What to do with the parents when writing for kids

I didn't read the original thread, but how about sending one off to military service?

If it's not a contemporary piece, how about just having the MC have lots of siblings and a busy mother who doesn't keep track of them all?

Unless the MC has overnight adventures. Then, well, mom would be pretty neglectful.

Well then what about neglectful parents? Both are high powered lawyers who don't get home till 7 at night, and then they work at home all evening.

For a contemporary book, I think it's quite realistic to have two parents who work all the time. Growing up, it seemed like I always had a friend or two whose parents were never around -- upper-class kids' parents often had to travel for work, and lower-class kids' parents had to work two jobs, or work the second or third shift or something like that.

Plus, there are a lot of single-parent families these days. If Mom or Dad is totally gone and doesn't send child support, the other parent might work overtime to bring in some extra cash.

My best friend in 4th grade was the only child of divorced parents. Her dad had remarried and lived elsewhere, so my friend lived with her mom. Her mom had, shall we say, a very busy dating life and was never at home when I went to my friend's apartment for sleepovers on Friday or Saturday night. I think the worst thing my friend and I did was order a lot of take-out food on her mom's dime. But there was a lot of potential for trouble there.

KILL THEM!!!!!!

And don't spoil Harry Potter. There are like, two people in the world who haven't read it ya know. And I'm one of them.

On a more serious note, I think work is definitely the best option here. Everyone works, and a lot of people really do work away from home, especially in an age where no one can afford the houses their living in, it seems.

I have a lot of working parents, a lot of dead parents, and a lot of parents who are important and present in the story.

You can also just throw the kids in school--no parents there.

I'm reading Harry Sue right now, which puts both parents in prison.

That works.


But yeah, people work now mostly. Lots of kids gotta deal with that. I did that with my YA, it'll definitely work with MG.

for contemporary, the divorced parents who lose track of what happens in between the two houses certainly works. As a teacher, I don't know how many times I've seen kids sitting around after school because the aunt/grandparent/neighbor who was supposed to pick them up---forgot. So a character could slip away.... True story: we had a first grader whose aunt was supposed to take him to school. He screwed around, wouldn't get ready, so she said, Fine, I'm leaving, tell your mom to take you when she gets out of the shower. Well, the kid tried walking to school. Got picked up by the sheriff two hours later, about three miles from school in the wrong direction....

We stayed at a B&B a while ago, and heard a fun little story from the owner about a couple who had left their eight-year-old child there unnannounced. When said owner was chopping firewood with a chainsaw. He worried the parents would never come back, but they did, late that night.

I read about the first 20 pages of the first book in the first "Left Behind: The Kids" book, it was SO bad I couldn't even read far enough to find out what happened to the parents. But seeing how "good" they were to the kid who was narrating (but he hated his parents, no wonder he was left behind!), making him go to church and all, my guess is they were taken away from their parental duties to receive their Great Reward.

Here are some ideas--the problem being, they've already been done.... Gregor the Overlander by Suzanne Collins, he falls through a heating vent into an underground world; The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan, he goes to "summer camp" but it turns out to be a training camp for the children of the Greek gods. And the Digimon series, they get sucked into an alternate internet reality.... Field trips are convenient and plausible ways for kids to escape--my 8-year-old wandered off at the county fair just last week....

Both my kids have traveled by airplane as unaccompanied minors. Lots of potential for adventure. Distracted attendant--kid slips away during a plane change, missed connection, parent/adult doesn't pick kid up at arriving airport. There are fantasy/scifi possibilities, too, using a time rift/portal device, for example.

Hmmm--the germ of an idea. . .