Where are the covertly toxic families in children’s books? A guest post by author Christina Wyman

I’ll never forget the first time I read Shannon Doleski’s popular debut, Mary Underwater (2020), about a child scientist forced to contend with her violent father and enabling mother. I wasn’t particularly struck by how the father in the book behaved – there is now a plethora of stories that deal with domestic abuse and traumatic family dynamics.

What stood out to me about this story was the mother’s choices. How it was the mother who instigated the emotional gymnastics required to justify the father’s abuses, only to then encourage Mary, her thirteen-year-old daughter and the novel’s protagonist, to do the same. It was the insidiousness of these interactions that stood out to me, punctuated by how the mother, at times, gently invalidated Mary’s emotional responses to her father’s abuse.

Most scenes between mother and daughter were so short, so fleeting and potentially easy to miss as to almost be clandestine. Indeed, it’s easy for minor plot points to be overshadowed by larger threads depicting such extreme and obvious abuse.

But these smaller moments are also deceptively significant. Mary’s father was physically abusive, that much is clear. But what holds the potential to be lost amongst readers is how covert psychological abuse and neglect, as with when a child is gently being taught to manage a violent caregiver versus being protected from him or her, can be just as devastating.

I am a writer for children, and I do not think that there are enough middle grade books that realistically portray covertly toxic family dynamics.

I have shared this opinion before, and admittedly received some pushback. Those who objected to my opinion pointed me in the direction of children’s books that delve into violence, abuse, and objectively difficult and traumatic situations that children experience at the hands of their families. I must emphasize that highlighting such realities in children’s literature is not only important, but necessary. With such stories, many children are given the opportunity for their lives and experiences to be reflected back at them – a chance to remember that they’re not alone. That somebody ‘gets it.’

But such narratives, while important, are not the kinds of stories I’m talking about.

I am a lifelong student of psychology and a career educator. As a former middle school teacher, I have firsthand experience working with school counselors and administrators on accommodating students who, for example, had a parent forcibly removed from the home, or were dealing with caregivers who struggled with Substance Use Disorder (SUD) that eventually lead to legal difficulties. It is well established that such experiences hold tremendous potential to impact children who grow up in such households, for decades to come. In certain ways, I am that child still contending with the ravages of intergenerational addiction, emotional neglect, and extreme family dysfunction.

Because of my own upbringing, I am more so fascinated by the deceptively significant moments that also shape a child’s life. I have long thought of my own experiences as ‘death by a thousand cuts’: The kind of childhood where caregivers are not verbally abusive per se, but are emotionally invalidating, neglectful, and dismissive (the threat “Stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about” comes to mind). I grew up in a household where I was responsible for anticipating and regulating adult emotions, long before being taught to manage my own. Mine was a deceptively common type of family: one in which siblings are at war with each other and parents too wrapped up in meeting their own emotional needs to be all that concerned with whether their children are getting along or adjusting well to the world around them.

As with Max, the main character in my debut middle grade novel, Jawbreaker, my very first set of bullies consisted of family. Some of the things that occurred in my home, at the hands of my caregivers, would – by today’s standards – be considered repugnant. My upcoming novel, Slouch, also consists of a main character who deals with a certain level of emotional neglect from her parents. She is tasked with coming into her own without much psychological support from those closest to her. In certain ways, her emotional well-being is an afterthought.

Covertly toxic families often look good on the outside. All physical and primary needs are met, and absolutely nothing is amiss to the naked eye. Covertly toxic families are not obviously unstable, but such families often provide a child’s first opportunities to feel badly about themselves, and is a harm that can take decades to unravel (ask me how I know). Children who come from such families might get good grades and have a lot of friends – but, like the main characters in my novels, and much like my child self – their sense of self crumbles first and foremost under the weight of the endless criticism and invalidation that they experience at home, no school bullies or social media required.

I am simply advocating for more middle grade books that portray families that fall on the vast spectrum between ‘good enough’ and ‘wildly destructive.’ My own family fell into both of these categories and everywhere in between, often in the same week. Recognizing that there is a broad range of household experiences, and that there are many children for whom their caregivers’ best isn’t always good enough, will go a long way in helping swaths of children recognize themselves in the literature they read.

Meet the Author

Christina Wyman is a USA Today bestselling author and teacher living in Michigan. “Slouch,” her highly anticipated middle-grade novel, is about a tall girl navigating friends, family, self-esteem, boundaries and the terrifying realization that her body no longer seems to belong to her. It is available wherever books are sold, including local independent bookstores, starting in October 2024. Her debut novel, “Jawbreaker,” a middle-grade book that follows a seventh grader with a craniofacial anomaly, was named one of Publishers Weekly’s best books of 2023. (Photo credit Trevor Hawks)

Filed under: Middle Grade, Middle Grade Fiction, Mind the Middle, Mind the Middle Project