What makes a good mother?

There are plenty of elements, but there’s certainly not a specific recipe to being a successful, loving parent. It’s not easy for everyone and some people deserve the benefit of a doubt.

Does THIS look like she doesn’t care?

During the time we spent reading The Hunger Games trilogy and a long while after, we tried to figure out whether we loved or hated Mrs. Everdeen. She, the overworked but often considered saintly Hazelle Hawthorne, and the vicious Mrs. Mellark are the only living representations of motherhood we see throughout the story. Of the non-abusive two, Mrs. Everdeen is the “worse” mother, in the most basic sense, but it’s hard to tell whether or not she’s a bad mother…

We’ve heard the theory that after her husband died, Mrs. Everdeen stopped loving her children. Like “Oh, your dad is dead? BAM! Forget you then!” Or better yet, that she NEVER loved them, which the books don’t imply at all. We don’t buy it.

It could be the opposite, in fact– Mrs. Everdeen loves her family so very much that when the realities of poverty and death hit her in the wake of her husband’s passing, she’s crippled by it. She recognizes the state of the nation and the death of her husband and the inevitable death of her children, which would have been the case for both the Everdeen and Hawthorne families had one of their children not become hunters, no matter how many jobs each mother took on.

She saw the darkness in the world that would soon consume her family and because she loved her family so much, she couldn’t function at the very thought of it. When she realizes after months and months that they are not completely doomed, she begins to come out of her stupor. She recognizes that she has an emotional condition and, the book implies, begins to take medicines. However, we’re nawwwt talking psychiatrists and first-rate care. There’s still some demons in there that she can’t deal with all on her own, which is why she can’t always bring herself to actively participate in her children’s lives and ultimately decides to part from Katniss. It’s easy to assume that she did so for her own selfish reasons, but is it possible Mrs. Everdeen stayed away for Katniss’ sake, knowing she couldn’t be the support figure Katniss needed?

Expect Ghost!Mr. Everdeen ain’t much help here…

It’s hard that tell on what scale to rate a parent in Panem, because it’s not about things we know like cheering at sports events, taking us out for ice cream, and giving dating advice. You could say that supporting the family is the ultimate sign of love and by failing to do so, Mrs. Everdeen was a “bad” parent. But think of all the people who are out of work and/or dealing with mental illness today– Do they all not love their families? We think they still do.

There’s one thing we’ve learned from the plight of many literary mothers. We are super lucky to have moms who can only be described (obnoxiously) as DA BOMB!

Happy Mother’s Day To All the Moms Out There!
The Girl With The Pearl