Question of the day –
Assuming you’ve encountered a book where the main character’s parents actually remained alive, whose parents would you most like to have had growing up?
Note: aunts and uncles raising the main character as their own do not count.
I want to say the Weasleys, but I think I’d grow impatient with Molly and her overbearing ways. I’d also want Atticus Finch as my dad, but again… I’m without a mother. What gives, fiction? Why are your moms unacceptable to me? Can I borrow Joyce Summers even though she’s not literary? Mother Goose, perhaps? Sigh.
What say you, friends?
Sarah LaPolla 
Assuming I can't pick Lorelai Gilmore, since we're talking books here… I'm going with the parents from the Little House on the Prairie books. Ever since the dad let Laura get away with jumping on that hay pile, I loved him. 😉
LikeLike
Ned and Alice Wakefield, of course, from the Sweet Valley High series. 😉
LikeLike
Mom: The Fair Gwen from FREAK THE MIGHTY – one of my favorite books of all time.
Dad: Atticus Finch. There could be no other.
LikeLike
The Weasley's are cool. I've never had brothers and sisters so it would be a nice change to not be the only kid around. Then again, Charlie Swan would be better in my teen years. If Bella can date a vampire under his nose, imagine the freedom a regular teen could have.
LikeLike
That's a tough one–so many I definitely WOULD NOT WANT. Like Cyd Charisse's parents, from Gingerbread. Nope, don't want them. Don't want Deanna Lambert's parents, from Story of a Girl, either. But I guess if you go way back…Katherine's parents in Judy Blume's Forever, were great. Really supportive on her whole first love experience. Totally into her little sister's dreams, too. Gave Katherine her space, and let her love in her own way. Yep, that's my pick…great question though. Had to go to the vault for this one! 🙂
Jill (whatchareadingnowgirl)
LikeLike
I read A Wrinkle in Time like in the third or fourth grade. Don't even remember what the Murrays are like. I've been reading alot of YA lately and the parents are either flawed, dead, or in comas. This is a tough question.
LikeLike
Wow, this is tough. Can I cheat and agree with The Careerist? The Murrys are awesome.
LikeLike
I'm having the same issue as some of the other posters in coming up with a set of fictional parents (other than the Murrays) where both parents are still together and alive. I'm seriously wracking my brain trying to come up with any book I've read, recent or otherwise, where that's the case. Usually at least one of them is dead or out of the picture for some reason.
LikeLike
I am having a far harder time than I should coming up with a character who has two living parents, let alone two I'd actually want related to me. Mentally scrolling through the heroines of my childhood and teen years most of them seem to have a dead mother at the very least!
However, if I could borrow a teen's parents from a film I would definitely want Emma Stone's parents from “Easy A”. Because they are awesome and Hilarious and who doesn't want to be Stanley Tucci's daughter!
But as for books I'm having trouble coming up with a whole family unit… Although if I could mix and match within a same author, I'd probably take Bobby Bishop from Ally Carter's “Heist Society” as my Dad and Rachel Morgan from her Gallagher Girls series. With a thief father and a spy mother I'd be pretty much guaranteed an action packed childhood of awesome right?
LikeLike
Atticus would be a great dad. Marmee from “Little Women” would be the best mom on the planet.
LikeLike
Man this is tough… The Murrays from A Wrinkle in Time were my pick but they're taken. I've been reading a lot of YA lately so all my choices right now are either distant, insane, absent, or dead.
LikeLike
Ma and Pa Ingalls would have been nice parents…except for the whole moving all over the country bit.
LikeLike
I love the mom and mom's boyfriend characters in WHEN YOU REACH ME.
Veronica Mars's mom sucks but her dad is so awesome that it almost makes up for it!
Still both one parent. I'm trying to think of others…
LikeLike
The Joads from Grapes of Wrath. Real people, dedicated to their family, never quit. My kind of folks.
LikeLike
I liked the parents in Suite Scarlett and Scarlett Fever by Maureen Johnson. I liked the whole family dynamic, in general, in those books.
LikeLike
I've given this some serious thought and cannot come up with two living fictional parents that I would like to have. It just seems that books in which the parents remain alive, they are also the source of problems. For example, I'm currently reading A Tree Grows in Brooklym, and neither of those parents seems ideal.
On a personal note, I grew up with a mother much like Molly Weasley, the trouble being that she still Molly Weasleys me and I'm 29!
LikeLike
I just remembered Adama was apparently a terrible father (Lee), but he was GREAT with Starbuck, so.
LikeLike
I'd want Laura Roslin as my mom. Before she got crazy. Which would mean William Adama would be my dad? If everything hadn't gone to crap…
LikeLike
But . . . Joyce Summers dies! That'd suck.
Seconding Mr. and Mrs. Murray. The Thanksgiving in A Swiftly Tilting Planet has burned itself into my mind as what family holidays should be.
LikeLike
Mr. and Mrs. Murray from A Wrinkle in Time. They were great.
LikeLike