Every child has a unique and impactful relationship with their parents, or lack thereof. However, we can somehow often times draw parallels between the dynamic of parent-child relationships within semi-conventional families, and/or the perspective that we as observers have on these relationships. Both Nordan and Bechdel focus heavily on these types of relationships that their characters share, and offer their own perspectives on them as well as the correlation between these relationships and the development of the impacted character.
In both novels, Music of the Swamp and Fun Home, the protagonist at the beginning of the story is a child. Sugar and Alison have very little in common except that they belong to troubled families that each have their own dark and/or personal secrets. As children, these characters alike are unable to recognize the eccentricity of their living environment; Sugar, for example, contemplates the actions that he observes of his father, whether it be his chronic drinking habit or pouring and refilling glass after glass of water. Likewise, Alison struggles to understand the behavior of her father, as he
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She seems to believe that, although children have no way of preventing or avoiding the impact that their parents have on them, there are ways in which children can choose different lifestyles. Overall, according to Bechdel, children strive to achieve a less damaging lifestyle than that which their parents may have led, and can be successful in doing this. Early in her novel, a young Alison expresses that when she grows up, she wants everything in her house to be made of metal, due to her father’s incessant decorating and renovating, which tormented her younger years. In Nordan’s novel, Sugar’s future can be seen as unavoidable, however, Bechdel describes her experience of making different choices than her parents, and following a different path than that of her