The Woods and Parental Protection

Posted by Jerry Lopper Jun 29, 2007

I read lots of non-fiction books for personal development. I also read lots of mystery stories for entertainment, and just finished Harlan Coben's The Woods. The blurbs on many books include the tribute that "you won't want to put this book down." I seldom find that to be the case, but The Woods did that to me. Coben's best book yet, in my mind, and I literally couldn't put it down without effort.

But this isn't a review article. Sandy Mitchell already reviewed The Woods for Suite101.

A strong sub-theme in Coben's latest book is the extent to which a parent will go to protect a child. Although the parents in this story may seem to have gone to great extremes to protect their offspring, I often see similar behaviors reported in the newspapers.

I can recall right off the top of my head, a mother helping her son, who was accused of murder, escape from prison. Another, a mother helped her son dispose of the body of someone he killed. These are extremes, but they call our attention to this very strong protective instinct a parent has for a child.

What's that got to do with personal development? Maybe this...The next time we're inclined to criticize a parent's shortcomings, or blame a parent for our current personal situation, we should consider the times this same parent showed up to protect us.

Yes, there are the other extremes--parents who abandon and abuse--but for the most part parents are doing their very best at a difficult job. Sometimes we forget that.