I have occasionally encountered the notion that I write my children characters too independent. Unbelievably independent.
When this is addressed to my face, in person, as part of a dialogue (as opposed to a review or the like, where the social contract dictates that the author not respond), I usually counter with the notion that I don’t write any thirteen-year-old as more independent and world-wise than I was myself at age thirteen.
My mom worked a lot when I was a kid. She was a single parent from the time I was three and a half. When I was very young, we lived close to an extended family who filled in the gaps of my care, but when I was six, we moved to a northern border town (still in Michigan) far from our family, and when I was seven, we moved to a whole new culture entirely: the South in the 1980s. There were several successive tragedies in my childhood–divorce, the move, the bigger move, the culture shock, and more than that–that formed my personality, but each one also led to an increase of freedom and independence greater than some of my peers and certainly almost all children growing up today in America.
At the same time, completely unrelated to those tragedies (and I do use the term loosely now–they were tragedies at the time, but now I don’t know who I would be without them), my parents and family were fairly close adherents to “keep the kid close in babyhood, let ‘em roam later on” method illustrated in this article provocatively titled Why Parents Should Leave Their Children Alone. The article attempts to be descriptive, but ends up pretty prescriptive.
Regardless, it points out
The Alacaluf children of Patagonia fend for themselves early, using a shellfish spear and cooking their own food from the age of about four.
While not THAT independent, for certain, I was often left to finish frying up burgers or tend the soup pot, standing on a chair because I was too short to look into pots on the stove, from the age of seven. While my mom wasn’t even in the room. *gasp*
By the time I was thirteen, I very frequently handled cooking dinner from start to finish. It led to some epic dinner fails (some time well before the age of thirteen, I thought of coating burgers entirely in onion salt, and there was no one there to stop me; just a pissed-off mother who made me eat my whole serving. I surely thought through my spicing decisions after that. Sort of. Turmeric spaghetti sauce aside).
But it wasn’t all about single-mother expediency. When my parents were still married, I was allowed to roam the backyard (the acres of backyard) at will, as long as I didn’t cross any roads. I got stuck in a swamp and wailed for my mother until she came to save me. I found catkins of salix caprea with my dog and ran back to the house screaming, “I found pussywillows!” I stood in a field out of sight of my house, staring up at the blue sky looking for a plane that I could hear in the distance. And those are just the things I actually remember from those roaming times before I turned four–if I can remember those, I’m sure there were many more moments, unremembered.
I have no memory of feeling unsafe, unhappy, or scared during those times, or any of the others when I roamed the woods near our house in North Carolina. If anything, I was too fearless.
You would have to ask my mom how I was raised prior to that–if I was worn constantly, if she let me cry it out. I don’t actually know. I remember being seriously shocked when I was about 15, though, and she mentioned that she’d stayed home with me my whole first year of life. My mom’s career always dominated my schedule–and there was a time I couldn’t remember where I dominated her schedule? It was a revelation. And contextually, of course, it makes sense.
To cut a serious TL;DR short, though–too late–yeah, as a woman who has been step-parenting for sixteen years now (kiddo graduates from high school next month), I have a few issues with the article. Even as I read that article, nod and go, “Yes, of course.”
But what I truly appreciate about the article is this documentation of how independent children in some other cultures are. It illustrates more about child capability, and makes me think, if anything, I’ve undersold the independence and ability of Reveka in The Princess Curse, Tilda, Parz and Judith in Handbook for Dragon Slayers, and (soon), Sand and Perrotte in Mumblemumble*.
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*While Third Book is well underway for it’s 2014 release, it seems to be resisting all efforts at getting a title. I knew as soon as I stuck The Sundered Castle in my list of forthcoming works, it was doomed. But did I listen to my Internal Voice of Doom? No, I did not. So, whatever happens, my next book will NOT be called The Sundered Castle. FYI.
