Without a Map

For this paper, I was thinking about exploring how the role of parenting is portrayed throughout "Without a Map". Throughout the novel, Meredith Hall is continually vocalizing her regrets about giving up her baby. Before she even met Paul, she remarked how she failed as a mother because she was unable to protect her son. She was not there for him. She left him in the nursery so ultimately alone. Twenty one years later, when she meets Paul and finds out about his abusive father and scared mother, the wave of guilt runs over her even more heavily. She was unable to protect him from this fate, unable to help him through it, to be his caregiver.

Of course, this guilt and sadness all links back to her own parents abandonment and shunning of her when she became pregnant as a teen. When she needed their protection and love the most, they turned their backs. Hall's parents were not there for her. However, when their bodies begin to fail them and the end of their lives seem near, Hall makes an effort to mend their relationships. Neither her father nor her mother make an effort to apologize for turning her out. Her father seems nonchalant - as if seeing his daughter 2 times in 30something years was not a big deal. When Hall's mother was diagnosed with MS, Hall immediately became the caretaker - the protector. In her mother's time of need, she embraced the difficulty, the role of the protector.

Why did her mother and father push the idea of protecting their daughter away? Is Hall just instinctively a guardian for her loved ones? She seems to be hardwired to be there for her children (and her mother towards the end of her life). The way she acts so protectively of her children, whether she raised them or not, seems ingrained in her - instinctual. I would like to explore the actions and feelings Hall expresses throughout her memoir to see what qualities she seems to possess as a caretaker that her own parents lacked.

Any type of story with absentee parents - parents who are emotionally and/or physically distant - will be awesome secondary sources. I can look at Bechdel's "Fun Home" for example. Actually, that book would be perfect. Alison's parents unwillingness to accept her homosexuality (not to mention her father's) is a solid parallel. Instead of embracing her in a vulnerable and scary time of her life, her parents seem to dismiss it as a phase.