Are Publishers Becoming Part of the Problem?

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about what factors influence changes in our reading tastes. Sometimes it’s simply being in different stages of life (adulthood versus childhood), or just being in the mood for a certain genre or style (for example, light and fluffy entertainment during a pandemic). But — in my case, at least — I’ve noticed a direct connection between a swing in publishing trends and my interest in continuing to read entire markets.

I do admit to being a finnicky reader. The difference, though, in how I feel about my usual go-tos now — as opposed to a couple of years ago — is in regards to how publishing targets children and adolescents.

I’ve posted here before about how, somewhere around 2015, most YA novels started portraying parents or parental figures as ineffectual at best, and downright neglectful or abusive, or just dead and gone, at worst. As a parent myself, who knows lots of other moms and dads, I find the notion that all teenagers are left to fend for themselves simply ridiculous, unrealistic, and even harmful to portray so frequently. Now this perspective has spread to MG as well — last year, fed up with YA, I tried a number of MG titles, in which…all the parents were dead, or totally neglectful, and…the tweens were left to fend for themselves.

On the one hand, I can appreciate that “coming of age” tropes often rely on a youngster being put in a situation where they have to behave with some maturity and not wait for the adults to save the day. HOWEVER. There is a massive, important difference between kids trying to take responsibility, either to help their families or friends, or to prove they’re growing up (usually it’s a combination), and the adults getting to them before it’s too late — and the kids being expected to do everything on their own.

I know we’re not supposed to talk about Harry Potter right now, but one of my lasting, enduring warm fuzzies for HP is the way Sirius and Lupin and the Weasleys tried to stop the kids from getting into trouble — and when they got in trouble anyway, the adults would come to rescue them. In the last 10 or so months, I’ve read easily half a dozen titles where protagonists as young as *12* were shown to be more competent and mature than ANY of the adults in the stories, and that stretches credulity just a little TOO far.

What is this trend in publishing? “See, kids, you don’t need your parents, you’re already smarter than them, anyway!” Isn’t that a pretty dangerous and socially irresponsible message to put out there? Along with being patently incorrect — as millions of teachers, pediatricians, and moms and dads will tell anyone who listens.

So, I’m beginning to wonder: If YA and MG are going the route of making parents unnecessary, what does this mean for the future of writing for children? Why are authors not allowed to present loving, caring, respectful parents for underage characters right now? Is the idea that all kids need to become much more “woke” than previous generations, so publishing will just focus on the non-racist, non-prejudiced, fully-inclusive messages that “have to get through”?

Well, let’s see: Most parents of kids who are presently in middle and high school, we’re GenX-ers or Millenials, and we were pretty “woke” to begin with. Many of us have already taught our kids not to judge other people based on race, gender, choice of spouse, nationality of origin, or religion and culture. But here’s the rub: We taught our kids these things. Children do not come into this world knowing everything of importance. How in the hell do book publishers think fictional youth are going to figure out the plot without guidance??

Doesn’t art imitate life? Or is the publishing business trying to edit how life works now?

If the latter is the case, I find this profoundly disturbing, as a parent and as an author. This is a trend I strongly believe we should all buck. We should speak loudly against it by buying books for our children that feature responsible adults, and avoiding the opposite. We should flail in reviews and on blogs about authors who portray positive child-parent relationships, and yell our displeasure about those who don’t.

Now, this is all “just” my advice, and my own view — and realistically, money overtakes common sense. So, those of us who retain common sense need to start hitting the industry where it hurts — the wallet. And if I seem mean for indicating we should be hurting authors, too, by adopting my plan — well, yes, in a way, I am actually advocating such a move. Because common decency is also an endangered species in our society — and I feel indirectly slamming parents who want their offspring to be safe and well-cared-for as “lame” and “old-fashioned” to be wholly indecent.

Could I be reading too much into this subject, or over-reacting? I really don’t think so. I’ve been observing this trend grow in recent years, and it’s increased my concern steadily. This morning I read a thread on Twitter about how individuals on the autism spectrum tend to formulate correct theories about impending calamities for civilization based on the patterns we recognize and analyze.

This is my thread. This is the pattern I see, and it is alarming.

And I’m not going to be quiet about it.