This is a linkpost for https://shoshanigans.substack.com/p/the-missing-genre-heroic-parenthood
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).
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?