Stop Killing Moms

We all know orphans are popular with writers, just take a look at pretty much any Disney movies. However, recently there has been a trend, especially in video games to only kill off the mother or maternal figure. In games like The Walking Dead, God of War, and the award winning The Last of Us, players take on the role of a father or father figure working alongside and teaching an AI controlled child character. Sometimes you can take control of the child, but most of the time the player only controls the parental figure throughout the course of the game.

While I very much like this new sub-genre of game style, which I shall dub “parent-child” games from now on, there is a significant thing missing from this new style. The character development showable in these games is great, as are the witty interactions that can be written and the chances to hear characters’ bouncing thoughts off each other and communicating lore. However, I must ask, where are the moms?

Now, at first the answer to this is obvious. The mothers or mother figures are killed off or absent to create greater angst for the main duo. However, the question becomes more troubling when you look at the reasons behind why the mothers are eliminated from the experience.

It seems most likely that the father-child option is the most common due to the masculine stereotype of men not being the primary child raiser or not being good at taking care of kids in general. For this reason, people likely believe that having the mother taken out and giving the responsibility to the father, can give the creators more chances to infuse even greater angst and character development for the hypermasculine main character. However, this still plays into and off of masculine stereotypes without allowing for the father or father figure to already be good at parenting. Additionally, it enforces the feminine stereotype of women being innately good at childcare and biologically programmed for it, which I know from firsthand accounts to not be true. No one gender, sex, or race is innately prepared to raise a child, especially not alone. This thinking is a leftover of thinking in the style of biological essentialism.

We have awesome female gaming protagonists that can stand alongside their male counterparts, so why not give them a parental role as well. Imagine the sorts of variations on the parent-child games that could be made. A single mother providing for her family in a post-apocalyptic environment, making tough and heartbreaking moral decisions for the sake of one’s kids and dealing with the loss of one’s other half in a world that sees you as weak. How about a game where you trade off between controlling the mother and the father, or even play as the child learning two styles of combat from your parents. This family dynamic is rife for exploration in the field of video games and I would personally love to see what creators can imagine for an ever-broadening age range of gamers.

--Brian Lazarow