authentic children a couple of weeks back, so if you haven't read it you can HERE.

     But on with this post! The more I thought about it, the more confused I became, because I realized how true this was.

three examples of this lack of normal families:

1. Harry Potter (The last two were YA, or was it the last three)? Anyways, his family is obviously not the most normal, especially with his hateful aunt, uncle, and cousin.

2. All of the Cinderella re-tellings. Let's be real, there are enough Cinderella YA re-tellings for us to fill a few great libraries (think the Green Hallow's Great Library from the Wingfeather saga size).

3. Warrior of the Son. Evan does not live in a normal family. His father is a king, but his mother is simply a girl, who… (how do I keep this G? The book is meant for sixteen year old boys, so it's a bit more mature in topics, but I don't follow rules). Okay, fine, I'm just going to say it; his mother is just a girl that the king took to bed one night. Whew! I do my best to keep this blog as clean as possible.

         Those were just a few that I thought of! But believe me, there are MANY more!!

three examples of normal families:

1. The Wingfeather saga, my Wingfeather fans saw this coming, didn't y'all? While it's true that The Wingfeather's father is dead, their mom and their grandpa loves them dearly in a way that reminds me of my own parents.

2. The Door Within, Aidan's parents both love their son, and it's so beautiful and realistic. When Aidan becomes a Christian it is so sweet and a bit heartbreaking when he tells his confused non-Christian parents. And I just loved reading about where his dad asked him to explain his beliefs. It's just so good and realistic and it really shows the tough but special relationship between parents and their teenage boy!

3. Viking Quest, even though we don't get to see Bree's parents for a long long time, because Bree gets stolen… slight spoilers, so I shan't go on. Anyway, it's obvious that Bree's parents and their siblings love each other.

         Now, I am not saying that writing about kids with single parents, divorced parents, non-caring parents, and spiteful vile parents is wrong and unrealistic, because for many teens it is a harsh reality. But where did the healthy families go? The messy, overwhelming, but loving group of people stuck with the same last name and stuck in the same house? I think YA is just slowly getting darker as time goes on. I pick up a book, open it, and the overall message I get is: Your parents don't understand anything and they think you're a waste of space.

And again, yes, this is the harsh reality for a ton of us teens, but there are also families, who despite their shortcomings, love each other.

         Just a thought. Write about divorces, abuse (verbal and physical), parents who neglect their kids, and common major family issues, if you want. We doneed to spread awareness that this stuff does happen, and it also probably is comforting to kids who are going through similar struggles, to know that they aren't alone. But please, PLEASE don't forget the healthy families. 

Have you also noticed the lack of happy families in YA?

What are some of your examples of normal and not normal families from YA??

Happy Writing,