In a world virtually destroyed by endless wars, a nuclear holocaust, or a global pandemic, it is inevitable that even the most basic interpersonal relationships will be changed. This is very much the case in both Cormac McCarthy's novel, The Road and in Alfonso Cuaron's dystopian film, Children of Men. This essay will consider the effects of a global conflagration of some type on parenting, considering the two "new worlds" depicted in the novel and the film and arguing that parenting in such settings takes on an element of transmitting the skills needed for survival rather than the skills needed for social, economic, or political advancement.
The unnamed father and son in McCarthy's (3) novel live in a world in which "nights (are) dark beyond darkness and the days more gray each one than what had gone before." The father and son are endless travelers seeking a safe place where the young boy can grow to maturity and the father can survive long enough to achieve this goal. A constant refrain throughout McCarthy's (6, 107) novel is the repetition of the word, "OK," poised often as a question from the father to the son which brings an affirmative response from the son.
However, it is quite clear that neither the father nor the son are "OK." The son asks his father a telling question, "are we going to die?" and receives the answer "sometime, not now" (10). The relationship between the father and son is beyond intimate and the father's goal is to ensure that his son lives long enough to become an adult.
In scenes such as their discovery of a bunker left stocked with food and other goods, the father teaches the son that they cannot remain long in any one place and that when they take things left by others they must thank the people who have left them (McCarthy, 146-147). Interestingly, it is the son who believes that thanks are necessary but feels that he does not know how to express this. The father recognizes t...