My Mom is a Well-Rounded Character (Sydney Salter)

If you'd asked me in high school to tell you about my mother, I'd probably mention these things:

* My mom, a teacher at my high school, was featured in the year book on par with some of the popular cheerleaders. 

* More than once while driving my mom's car, an antique Porsche, I got stopped by police--so they could tell me to say "hi" to my mom.

* After a bad day my mom would buy a Pepperidge Farm coconut cake and eat it frozen. I didn't know they were supposed to be defrosted until I was in my mid-30s.

* Several times a week a mysterious caller would ring once and hang up as a signal to my mom. 

My mom was a CHARACTER! And her antics and personality complicated my life as a teenager trying to figure my own self out. Comp-li-cated, I tell you.

So here's my biggest pet peeve in YA novels: flat, predictable, cliched parents. Parents are people and that means that they're complicated and have their own, often vast, life experiences, and secrets. I never understand why writers don't use parents to highlight the complications in their characters' development.

Writers! Do better with your parents!