Books parents Five Stories Featuring Highly Supportive Parents Encouraging the next generation of space pirates and superheroes… By James Davis Nicoll | Published on June 23, 2025 Photo by Suzi Kim [via Unsplash] Comment 0 Share New Share Photo by Suzi Kim [via Unsplash] As previously discussed, parents can present a challenge for authors. Diligent, prudent, living parents might well interfere with their children’s plans to set out on bold adventures. However, two recent incidents drew my attention to parents as facilitators1. In some cases, parents could have a legitimate reason for encouraging their children’s ambitions in ways that facilitate plot. Here are five sets of parents who supported their kids’ dreams and ambitions. Mrs. Nash Buck Henry’s Captain Nice (1967) Credit: NBC Superheroes have a tendency to be orphans. Police chemist Carter “Captain Nice” Nash (William Daniels) was an exception. Nash’s secret formula could temporarily imbue him with super-strength, invulnerability, and flight. However, whether timid Nash would have pursued a superheroic career on his own is an open question. Enter Carter’s mother, Mrs. Nash (Alice Ghostley2). Mrs. Nash was quite enthusiastic about having a superhero son, providing him with encouragement and a costume… of sorts. As Carter was firmly under his mother’s thumb, he could hardly say no. Some viewers might think this all sounds oddly like Mr. Terrific (also 1967). Both were attempts to cash in on the camp superhero success of Batman (1966). Both involved superpower-inducing chemicals, and both featured unlikely protagonists. There were some differences. Captain Nice’s formula provided invulnerability, which Mr. Terrific’s pills did not. Mr. Terrific lasted seventeen episodes, two more than did Captain Nice. I didn’t say they were successful attempts to cash in on the camp superhero success of Batman (1966)3. Cordelia and Aral Vorkosigan Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan Saga (1986–ongoing) The Vorkosigans’ investment in Miles Vorkosigan’s happiness and well-being predated Miles’ birth. Injured in a prenatal chemical attack on his mother, Miles was certain to be born with severe impairments… on a planet whose culture mandated abortion and infanticide for broadly defined “mutants.” Miles’ parents rejected this local norm. Throughout Miles’ life, Cordelia and Aral support and encourage Miles, even in pursuit of career goals, such as military service, where success is unlikely. When presented with Miles’ unauthorized clone Mark, the couple support Mark as well. It could be argued that the greatest challenge Miles’ parents grapple with is not Miles’ physical issues, but rather his exuberant personality combined with a marked tendency to wander into plots. In fact, it’s possible that even if there’d been no chemical attack, Miles would have been sufficiently challenging that his parents would make this list. Ririka KatoYūichi Sasamoto’s Miniskirt Space Pirates (2008–2014) Teenager Marika Kato is astonished to discover her father is none other than Space Pirate Gonzaemon. Or rather, he was, as Gonzaemon has died. Furthermore, he was more of a privateer than a pirate. Among his legacies to Marika, his Letter of Marque. As new Letters of Marque are no longer granted, Gonzaemon’s colleagues on the privateer starship Bentenmaru invite Marika to become their new captain. Privateering could be dangerous. Worse, it could imperil Marika’s grade-point average. Nevertheless, Marika’s mother Ririka encourages Marika to embrace her legacy. After all, Marika could get run over the next time she crossed a street4, so why not pursue an exciting career? I suspect the fact that Ririka used to be “Blasters Ririka, Space Pirate” factors into Ririka’s risk assessment skills. On the other hand, Yukari Morita’s mother used a similar argument in Rocket Girls, so maybe “better to risk death doing something interesting because everyone dies,” is just a popular philosophy among light novel, manga, and anime parents. Urano Motosu/Myne’s parentsMiya Kazuki’s Ascendance of a Bookworm (2013–2017) Left to her own devices, steadfast bookworm Urano would have spent her entire life—which turned out to be much shorter than Urano expected, thanks to insufficiently secured bookshelves—with her nose buried in a book. Her single mother did her best to encourage Urano to expand her horizons by dragging Urano with her into a long series of brief-lived hobbies. Crushed by her beloved books, Urano wakes in the body of frail young Myne in a secondary fantasy universe. Urano’s host body’s parents are as doting as her lost mother, and the parental figures who eventually replace them are just as supportive. Lucky for Urano, whose obsessive focus on books (and the fact her new home does not appear to have them) blinds her to obvious danger. One of the sadder moments in the series involves Urano’s belated realization of how much she owed her birth mother. By the time Urano has her revelation, Urano has died and been reborn in another universe, which means she will never be able to thank her mother. Typhon CutterMadeleine L’Engle’s The Arm of the Starfish (1965) Carolyn “Kali” Cutter is an aspiring femme fatale preying on weak-minded do-gooders like Adam Eddington, Calvin O’Keefe, and the rest of the O’Keefe family. She’s pursuing profit and general skullduggery. Kali’s opportunities to embrace global villainy might appear limited. She is, after all, only sixteen. Enter Kali’s father Typhon Cutter. Typhon is something of a villain himself. Rather than discourage his daughter from pursuing her vocation, he recruits Kali into his bold plan to purloin the secrets of human regeneration from O’Keefe. Not great from a moral perspective5, but definitely supportive. To be honest, Typhon’s big plan (sell O’Keefe’s research to Red China) is a bit of head-scratcher. China in 1965 wasn’t rolling in cash. Weren’t there wealthier prospects? It may be Typhon wasn’t the smartest villain around, which would explain why he apparently never advised Kali to stick to swimming with metaphorical sharks, rather than the real article. Om nom nom. No doubt I’ve overlooked many worthy examples (even discounting the ones I mentioned before). Feel free to mention your personal favourites in comments below.[end-mark] The first was a mother who spent four hours keeping her easily-bored, extremely energetic toddler happy without the adorable tot bothering the other patrons in the theatre where I work. This was a task on par with climbing K2 sans equipment. The second was a young person I overheard on mass transit describing to her friends how her parents’ reaction to her coming out of the closet was to produce a list of and orchestrate a series of dates with suitable young women. ︎More famous as Bewitched’s Esmerelda. ︎Living as we do in an age of endless remakes, may I point out that failed projects offer more room for improvement over originals than wildly successful classics? ︎Marika lives in the Tau Ceti system. It’s not clear if Truck-kun remained on Earth or emigrated to the stars. ︎Although where would heroes be without villains to oppose and temptations to resist? ︎The post Five Stories Featuring Highly Supportive Parents appeared first on Reactor.