In Susan Collins’s book the “Hunger Games” the character of Katniss Everdeen is considered by many to be an example of gender role reversal. Though Katniss does portrait many traits that may be considered masculine in and of themselves, she also portrays feminine traits. Her possession of these feminine even instinctually motherly traits steer my opinion to the thought that these traits are more due to her position in her family then to that of a girl who is tomboyish in nature. In this paper I will show that the behaviors of Katniss Everdeen are traits of an eldest child of a single parent household by assuming the roles of both mother and father as opposed to simply being characterized examples of gender role reversal. The book starts out explaining the back story of Katniss, her father who she was very close with died in a mine explosion five years before the books present day. Now she is left with a mother how is so overwhelmed with grief that she can barely function and a little sister who needs she to be raised. While her father was alive their relationship seem to be very similar to that of a father with no sons who tends to teach their daughter all they would teach a son, I know this relationship very well. While fathers love their daughters they seem to have this primal need for a son, an heir. Similar to other eldest female children when their fathers unexpectedly die, she had to step up and help her mother with the family, and in her case as is in some cases she has to be the parent. While I understand Katniss’s frustration over her mother’s actions after her father’s death, this is her reality and she deals with it and takes care of her family. The very first example of this new parental role in the book is the when Katniss narrates “The last thing I need is another mouth to feed” (3). Already we are seeing Katniss as the parental provider, she doesn’t