History AdultsAreUseless / Literature

* Discussed in Cameron Chaney's ''Autumncrow High''. As an homage to 90s young adult horror titles, naturally the adults are going to be worthless in the face of the supernatural horrors that've gripped the town for over a century. Teen protagonists Bailey and Melody both note at different points how the teens and children are the only ones truly aware of what Autumncrow is like, but even they can easily fall into the apathetic haze right after someone they knew is brutally murdered (which horrifies them further). Melody especially notes that you would think Bailey's older brother, who is now employed as a police officer, [[spoiler:would be far more worried about his sister going missing.]]

* DiscussedTrope at the end of ''The Case of the Silver Egg'', by Desmond Skirrow, when one of [[YouMeddlingKids Those Meddling Kids]] who've found the KidnappedScientist (falsely accused of having defected with the eponymous invention) tries to convince a politician that they really could have done it a lot faster if the adults hadn't got in the way.

* Every single adult in the book ''Little Chicago'', save for a doctor and nurse at the start (and the protagonist's barely-adult sister) are ''horribly'' useless. After the eleven-year-old protagonist, Blacky, is molested by a family friend, he sees a social worker about it and the molester is put in jail. But after that, his mother is a neglectful woman who's almost constantly in a daze, stops taking prescribed medicine for vanity purposes, and brings a drunk man home--and she doesn't really seem to care that Blacky was molested. Rather, she visits the man in prison and actually brings Blacky a letter he'd written for him (which had sexual harassment in it). The teachers and principal at school don't notice or do anything about Blacky being bullied, despite the teacher even witnessing some of it in her classroom. When Blacky is called to the principal's office, it's on behalf of the bullies, who claim Blacky is disturbing them, rather than the other way around. Then the social worker comes to Blacky's house, sees the horrible shape the home is in and how out of it his mom is, ''and doesn't do anything about it.''

*** Fortunately, later in the series, something has been done about the Dursleys, even if Harry never should've returned to them in the first place. In books 3 and 4, the Dursleys are threatened not to mistreat Harry when they learn that he had a criminal Godfather (he was innocent, but Harry keeps that fact from them). And at the end of book five, after the death of Harry's godfather, the Order of the Phoenix made up of adults who care about Harry, talk to the Dursleys, making it clear that they are not allowed to mistreat Harry, and there will be dire consequences if they find out they mistreated him—causing the Dursleys to be too afraid to abused Harry for the rest of the series.

** In ''[[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheOrderOfThePhoenix The Order of the Phoenix]]'' Harry feels that the adults are unnecessarily keeping him in the dark about what is happening, not to mention that the Ministry spends most of its energy making sure Harry and Dumbledore shut up about Voldemort by any means necessary. {{Subverted|Trope}} when it's explained they had perfectly good reasons for keeping him in the dark (namely, [[spoiler:Voldemort has figured out how to read Harry's thoughts]]), and Harry's own plan backfired spectacularly because [[spoiler: Voldemort had also figured out how to ''influence'' his thoughts]]. That said, Dumbledore concedes to Harry that he, Dumbledore, could have handled the situation better and allowed Harry to get more help. [[spoiler: He also openly admits that Harry has every right to blame him for Sirius's death, and that it potentially could have been avoided had Dumbledore told Harry certain things earlier.]]

* In ''Literature/TheBridgeOfClay'' the five Dunbar brothers have to manage on their own. Their mother is dead, their father has left them (and even before that he wasn't much help) and other adults, like the school counselor, are basically clueless. And their elderly neighbour, Mrs Chilman, while she comes in from time to time to patch them up, basically believes teenagers are quite competent on their own, as in her day boys of similar age would be sent to fight in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII.