Vulnerable Adults, Resourceful Children

Abstract

SUMMARY This article examines representations of parents and children in twentieth century American novels and argues that reading fiction reinforces and extends understandings of generational boundary dissolution found in psychological discourse. Literary representations suggest that parentification emerged as an operative element in portraying fictional families long before the term appeared in psychological discourse. Thus, rather than conceptualizing generational boundary dissolution as a recent phenomenon, or one that plagues pathological but not “normal” families, the emotional utility of children and revising of generational boundaries has historical and social dimensions evident in America's literature for two centuries. Fiction provides a safe domain for readers, especially educators and clinicians who work with families and children, to explore generational boundary dissolution without having to intervene.