My Wattpad Rants

Dead Parent

This might be a tad bit more serious than my previous chapters. Okay, this one not only bugs me, but I find it extremely offensive. Not every kid on this planet has a dead parent. Not everyone's dad fought in a war and was killed in action, and not everyone's mother died of cancer. 

Instead of doing this, why don't you have a kid's parent divorced? By saying this I mean absolutely no offense to those who have divorced parents, I'm sure it sucks. But that's much more realistic in today's world.

And when the people have a character who's parent is dead, they don't even portray it correctly. They only bring it up like once in the whole book, and they talk about it as easily as they hold a conversation about the weather. And even if the writer makes sure to convey how awkward it is for the child they often therefore leave out how the other person feels. A majority of the time the conversation feels just as weird for the person talking to the kid. People never know what to say, and try to change the subject as soon as possible instead of asking prying question after prying question as the stories on this website would lead people to believe. In fact a lot of people don't mention it as well because they'd rather just avoid the entire uncomfortable situation. 

A dead parent is not just something you should use to get easy sympathy for your character, because it's overused and sorta offends those of us who have actually had a parent died. My mom died when I was ten-I'll be sixteen in just a few more months-and I've never read a book that really portrayed the whole thing correctly. 

Having a dead parent sucks. Seriously. You think about them everyday, and it's sorta always in the back of your mind. It's not just something you can gloss over, and it has long-lasting effects. I go to a summer camp every year (Camp Kesem for the win) that's a free camp for kids who have parents with cancer. A slew of kids there have a dead parent as well, not just me, and it's really weird to see. A dead parent can cause huge mental effects on a child such as anxiety, depression, or other mental illnesses. 

If you're going to write a character who's parent has died, then please please please research. Look at support groups and what they say. Look at stories that are written by/about kids who are going through this. And use that information in your story to make it as realistic and as heart touching as possible. Now I'm definitely not saying that your book has to completely change to focus on this plot point, because that's not realistic either unless the parent literally just died. And even then it would eventually become subplot, because the fact is just that life goes on whether we like it or not. We can't dwell on these things 24/7, but we can't just gloss over them either.

Okay? Okay. 

Whew! That was heavy but it felt good to rant/talk about it. So, have you ever read or written a book involving one or more dead parent? Do you think it was done correctly, or would you change something about it? Let me know own below, vote if you liked what I had to say, and thank you a lot for taking the time to read this!!