Twilosophy: Charlie & Renee – a parenting cop out?

Dear Twilosophy Majors,

My good pal nopaperkg has just recently begun reading Breaking Dawn and on our road trip back from the holiday break she turned on her copy of the Breaking Dawn audiobook. While the audiobook version is a whole ‘nother post for a different day suffice it to say it got me thinking again about the saga through new eyes. Something about hearing a woman imitating a man’s voice or maybe hearing the only book in the saga I’ve read once being dramatically read to me gave it new life. And it brought up some of my old questions I had that started back in the Twilight book. We listened to the chapter of Breaking Dawn where Charlie sees Bella for the first time since she’s been changed into a Vampire. He tells Bella that the less he knows the better. And so that got me to thinking…

Is Charlie’s (and for that matter Renee’s) parenting style a cop out? Now obviously, I’m not a parent, and who knows if I ever will be one, but I know from having a couple of really good parents of my own that none of this shiz Bella tries to pull would NEVER have flown. The “less I know, the better” would NOT have happened in my house. Especially if I supposedly came down with some tropical disease on my honeymoon that required me to go to the center of disease control. RIGHT. My mom would have beat me to the center before I ever got there. And the whole Renesmee is our maybe daughter/maybe niece who grows at an unnatural rate and has a betrothed that is a werewolf on the side. Nope, don’t want to know anything about it, TMI! YEA RIGHT.

Hey baby, I'll maybe see you in 2 years when you graduate. Oh wait, I won't.

Let’s take it back to New Moon. Had my boyfriend dumped me and left me in the woods which would lead me into a downward depression spiral my mom would have been on the first plane out. Especially if months went by where I became a zombie with night terrors and a penchant for dangerous after school activities. Is Charlie not sharing the whole truth with Renee? Is she too busy in Jacksonville with Phil the minor league baseball player to care about her child who is hurting?

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