Geek Parenting: What Joffrey, Jor-El, Maleficent, and the McFlys Teach Us about Raising a Family

INTRODUCTION

Little Kal-El, rocketing toward a new family on Earth as the world of his birth explodes behind him. Sarah Connor, haunted by the knowledge that her son must someday lead his people through a terrifying robotic future. Brave Gretel, facing the life-changing decision to grab her brother Hansel’s hand and escape from a kindly stranger whose gingerbread invitation has turned deadly.

Stories like these are gifts—and among the riches they give are examples that help make sense of the crazy world we live in. Hence this book, Geek Parenting, in which we seek wisdom, life lessons, and some much-needed humor from the parents and parental figures of geek culture’s most famous fictional characters.

Parenting is hard. It may not be stop the supervillain and save the entire universe from destruction hard. But it weighs just as heavy on our shoulders. Parenting is what brings us to self-help guides and propels us into conversations with other moms, dads, and guardians. Beyond advice about diaper brands and prom protocol, what are we looking for when we ask these questions? To know we’re not alone. To be reassured that we’re not the only ones afraid of screwing up our kids. To be reminded that even Wonder Woman’s mom made mistakes sometimes.

When trying to cope with the challenges of parenthood, we geeks and nerds have one advantage over other parents: an archive of fantastic stories about first contacts, epic battles, provocative ideas, and poignant sacrifices. Whether on the page, on the screen, in four-color drawings, or around a gaming table, these sagas have made us the people we are. And they will make us the parents we want to be.

The thing that parents understand, from Battlestar Galactica’s Commander Adama to Spider-Man’s Aunt May, is that even when the world is crumbling around us—whether that means the loss of a loved one or a massive Cylon attack on the Twelve Colonies—we still have these small people entrusted into our care. Not only do we need to shield them from laser fire, but we also have to help them learn to navigate the chaos. Like the wisest wizard or ablest captain, we try to teach them to keep their light shining bright. To fine-tune their reason and creativity, protect their Achilles’ heels, and master their strengths for whatever quest or trek lies ahead.

The parents in these stories live complex, tumultuous lives—on spaceships and doomed planets, in haunted houses and dark magical forests. Yet they find ways to love and care for their kids. They know that we can’t abandon the task of preparing our children to face the Big Bads of the world. Not if the universe is falling apart, not if cosmic duties and magical destinies demand our time and attention. We have no choice. It is among today’s kids that tomorrow’s heroes will be found.

A GEEK PARENT’S PERSPECTIVE

VALYA SAYS:

I think about this responsibility all the time because of my youngest daughter, who is gloriously terrifying in all her strength and stubbornness: first we help our kids to discover their power, then we teach them to use it for good. I think that’s one of the most important lessons. We all find our own ways to say it, to teach it. But it all comes down to Stan Lee’s famous paraphrase of Voltaire: with great power comes great responsibility. Sometimes we can teach our children that lesson by holding their hands. Other times, we need to summon the courage to step aside and allow them to make their own mistakes.

The family relationships I found waiting for me amid the stories of geek culture—superhero comics, sci-fi adventures, ancient Greek myths—have all become part of my toolbox as a parent. They give us models for how to teach compassion and discipline, strategies for dealing with heartbreaking decisions, ways to approach impossible situations and have hard conversations. Occasionally these characters show us how not to parent, like Coraline’s Other Mother. That helps, too. As a parent, you need as many points of reference as you can find.

Because when you’re a sleep-deprived mother of three living in an unfamiliar city with few family or friends nearby to help, you really do feel a little bit like an alien, and you take comfort in the tales of parents who have survived the destruction of their planet, or mothers who have taken on armies or hidden their children in strange worlds to protect them.

When your nine-year-old comes home upset that a classmate is being picked on, and she doesn’t know if she should risk getting bullied too by standing up for her friend, how can you not draw lessons from all the superheroes and fictional champions who fight for what is right? Sometimes being a good geek parent means talking with them; sometimes it’s knowing when to watch the right movie with your kid, or share the right comic book, to help them glean the wisdom on their own.

A GEEK KID’S PERSPECTIVE

STEPHEN SAYS:

My mom and dad are each a unique flavor of colorful, brainy weirdo. As a kid, I always loved that; I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t quietly delighted that my parents were the most interesting ones I knew.

Mom, a bookworm who grew up to be a bodybuilding champion, found early inspiration in the classic American comic book heroes. It was her enthusiasm that focused my young TV-watching habits on shows like Batman, The Adventures of Superman, Wonder Woman, and The Incredible Hulk. Dad, a briefcase-carrying bank executive with an earring, a Harley, and a shelf full of golden age science-fiction novels, plugged me into Isaac Asimov’s robot stories, J. R. R. Tolkien, Doctor Who, and far-out fantastical artists and musicians like M. C. Escher and Laurie Anderson. The two sets of influences met nightly after dinner, since our family meals together frequently segued straight into the 7 p.m. rerun of Star Trek.

In retrospect, I see that whether they’d consciously meant it this way, Dad was giving me lots of exciting stories of imaginative thinkers who figured out creative solutions to the universe’s problems, while Mom was giving me lots of exciting stories of morally brave outsiders who cared enough about their weaker neighbors to stand up against those who would harm them. The result was that, without ever getting dry lectures on any of these serious topics, I spent my childhood gradually developing the idea that the awesomest thing I could possibly be was a kind, smart, unique person who tried to make a difference in the world. Like Frodo Baggins. Or Lois and Clark. Or the Doctor.

AND SO …

Ray Bradbury once wrote that science fiction is the most important literature in the history of the world, because it’s the history of ideas, the history of our civilization birthing itself. What better way to draw parenting wisdom than by dipping into the creative continuum that encourages humanity to dream big, reach for the stars, and imagine societies of peace and equality?

We, your authors, are not child psychologists. We’re just two high-functioning nerds who’ve long charted our lives, and our families’ lives, by the never-ending fount of practical and useful geek wisdom we’ve encountered in the pop and not-so-pop culture that helped shape us into the adults we are today. In this book we set out to comb through geek culture, family by family—magical families, outer-space families, futuristic families, and superhero families—looking for as many moments of clarity and inspiration as we could find.

Not only did we become better acquainted with some unexpected depths in the favorite characters we grew up with—Trek’s Benjamin and Jake Sisko; The Addams Family’s Morticia, Gomez, and clan—we also discovered several amazingly inspirational new stories we hadn’t experienced. That’s the other use of this book we hope you’ll share: a guide to expanding your bookshelf and your video queue, as well as a guide to some of the epic, cosmic questions that are likely to present themselves during your journey through parenthood.

Leonard Nimoy, one of the brightest beacons of geek wisdom and compassion, passed away while we were writing this book. His iconic Spock is best known for the benediction Live long and prosper. We hope you will do that very thing, and we’d like to launch you into Geek Parenting with another of his quotes: There are always possibilities.

As we wake each day, ready or not to deal with whatever challenges may be involved with this planetary rotation cycle, that’s the core truth we try to hold on to. The future is never set in stone, and every young life marks a newer, fresher attempt at making sense of this mad, infinite universe we’re all a part of. And when you get right down to it, isn’t that really what having kids is all about?

Jake and Commander Benjamin Sisko teach us:

TAKE A BREAK FROM FIGHTING OFF BORG WARSHIPS TO PLAY BALL WHENEVER YOU CAN.

Where Star Trek: The Next Generation promised us a look at family life on board a Starfleet vessel, it was left to the follow-up series Deep Space Nine to actually deliver. Commander Benjamin Sisko and his son Jake might just represent the strongest, fullest, deepest father–son relationship ever depicted in onscreen science fiction—and, indeed, one of the richest ever seen on television.

The very first scene of the show’s very first episode shows the space battle in which Jake’s mother is killed. It’s an immediate grounding in the family-first soul of a father and husband to whom love is everything. As Deep Space Nine unfolds over the next seven seasons, the Siskos’ relationship is never hobbled by the sort of gimmicky plot points that Next Generation writers stuck Beverly and Wesley Crusher with (Hey, Mom, I invented a gadget that could destroy the ship!). Ben and Jake are allowed simply to be a working dad and his son living on a space station, and that is a beautiful thing.

Nowhere is this point better illustrated than in the pair’s love of baseball. The Siskos work in outer space, but they’re from New Orleans, the town where Shoeless Joe Jackson led the Pelicans to a pennant in 1910, and where Dazzy Vance struck out 163 batters in 1921. For Commander Sisko, tossing around a ball and collecting good old-fashioned trading cards with his son brings mellow relaxation amid the stress of trying to keep peace between alien races inclined to kill one another. Although the series focuses on the Bajoran-Cardassian-Dominion conflicts, the Ben-and-Jake moments that resonate are more personal: the baseball game they play against the crew of a Vulcan starship, or the passion for writing fiction that Jake inherits from his dad.

Theirs is an example we can all stand to follow. So many of us, whether single parents or committed couples, are working harder and longer to pay the bills. It’s maddeningly easy for any adult to get caught up in job demands, especially when these pressures start early in the morning and continue till bedtime. Benjamin Sisko, Starfleet’s greatest dad, reminds us that as important as the work is, there is something we’re doing it all for. The precious moments when we enjoy our children’s company are that something.

Thor and Loki teach us:

EVEN IMMORTAL GODS HAVE THE URGE TO PUNCH THEIR SMARTASS SIBLINGS IN THE FACE.