7 Children’s Books That Teach Parents It’s OK to Completely Ignore Your Children
We’ve been doing this parenting thing all wrong!
Parents, it’s a grueling life we lead. Today’s parents are more hands-on with their kids than ever before. And it is utterly exhausting. Many of us spend our days shuttling our kids between school, rehearsals, and playdates without taking even a moment for ourselves.
But maybe there is a better way. And who better to show us the way than the parents (or lack thereof?) in some of our favorite children’s books? Below is a collection of some classic children’s books that teach parents like me that we can lead satisfying, pleasant lives by completely ignoring our children.
1. Madeline
This is one of my all-time favorites. It’s the book that made me want to get an appendectomy as a child.
The thing is, I was always confused about Madeline’s custody situation. When I read the book as a child I assumed Madeline was an orphan and Miss Clavel was the kind-hearted nun who took care of all of those girls (in two straight lines, of course). But then there is that confusing part in the hospital about the dollhouse from “Papa.”
Some basic internet research confirms my suspicion: Madeline was not an orphan; she was in a French boarding school. And guess what? Her parents really had it figured out. It turns out you can ship your child to a foreign boarding school, and even if they need emergency surgery in the middle of the night all you need to do is find a dollhouse with overnight shipping on Amazon and voila! Your parenting duties are complete.
2. Goodnight Moon
This is a classic book that almost all of us have read at some point. But has anyone ever seen a parent in this book? It turns out if you’re a bunny-parent with a sizable home you don’t have to stick around at all.
This is especially true if there’s a “quiet old lady” living in your house who can tend to the fire and “whisper hush” from the rocking chair in the corner of your kid’s room while they sleep.
3. Henry the Explorer
This one is a lesser-known book that is a favorite bedtime read in my home. Aside from its beautiful illustrations and engaging story about a boy who gets lost in the woods, do you know what it taught me as a parent? If your son is ever missing in the middle of the night during a snowstorm and you live near a treacherous mountain, the men in your village will handle the search party if you can whip up some cake and a pot of coffee to feed them while you’re waiting to learn if your son will live or die.
It’s unclear if the father in this story is even part of the search party or just absent completely from Henry’s life.
4. Tikki Tikki Tembo
What child doesn’t love the rhythm of this classic Chinese tale? “Tikki tikki tembo-no sa rembo-chari bari ruchi-pip peri pembo!”
But you know what children may not notice from this story that I most certainly did when I read it aloud to my children? The mom is really terrible. She has a big preference for her first son, and she’s annoyed when she has to save either of her kids from drowning in a well. She is such a hands-off parent that she lets her two kids play next to a deep well on a dangerously steep Chinese mountainside, and then she gets visibly annoyed when she has to go help save both of their lives. But maybe she also has a little bit more time to herself than we do?
5. Blueberries for Sal
The mom in this book gets props for planning out such a fun day with her daughter. She cans her own berries, and she involves her kid in the process. She’s a long way from the mom from Tikki Tikki Tembo.
But at the same time, she spends hours on Blueberry Hill thinking a bear cub is her child.
6. Harold and the Purple Crayon
We all love Harold. But Harold has got to be maybe 2 years old. He’s wearing a onesie. And he just decides to “go for a walk in the moonlight?” Then he fights a dragon, sails across the ocean, makes 9 types of pie, falls off the side of a mountain, rides in a hot-air balloon, and constructs an entire city before he curls back into his bed and falls asleep.
Are his parents home? Do they even live in the same house as he does? Do they know his purple crayon allows him to draw his own fantastical worlds full of hazards like dragons and mountain cliffs? And if so, why do they leave Harold alone with his purple crayon?
Meanwhile, I spend an hour every night hand-delivering glasses of water and sitting outside my kids’ bedrooms because they’re too scared not to see me while they fall asleep. Maybe Harold’s parents have a better plan.
7. Eloise
This series takes the cake for showing us all how parents in the top 1% can structure their lives to avoid all parenting whatsoever.
Eloise is a 6-year-old girl who lives in the “room on the tippy top floor” of the Plaza Hotel with some pets and her “nanny,” whom she abuses constantly. Eloise’s mom is off traveling to Paris most of the time, and Eloise doesn’t appear to have a dad. Sometimes her mom sends for her to join her in Paris, but she lets the nanny do the dirty work of sitting next to Eloise and her dog and turtle on a 7+ hour international flight.
The 100% hands-off parenting method modeled in these books is not for the faint of heart. Some of the kids in these stories confronted dangerous situations in the absence of a responsible parent to supervise them (emergency appendectomies, blizzards, and near-drowning experiences in wells, to name a few). But I think these fictional parents are on to something. You don’t have to be physically present at all to be a good parent. Sometimes — and especially with the help of a “little old lady whispering hush” or a Miss Clavel — our kids do just fine without us.
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