Bittercon: Rocking the Cradle- Motherhood in Science Fiction and Fantasy

[attackfish]

Motherhood holds an enormous place in modern society. Most women become mothers at some point in their lives. Yet even as more and more women become prominent as both sci-fi fantasy writers or as fantasy and sci-fi protagonists, fewer and fewer mothers are showcased in modern sci-fi and fantasy.

Part of this comes undoubtedly from the traditional cultural devaluing of women’s roles (such as motherhood) in the western society from which a lot of modern fantasy springs. Also, until recently, women were not themselves common in fantasy, and in much modern fantasy, women still find themselves only in limited roles. One of those limited roles was as either love interest of the hero (including sometimes mother of his children, which would necessitate the male protagonist being a father) or the hero’s mother. In this role, motherhood made the woman into a symbol of positive domesticity, something the hero yearns to return to, or a stifling domesticity that the hero wishes to escape from. This older expression of both femininity and motherhood is losing ground, but as it does, the number of mothers in sci-fi and fantasy has begun to shrink.

As more and more women become the stars of fantasy novels, will more and more of them be mothers? Or interact with mothers? At the moment, it doesn’t seem like they are. There are notable and popular exceptions (Bella Swan in the Twilight novels, for example) that show that there may be a market for that type of narrative, however.

Part of the absence of motherhood, especially among the protagonists of sci-fi and fantasy stories might lie in the appeal of such novels as an escape from the everyday world. Many women experience an enormous about of pressure to become mothers, or to value children, and consciously or unconsciously wish to escape the cult of motherhood in their fiction. Part of it is that motherhood sucks up so much time and energy that writing a protagonist as a mother presents a real challenge.

Then there is the evil mother. Fantasy especially partly has its roots in European folk tales, many of them have the mother as a menacing character, one of the enemies that must be faced and overcome.

Also there is Young Adult and Children’s sci-fi and fantasy, where the absence of protective parents, especially mothers, is a whole nother issue with its own reasons and purposes.

The question is, do readers and writers want to see more of motherhood? Do readers and writers want to see a change in how motherhood is portrayed, or is the way things are done now the ideal situation?

Written for bittercon the online convention for those of us who can't make it to any other kind, on a topic stolen from a panel at the 2010 Worldcon.

Comments

[marycatelli]

Very few protagonists are fathers, either.

There's always the little question of: if you're off on this quest -- who's looking after the children?

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

But there are loads of heroes who are the fathers/husbands of dead children and wives. I haven't seen many women in the same situation.

Also, it's more common the further back you go to have a hero who has a wife and children waiting at home. Then society determined that was irresponsible of him, and childless or bereaved heroes became the norm.

[kgbooklog.livejournal.com]

Fantasy with mothers as protagonists:

Cherie Priest, Boneshaker
Jo Walton, Lifelode
Patricia Briggs, Raven's Shadow and Raven's Strike (whole family on a quest)
Tanya Huff, Sing the Four Quarters (pregnancy rather than motherhood, I haven't read the sequels)
Patricia Wrede and Caroline Stevermer, The Mislaid Magician (book three in the series)
Steven Erikson, Memories of Ice (book three in the series, but many of the books have a sub-theme exploring a certain familial relationship)

The question is, do readers and writers want to see more of motherhood? Do readers and writers want to see a change in how motherhood is portrayed, or is the way things are done now the ideal situation?

I agree that motherhood (and family in general) is considered boring and mundane and gets in the way of the exciting bits. (I wonder what percentage of female authors are mothers.) I'm not especially interested in reading about young children, but I would love to see more married couples as protagonists.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

It's not just mothers of young children that are missing. Why don't more protagonists, male and female, have some kind of important relationship with their mothers? Dead fathers are much more likely to be plotline important or emotionally important in a story than dead mothers, and even when mothers are alive, they tend to be just sort of... ignored.

Admittedly, I'm writing a story where the protagonist is a teen mother who tends to dump her kid on her mother, with whom she has a very tempestuous relationship, so the issue is heavy on my mind.

Thank you for the list!

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Your story sounds intriguing--can you say how a fantasy element comes in (or does it)?

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

It takes place in a secondary world and said teen mother is half fish.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Wonderful!!

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

*blush* I hope it gets published some day so you can see it.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Me too! Please keep working on it and don't give up.

[zanzjan.livejournal.com]

that sounds really interesting!

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

*Blush*

[gategrrl.livejournal.com]

I don't mean to derail the discussion, but it's a problem in television media, as well. If a woman character becomes pregnant in a series, the child magically grows several years within a season, so the adult characters don't have to deal with all that Baby Stuff. (probably because the predominately male writers don't want to deal with it in their teleplays any more than they do in real life)

Sandra MacDonald wrote an entire book in which her female protagonist spent it in various degrees of pregnancy-this was possible because of time/parallel time line jumps, but there you go. Probably the one and only time I've read about a pregnant female protagonist who is still the center (or half of the center of the story). It was uncomfortable for me to read it, because it brought back ALL the discomfort of pregnancy. Brrr.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

Ah soap opera aging. To a lot of men, it probably feels like their kids grow that fast, because they don't spend that much time with them. One of the small number of things in Angel that I kind of liked was that they made that magical growing up of the child involved explicitly magical, and then no one in universe quite knew how to deal with it.

Oddly, I'm in the middle of writing an mpreg fanfic (about a non-operative trans man, at least he has a reasonable claim to all the right equipment for child-baring) and while I've been contemplating the appeal of mpreg for so many people, and I've been wondering (if given most fic writers seem to be girls) if it has something to do with us ladies wanting to portray the things we go through, and scare and intimidate a lot of us, like pregnancy and motherhood in fictin, and boy characters in canon just tend to be more interesting because of endemic cultural system.

[kgbooklog.livejournal.com]

Why don't more protagonists, male and female, have some kind of important relationship with their mothers?

You should take a look at Girl Genius (http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20021104) (which just won its second Hugo); the heroine's relationship to her mother is very important from volume 5 on.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

I keep meaning to read that, and then every time I decide to, I look at the size of the archive and weep in despair. I have a visual processing disorder. Webcomics and graphic novels are hell for me.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Ooh, ooh, pick me! Pick me! I'm writing a novel with a mother as a protagonist, and I've written a few short pieces with mothers as protagonists.

The mother in the novel has some problems dealing with the mundane world and isn't the most responsible person you could meet, but her kids mainly like her and she mainly likes them.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

Yay company!

How old is she and how old are her children?

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

In the framing story, she's 34 and the mother of children ranging in age from 17 to 1, but you dip back in time to when she was younger.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

So she had the first one at fourteen? That's a story I'd like to see. Is that normal in her world, or not?

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

At 17, right? (hold on, let me check: yeah 17)

Yes she did! And it wasn't normal, and it did mess her up.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

That's what I get for staying up all night.

*whistles* My heroine at least is surrounded by a society that sees having kids that young as normal.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Your story sounds *very* intriguing. A story in which it's a positive thing to have a child at a young age is cool. I remember a really moving NPR interview I heard about a young couple who had gotten married and started a family at 17. They had the support and help of their parents, and it had worked out well for them. I felt cheered by it.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

It's not so much that it's a positive thing. It's more that in a preindustrial society, it's common, the way having a kid in your mid twenties is in the modern west. And motherhood, aside from the complications actually rearing a child makes things enormously more complicated because of high politics. *shakes head*

[beboots.livejournal.com]

The only fantasy story (and now movie, I suppose) that I've read recently that involved an actual mother (and husband, and pregnancy, and children) as a main character was "The Time Traveller's Wife". The book, I think, portrayed miscarriage, pregnancy, the troubles of an absent husband, etc., in a very realistic way. And at lease women's issues weren't ignored in that one! ;)

But I agree with you in many respects; there are very few mother protagonists in fantasy. I personally would love to read more.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

But of course they call it "literary fiction" or "women's fiction" instead of fantasy, because it's so different. It's not like it has magical time travel or anyth- oh.

(mind, I got too creeped out by TTW to finish)

And you know what I have a mild obsession with.

[beboots.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes, the obligatory genre box all books must be shoved into. :P True.

I would highly recommend finishing Time Traveller's Wife. It's amazing. Granted, I cried at the end, but still, amazing. Maybe it's because I do so love those "reveal" scenes where people find out he can time travel. ;)

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

My feminist anti-child grooming filters won't let me. As I said, creeped me out.

[zanzjan.livejournal.com]

As a parent, I can definitely say being a mother makes it an awful lot harder to have any sort of interesting adventures -- at least of the sort that don't involve poop. Of course, that's in the context of our (my) current culture, which isn't really very supportive of parents, much less single ones.

Also, a big portion of fandom is, at best, ambivalent towards the idea and presence of children, and parts of it downright hostile. I've noticed the anti-child attitude creeping into SF/F with differing degrees of subtlety. (I read a book recently where the author dedicated large portions of the book to trying to show us how unlovable & horrible children are, for no reason in any way relevant to the plot, and sufficiently implausible/irrational for her main character that I as a reader couldn't interpret it in any other way than as a direct insertion of the author's personal pet peeve into the narrative. It was intrusive and clumsy enough that it didn't matter whether or not it offended me -- I won't be buying any more of that author's books again.)

In my limited experience, the more writing- and literature-oriented the convention, the less likely it is to have any sort of kid's programming (Readercon perhaps epitomizes this) with the exception of Wiscon -- and I can't imagine it's a coincidence that Wiscon is the standout AND the feminist SF con.

In addition to all the very good points you raise above, it seems to me that a lot of writers who aren't actively one side or the other of the "children are our future" versus "parasitic crotch-fruit" argument can't help but internalize some of the prevailing atmosphere of children not really having a place in SF/F literature or real-life community except as either a complication or an annoyance and, coupled with character-ageism (not a lot of middle-aged women protagonists running around, mothers or no) if you're still determined to have a mother as a main character you either end up with what must seem like an unnecessary complication to your plot, or you have to resort to a cliched "tragic past", or you have to have your character walk away from their children, which no matter how good the motive is something the vast majority of readers will hold against your character.

I *would* like to see more SF/F with radically different social structures and roles, not out of a specific desire to see more mom-characters (though certainly it'd be nice) but more because this is one of the real strengths of SF/F, to reimagine fundamental ways in which we could be different, and how that changes everything else.

creeping?

[marycatelli]

SF was quite proud of having forseen the population explosion and the problems it could cause. Demographic collapse? Some countries are already suffering it, and the world as a whole is expected to see its population go down with a century or two, but you'll never see a story where lack of children is a problem.

Though, OTOH, they can be an unnecessary complication. Many heroes lack parents and siblings for the same reason.

Re: creeping?

[zanzjan.livejournal.com]

well, okay, less creeping and more stomping in in jack boots and lobbing molotov cocktails about the place.

You do occasionally run into stories where lack of children is a problem because the race is dying out, but it's almost always framed in a "we only need them around because that's the only way to get more adults" way, rather than any sort of actual love/fondness of children for who and what they are themselves.

Now I am feeling motivated to write a story full of people with kids underfoot, just because.

Re: creeping?

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

The novel Fire by Kristen Cashore (of Graceling fame) actually does have a case where a lack of a child is a problem for a female protagonist on a purely emotional level. You find out over the course of the story that she had deliberately sterilized herself out of the fears that her extraordinary beauty and mind control powers would be passed on to another generation though her, the last possessor of them (the novel is in part a deconstruction of some of the more visible traits of Mary Sues). Meanwhile, she loves children and desperately wishes she could have one.

Go for it!

Re: creeping?

[zanzjan.livejournal.com]

soon as I finish the talking-space-squid story, I just may! (-:

Re: creeping?

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

talking space squids? Do tell!

Re: creeping?

[zanzjan.livejournal.com]

Margaret Atwood famously said that her work wasn't science fiction (despite having, yanno, alternate- and future-history dystopias) because it didn't feature "talking squids in outer space."

Now me, I love SF, even when it's very silly, even sometimes when it's very serious. But I didn't feel like I could call myself an SF writer until, y'know, I could tick that "Margaret Atwood would consider my work SF" box on my internal mental success checklist. So I'm writing a story with talking squids in outer space, and just in case that's still close to an ambiguous line, I'm throwing in some space ninjas for good measure. It's a world of fun to write. (-:

Re: creeping?

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

Ah Margret. Fight against the stigma, woman, don't reinforce it! you should be used to that.

I have a deep love for space opera. So what if it has nothing to do with real science? It's all imagination really, and I'd rather see some epic adventure and anthropological experimentation than technobabble anyway.

Re: creeping?

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

That absence of parents is especially prevalent in YA fantasy and Sci-Fi (and the topic of numerous discussions) and speaking as someone trying to write a YA fantasy novel with both decent parents and a teen mother as the protagonist, yeah. Boy does it ever make things more complicated.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

But it's not just the protagonists. Where are the protagonists who have relationships with their own mothers? Grandmothers? Friends who are mothers? Also, we have a lack of middle aged protagonists in fantasy and sci-fi in general, but what about protagonists with grown up children who can get along perfectly well without them?

I hang out in YA land mostly, where there isn't as much of that (because if you want to write for children and teens, you probably like them at least a little, even if plenty of teens are willing to believe anyone before puberty is an evil hellspawn) but I have noticed a strange tendency to have a character have a kid, and then his/her life is over as far as the story's concerned, and if there's a sequel, it's about said kid. Teen parentage does not happen in YA Fantasy and Sci-Fi.

Um, ick, Author Tracts.

I've been to one convention, twice, Anime Exbo, which used to be a big treat, because I would spend all week for two weeks beforehand getting a yearly battery of tests and it involved lots of shots (fifty or more a day) and lots of feeling really sick, and since we had to be in southern CA anyway for that, my parents let me drag them to that. So I have no real Con experience, but from what I've read and the complaints I've heard, the more elitist feeling the convention is, the less willing it is to accommodate disability and I haven't been paying as good attention, but probably the more likely it is to have other skeevy privileged stuff show up. And the more writing and literature oriented the con is, the more elitist it tends to be, which as a huge written fantasy freak, breaks my heart.

In Fantasy, especially with as common as inherited feudal structures still are, you would think children would be much more important given the sort of life or death political roles they played, especially for women. Jennifer Roberson, who calls the sort of genre she writes "dynastic fantasy" (and has her own problems, but don't they all) has the intermarriage and production of children play a huge role in her novels, and for an obsessive amateur historian like me, it was a breath of fresh air to read her (decades old) novels. it just made more sense.

Or we could do the cheep storytelling trick we've been using for male characters for years and "refrigerate" said child, and possibly a husband too (kill them off) to send the heroine on her adventure. Or kidnap the child, or endanger it some other way, or make the child the reason for the adventure. For example: young, mildy royal girl in a feudal world has a child, and there is general unrest in the country. Seeing she now has a potential heir, rebellious nobles want to set her up on the throne! or we could go the Terminator route and have a mother protect her prophesied child, or... Of course that presupposes feudalism as the only appropriate fantasy governmental structure, and no, but there are ways!

I agree. The current similarity a lot of modern worlds have to each other, reflecting back the status quo is not the sort of spec fic I signed up to read.

[zanzjan.livejournal.com]

If the opportunity ever presents itself I do think you'd enjoy Wiscon and feel comfortable there, which is in Madison WI over memorial day weekend. I drove there once (~1200 miles each way for me, ouch!) but now I have two toddlers so it's likely to be a while before I can make that trek again. (For the record it's just the travel that's now problematic, their babysitting/kid program is fantastic from everything I've heard.)

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

I hope someday to go. Right now I'm a poor college student, but someday!

Oddly enough, I'm not a mother. In fact, I'm unable to have children because of my illness. I can conceive, but attempting to carry a child to term would almost certainly kill me pretty quickly, plus my genes are crap. Actually, since short term birth control for different reasons are all unfeasible, I'm arranging for my own sterilization, which was why I remember that part of Fire so clearly. I have a pack of young cousins and nephews and I grew up with children all around and want children of my own, and when I came home from the preliminary appointment, I ended up breaking down while driving home. I found out when I was eleven that I would not be able to bear my own, but going through the process of getting my tubes tied really brings it home. Eventually I hope to adopt, after I've gotten my law career up and running.

[zanzjan.livejournal.com]

Ah, that's rough. I have a friend who just exhausted all her options that insurance would cover, and since she won't consider adoption (for reasons I don't really understand, but it's not my call) she's at the end of her road. It's been very hard for her. I had my own struggles with having kids, some of them very drawn out and emotionally wrenching (and all of them expensive as all heck) but I got there and I know that puts me in a different place.

All that aside, I'd have considered adoption -- and have days when I think I may still -- in a heartbeat if I wasn't a "bad candidate" by sole reason of being a single parent, and I have no doubt that I'd love any adopted child just as fully as any I popped out on my own. And, as has been said before, pregnancy can be kinda miserable. I was the labor coach for the birth of two of my friends' kids, and I gotta say the miracle of birth is a heck of a lot cooler as a bystander (for one thing, you're much less distracted) and I highly recommend taking any opportunities friends may offer to be involved.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

A lot of people don't want to raise "someone else's child" doesn't make sense to me, but one of the girls in my girl scout troop (we were 17) said that she could never adopt for that reason and I was blown away.

Wow. The closest I've ever been to any birth other than my own was the time the dog my grandmother was fostering had puppies. It was a very unusual experience for all concerned, because we're pretty fanatically spay/neuter. I'm kind of terrified I'd do what my dad did when he was at births and go white as a sheet and then have to convince the docs (or midwives, or EMTs) I don't need to be hospitalized.

We were actually having a terrible time trying to find a non-Christian adoption agency for when the time comes, being as I'm a bisexual Jew, and they likely wouldn't have anything to do with me, when a secular lesbian woman sets up right down the street from my mom's work. Obviously it's fate.

[amyraine.livejournal.com]

Thank you for linking me to this essay!

Since you mentioned good ol' Bella, I note that while she became a mother, her own mother was portrayed very unflatteringly, or so I hear. I haven't read the books so my knowledge of them is all second-hand.

I want to see more mothers as protagonists, but I'd be happy having more books/shows/films where the protagonists have strong mothers. They exist, but I always want more.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

Yes, she was. She was flighty and irresponsible, and Bella goes to live with her father, who doesn't parent her at all, and who she keeps house for, but that's okay, because bumbling dads are cool.

I read the first one, sustained myself thinking "When I finish I can tear this apart on my blog," and then I finished and couldn't stand to touch it long enough to critique it.

I want to see both. At the moment, I'm writing a protagonist who becomes a teen mother and has a close relationship with her mother. It's fun. Now let's see if I can get a publisher.

[amyraine.livejournal.com]

I hope you do!

Whether you do, or you decide to try self-publishing instead, let me know so I can go buy a copy.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

Thanks, I will.