Three Tropes in one: Absurdly Youthful Mother

From the Image Picking thread of this same article.

Currently this trope have been split in several subcategories. This is problematic, because several of these categories are different enough to be their own trope. The all effect the story and characters in very different ways, so it makes no much sense lumping them as they are now.

For what I can see, there is 3 main variations, all of which can be its own trope:

• A Parent whose age is too close to its children's.
  • This imply Teen Pregnancy or adoption. It differ from the rest because it frequently effect the relationship of the two part, due to the close age.
• A Parent whose relative age to its children's have been altered somehow.
  • Magic, time-travel, doesn't matter. May overlap with the other two, as it is completely different kind.
• A Parent who looks to have age too close to its children's,.
  • A appearance trope. There is usually no much meaning or deep here. It is a form of Fanservice. The appearance youngness is mostly eye candy. Unclear examples goes here.

So, I propose a split into this three distinct tropes. There may be some overlap with the second type (if the parent was already absurdly youthful even before the age mess up), but there shouldn't be between the first and third. If it is not explicitly mentioned one parent got a child early it is because it is not important enough to effect the story, so the youngness is there just to look pretty.

@shimaspawn from the other thread:

I don't see what you mean. Where are you getting this 'in practice' from?

edited 18th May '11 12:03:50 PM by Heatth

I'm getting it from actually reading the examples currently on the page. There are a large number of them that admit that they don't fall nicely into any one category and that they're just guesses really. Also the rather large other category on the page that doesn't fall into any of the three clearly.

edited 18th May '11 12:07:08 PM by shimaspawn

Reading through the other thread, most of the confusion comes from the blurry line of the first two subtropes.

The third is always explicit in the story, and definitely needs to be its own trope, it should not be lumped in with the other two. Also the Cable image is perfect for that trope.

Like I said in the other thread, there are really three things going on here, not counting the time travel/magic/whatever situations:

A) Young girl with a child. ie: 16 year old with an infant, or whatever. This is pretty much always explicit, and generally has fairly significant implications in the story

B) A woman who had a child when she was unusually young, but is now an adult. ie: 32 year old woman with a 16 year old child

C) A woman who had her child at a perfectly reasonable age, but due to art style, or just aging nicely, she looks way younger than she should. ie: 40 year old woman with a 16 year old child, but could pass as the child's older sister

I'd say that A) is a distinct trope, while B) and C) generally are both used for "hot mom" type stuff.

Type 3 is already covered by several other tropes, in my opinion.

Type 2 might be a part of Kid from the Future, or could be a supertrope.

Type 1 is the best definition for this page.

edited 18th May '11 12:13:04 PM by nrjxll

No, Type 1 is definitely not this trope. Its...Teen Parent or something.

Types 2 and 3 are similar to Hot Mom, but a little different in that in the story, the Hot Mom is frequently mistaken for much younger than she is. Though I am open to arguments that Hot Mom renders types 2 and 3 redundant.

@shimaspawn

I'm reading the same page and the relevant folders (skipping the first two) and don't notice any of it. Maybe I am not understanding what you mean or vice versa.

Lets put that way:

• Trope one: The age difference is actually abnormally small. This must be at last clearly implied in the work.
• Trope two: The age difference is originally one (be it "normal" or not) but it changed in the story (magic, time travel, freezing, whatever).
• Trope three: The age difference appear to be too small. The parent looks too young, but her actual age is either "normal" or not stated.

One more thing. There is nothing in Hot Mom that requires her to be young looking. She may look her age just nice, as long as she is attractive.

edited 18th May '11 12:21:08 PM by Heatth

I think type 3 is definitely redundant in the light of Hot Mom, though type 2 might not be.

I am inclined to agree. However, I have to mention, again, that it is not the same thing. A Hot Mom may look old, as long as she looks attractively old.

Type two is a completely different trope. It is closer to Plot-Relevant Age-Up.

edited 18th May '11 12:26:40 PM by Heatth

Right, patently impossible age differences (child being older, through whatever means, time travel shenanigans, etc) should be in a separate trope completely, since the storytelling implications are totally different. We agree on that, right?

An Absurdly Youthful Mother is almost certainly going to be a Hot Mom, but a Hot Mom does not necessarily have to be an Absurdly Youthful Mother.

And remember, its Absurdly Youthful Mother, not Absurdly Young Mother.

Type 2 isn't really what you think it is. Type 2 is, the parent had a kid and now because of some sort of magic, the mom doesn't age, time travel, the parent de aged, Green Rocks, whatever, looks too young to have had the kid. It can very much overlap with type 3 in cases of long lived races where there's a supernatural explanation for why the woman ages so slowly.

Whoops, we were using different numbering schemes, I was disregarding the Time Travel/magic/whatever one, and just covering the ones for "normal" situations.

Many, many overlaps here. Give me a while to digest the information well.

Note, that many of the other subcategories on the page only have 1-2 examples, like everything in theothers category. If they can't gather more examples than that, they are simply not tropes, just rare, complicated examples.

That is why I never bothered listing them. Furthermore, they can all go in one of the categories I listed.

The "Fake Parentage" goes into type one. Through perfectly natural means the age difference between the "parent" and its "child" is too small.

The "Writers Can't Do The Math" also goes into type one, if the ages is clearly stated. Due to Fridge Logic, the author accidentally used the trope.

The "Combination" is both type one and two, so it goes in both.

The magically aged up kid should count, too, though we have to watch out for Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome.

edited 19th May '11 2:00:45 PM by BigT

Okay, what qualifies as "absurdly youthful"? Bella Swan was 19 when she had Renesmee (or however the hell you spell her name) and 19 doesn't really seem young yet is listed as an example. Several others also list the mother being 18 or 16. Both of which are generally the Age of Consent in the US (depends on the state) and as such shouldn't qualify as absurdly youthful in my opinion.

Gee, those examples should definitely not be there. It's hard to draw a clear line, though (especially given how this is different in different cultures). I think ca 15-16 should be the absolute upper limit.

I think 15 should be the upper limit. I'm also find the entire adoption section strange. Another example from Video Games has Phoenix Wright at 33 and Lucy at 15. That's an eight year difference in age and I fail to see how that applies.

I'm really curious about the adoption section. Doesn't this trope only apply to mothers who gave birth at an absurdly young age?

I always though this applied to mothers who look so young compared to their children, that it's like they gave birth when they were 10 or something.

So basically "she has a 15 year old kid so she HAS to be 31 at least... but she looks more like his older sister".

Actually, it's both. That is why it needs to be split into subtropes.

Playing Hamlet and Playing Gertrude has the same problem. I just suggested merging these tropes. Type 1 of Absurdly Youthful Mother should probably also join that merger.

Ok, bumping this.

Here is what I think we should do.

A) Strip out the ones related to Time Travel or Magical shenanigans, call it...oh maybe "Paradox Parentage", or something like that.

B) Make this trope specifically about parents who look too young to have had the kids they have, but with the provisos that the parent in question did, in fact, have the kids, and the parent must now be an adult. Thus a 16 year old with an Infant is not this trope. A 32 year old with a 16 year old child is. Similarly a character who is 40, and has a 16 year old child, but herself looks (and is commented on in universe) too young, is also this trope.

Should we YTTKW the first one or not?

Agree.

also type two can also be she is my mom and she is still a loli type without time travel or magic.... it shows up in Hentai a lot. Kanata from Lucky Star as well.

edited 31st Jul '11 10:45:34 PM by Raso

Yeah, thats just an extreme version of it.

Also, one major thing is that the Absurdly Youthful Mother is almost never the main character. She's very likely the mother of the main character (or maybe even more frequently, of the love interest)

I think we've got B somewhere. I want to say it was Soap Opera Age Up or something like that. I definitely remember a page about it.

Plot Relevant Ageup?

Ah, it's SORAS, which is badly in need of redirects.

edited 1st Aug '11 5:23:31 AM by Deboss