#but that's not an option when your parents are high king/dead/absent and also you have a fortress of your own to run

[shrikeseams]

Thinking about elves and babies again (thanks @tolkien-feels ) and thinking about how different Finwion child-rearing would have been in Beleriand vs Aman.

I generally think of elves as being Very Into babies and children and parenting, in a less... complicated way than humans, because it accounts for a much smaller portion of their adult lives. Like, Nerdanel can have seven kids without forfeiting her career, because she’ll have millennia to do things once her kids are adults. In any elvish culture where everyone is pretty materially secure, extended parental leave makes sense if only as a byproduct of immortality. Even a childhood that lasts twice or four times as long as a human’s is going to be an infinitesimally small part of an elf’s expected lifespan. If a human takes 18 years to raise a child, and lives until 85, that’s about 20% of their entire life. If an elf takes 100 years to raise a child and is killed at 3000 years old, that’s only about 3% of their total life.

Now add to this the way that Finwe and his descendants seem to be particularly baby-mad. There are just a lot of kids/cousins running around, and relatedly a lot of adults to help out. There’s a significant support network there to help with parenting advice, and babysitting, and peers to set up playdates etc. That first generation of Finwion cousins have a built-in peer network, and an assortment of trusted adults, all clustered in Tirion and Alqualonde.

And then that social landscape is so completely different in Beleriand. For one thing there are so many only children. Idril*, Celebrimbor*, Maeglin, depending on your choice of parentage Finduilas and Gil-Galad as well. And their parents are all living in different fortresses/cities on a war-torn landmass. There’s no way to casually ask a cousin or sibling or aunt/uncle or grandparent to babysit. There are no spontaneous playdates. Aredhel has no option to ask her brothers or father for parenting advice. Orodreth can’t just pass a colicky baby to Finrod so he can get a nap.

And the thing is, the cousins *wanted* space. They wanted to not be jostling shoulders with each other, they didn’t want relatives peering over their shoulders offering unsolicited advice. And for the most part, I suspect that the space was good and healthy for everyone! But even setting aside the constant risk of attack, parenting in Beleriand would have been so much harder.