Literature Lessons: Familial Fallouts

Often there are lessons to be learned from literature. For these "literature lessons" I will be pulling ideas from my own book to discuss in detail. This first one focuses on Adam. If you haven't gotten a chance to read Island Whispers, Adam is the main character merperson. He is sweet and kind. He's the adorable baby brother and the curious child. He also is cursed with siren singing. It is because of his curse that he is isolated not only from mer-society but his family.

That's the thing. Families are complicated. Today even more so. If you google "the modern family," well you'll actually get the TV show, but if you go past that, you'll find other articles about modern families in general. But, honestly, you'll have to go more than ten clicks. So I pulled my research from a more reliable site. The NC State library database.

Single parent families are becoming more common. Although most children live with two parents, 69% according to the United States census bureau in 2016, 23% of children live with a single mother. Now Adam's case is special because he lives with a single father which is at 4% in the United States. Not many children live with just their father and usually the circumstances are extreme. In this instance, Adam's mother has died years earlier because of an accident with Adam.

A Russian study found that children of single parent families have low sociability and often their parents express irritation toward their children. This is not every single parent family, but it seems it was a high enough statistic in Russia. Adam's father is often critical with him and swift to deal out his irritation when a rule is disobeyed. The whole family was banished along with Adam so perhaps you could reason that his irritation is justified. It depends on what you believe the role of parents in the family dynamic.

In Adam's case, his father is his protector. His father is afraid of what some of the merpeople will do to him. Banishment means isolation. In the past, those with the siren singing curse were often killed. The merpeople were afraid of anyone with that power. It could be used for evil, because anyone listening to it could be controlled. This is why his father is strict and tries to protect Adam. Children don't usually understand the reasons for their parents actions, but it is my intention to show that sometimes parents have some justification. However, they don't always show it well.

Adam's story with his father is about reconciliation. He and his father have had to deal with a lot of things, but there is a lot of love as well. Their perceptions of each other are wrong because they have been assuming different things. The hope is that by the end Adam and his father have fallen into a place of understanding and that their relationship will improve from there. But, as in real life, these things rarely play out so simply and it is a long road to a good relationship - a whole lifetime in fact. It takes effort from both sides and so we'll just have to see how Adam's relationship with his father evolves and whether they can improve it.