This is a linkpost for https://shoshanigans.substack.com/p/the-missing-genre-heroic-parenthood
The only protagonist who spontaneously comes to mind is Sarah Connor, but maybe that is not the kind of story you meant?
In Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga, Cordelia is pregnant and deals with coups, war, and difficult decisions more than once.
I love this, I hope someone writes it!
Probably one reason it stops is just because it's a lot harder to write a book (especially of a new genre) as a parent. And when you do have time, you would rather tell stories with your kids.
I think the game Wildermyth is too easy and too janky - unless you crank the difficulty to max, at which point it becomes too hard and too janky - but I keep coming back to it simply because it lets your characters keep Adventuring even as they age (complete with graying hair and lowered movement-per-turn) and have children (who frequently join the party).
You want a story about a lumbering, towering, sweaty, intimidating, bulky, no nonsense investigator grappling with eco-terrorists, a conspiracy, and also raising and protecting her family?
Try "Hummingbird Salamander" by Jeff Vandermeer!
Wildbow’s Claw is about a husband and wife with two kids doing and dealing with the consequences of clandestine activities. I think he set out to specifically write a book about a family, where the children weren’t written off the screen but rather were the whole point, and he very much succeeded! The story itself is also gripping, I enjoyed it a lot.
"The Road" by Cormac McCarthy is great. It's about a single father and his son trying to survive a post-apocalypse hellscape. Mom unfortunately died before the action starts, but they remember her and there's a lot of pain there.
The Rothschilds musical is about the ambitious Mayer Rotschild who raises his children to be his business partners. I recommend the 1970 recording.
Part of Inventing the Renaissance by Ada Palmer tells the story of Cosimo de Medici securing lasting power for his family. It's a fun read.
Of course Barrayar is about an adventuring expectant mother. Cordelia Naismith shows up later in the Vorkosigan series, but in Mirror Dance she seemed larger than life, no longer the adventuring type.
Have you seen the Fantastic Four: First steps? Perhaps that one is more a big instance of "something to protect" instead of involving the relationship between mother and growing child. Still I loved the setting (retro-futuristic world), I loved the shear positivity of the movie. The mother isn't staying away from the action during or after the pregnancy.
A closer example of what you describe is The Incredibles. I maintain that is the best superhero movie ever made. Very large focus on the whole family though perhaps it is more about the mother trying to investigate where her husband is, though in the end the whole family is a team.
Two animated show recommendations in the genre you are looking for:
Dune does a bit of parents being awesome and having cool rationalist-ish powers and cool missions. It's a pretty fun ethos around training your kid to also be awesome, as is the rest of the content.
I see I've been scooped on Barrayar; I concur with the rec and add that the child emperor also spends some time onscreen.
The Inda series by Sherwood Smith, which I read recently, doesn't feature the mainline protagonists having children during events (well, actually, now that I think of it some of them do get pregnant during, but mostly the kids don't get born until things are wrapping up) but does have a lot of parent characters who engage in the various bloody battles, political intrigues, etc. that their political situation requires and are otherwise well-fleshed-out. (There's also normalized polyamory). It's incredibly long, so you'll be waiting awhile for any specific features, but by that same token there are lots of different parent-child relationships. That said, it's centrally about childless-for-most-of-it Inda, so YMMV.
I can think of one famous fantasy story that happens after the kids have recently left home, Lois McMaster Bujold's Paladin of Souls. The protagonist, Ista, is the dowager mother of a very young queen. Ista is still in early middle-age, but her relatives suspect that she's losing it. She weeps, she says cryptic things that make no sense, and she argues with the gods. So Ista finds herself hemmed in. For her own good, of course.
And one day, she decides to say "Screw it", and goes striding out the castle door and off down the road. This does not improve her guardians' opinion of her mental health, of course. But before Ista is rounded up, she meets dy Cabon, a priest of the fifth god, the Bastard. The Bastard has a fascinating divine portfolio, including orphans, crows, the LGBTQ community, justice when all human justice has failed, and "disasters out of season."
And so Ista formulates a second plan to escape her daily life, ordering dy Cabon to prepare a religious pilgrimage. And much to dy Cabon's surprise, he finds himself dogged by divine visions encouraging Ista's voyage. You see, the Bastard has use for Ista. She is, after all, "a disaster out of season." And if Ista curses the gods? There's one god who considers that as holy as any other prayer.
Paladin of Souls won the Hugo, Nebula and Locus awards, and it was notoriously a favorite book of r/fantasy.
I believe you're looking for A Half-Built Garden. Thought provocing hard sci-fi book about motherhood, community, gender, ecology, and aliens. I highly recommend it, in general and especially given your desired genre.
I always thought that the best depiction of a heroic woman is when Ripley goes to save Newt. It's not about being super strong and confident, she knows she might die but she goes anyway.
It's not quite parenthood though, as Newt wasn't her daughter (same as Ellie wasn't Joel's daughter).
One Battle After Another stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a washed revolutionary, drunk single father who raises a daughter and fights neonazis. The mom is in Mexico though.
Appreciate everyone's recommendations :) <3
I'm now also just trying to follow the age-old advice of well ... do it yourself then, so here is my attempt at writing something new into the genre that doesn't exist yet: Split (Part 1)
How about Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler?
Also probably mom's with kids sadly have considerably less time for reading, so market is small for stories they would read?
yeah, parents in general probably don't have much time to read. That's a good point!
I haven't tried most of the books people here recommend. I think I was mostly thinking of volume and how to find the books.
I stopped reading when I was 30. You can fill in all the stereotypes of a girl with a book glued to her face during every meal, every break, and 10 hours a day on holidays.
That was me.
And then it was not.
For 9 years I’ve been trying to figure out why. I mean, I still read. Technically. But not with the feral devotion from Before. And I finally figured out why. See, every few years I would shift genres to fit my developmental stage:
And then I wanted babies and there was nothing.
I mean, I always wanted babies, but it became my main mission in life at age 30. I managed it. I have two. But not thanks to any stories.
See women in fiction don’t have babies, and if they do they are off screen, or if they are not then nothing else is happening. It took me six years to realize I miss the genre I need and crave. A genre about my actual experiences as a mother who wants to actually do stuff in the world. A genre that’s basically motherhood x shonen protagonist x optional polycules (So, you know, extremely normal.)
Imagine those stories. Stories with mothers who have babies, toddlers, feral six-year-olds, and teens. They are fully-fledged characters and the relationships matter. This provides constraints and it provides purpose. The world could be at risk from AI, the zombie apocalypse, disease, aliens, or dragons - and she doesn’t hide and she doesn’t chuck her kids in a safehouse and runs off. It’s about kids being a part of life. It’s about the family being a part of what’s happening.
Sure, you don’t want kids suffering and maybe it’s dumb to write stories about that. Often you do need to stash your kids somewhere safe as you are off to save the world, but maybe then show that? Show the struggle, show the pain, show the gaping hole in her chest. And show her coming back, show her trying, show her making a life where they don’t have to be apart and what that would actually look like.
It’s not a law of nature that motherhood means you stop doing stuff. You can have kids and still punch the sun. Sure you might have to take breaks to breastfeed, but-and-also you have a reason to punch the sun so motherfucking harder.
And speaking of said motherfucking. I just want stories where love isn’t artificially capped at two adults and zero ambition. What if there were stories where parents (mothers or fathers) get to love deeply, raise kids, change worlds, tame dragons, build/fight AIs, all without losing the ‘you’re allowed to want things’ part of their brain?
Of course there are only 24 hours in the day. But if you can suspend your disbelief to dragons, you can suspend your disbelief to parents-with-unusual-energy-levels. It’s just an aspiration. An example of what that headspace could be like. And I’d be able to use that template to figure out my place in the world.
All I’m saying is I want to dream about the place family, love, and glorious unapologetic ambition meet. I want to read stories about people who live under constraints I can relate to and have values that I care about. Kids are a part of life. Being a parent is one of our most fundamental jobs as a species. You don’t stop living cause you had a kid. So why do the stories stop?