stan4

She's been there for him but has treated him poorly, been rude to him, taken him for granted, and let him down even more.

So...trying to understand what Luke sees in Lorelai. I get respecting her working hard to raise her kid. And she's smart. 1. But her eating/health habits are horrible (and he is a health nut). 2. Her money management is a disaster (and he is pragmatic and disciplined). 3. She's pretty upbeat (while he is debbie downer). 4. She wants to try new things (he seems to loathe trying anything new). 5. She lets her kid eat a constant stream of garbage, avoid exercise, and practice erratic sleep habits. You could make the argument that opposites attract, but 1, 2, and 5 would make me completely lose respect for someone and that would make the completely sexually unattractive.

I think it's partly her innate characteristics and partly that she was sold a bad bag of goods her entire childhood. She keeps being sold as special, but I know TONS of people who are smarter, harder working, more well-read, etc. I never understood why we were supposed to think she was all that and a bag of chips. She would NEVER cracked the top 10 in my public high school, and half the kids at my kids' private would run circles around her (plus they are/were athletes, musicians, volunteers, etc). ASP is so out of touch with how accomplished the real top people are. Rory is really not that special, and she is majorly lacking in well-roundedness.

So...did the firemen put out that fire at the Independence Inn with water or magic dust? Because we saw charred stuff but no water damage. Just stuff charred, thrown around, pulled up and covered in tarps. Then there was that vague drip behind them like a leaky pipe...it was just weird. It looked like a bad party had happened in there, not a fire.

So Rory goes to see a hockey game in Face/Off and remarks something like, "So this is what sports is" or something like that. Dean is there playing. So you dated this guy 2 years and never watched him play sports or engage in other sports-related activities? I don't count the softball games because those were not set up with the snack bar, etc, but still...

Yeah. But Yale's doesn't. Neither did mine.

I know everyone seems to love Emily's story line, but it was completely ridiculous. Not to mention poorly done. Luke was portrayed as if he just fell off a turnip truck. So much character assassination. And the fact that the top half of Lorelai's face didn't move...so so so bad.

Of course, this all begs the question of why Lorelai didn't cut them off completely and had this weird intermittent holiday contact with them. Was it so that she could stay close to their money?

Thank you for sharing something so personal. My wife has a similar tale to yours. And my mother could lose her sh** quick as lightening...woe was to us if she had anything in her hand at the time. I took many poundings trying to keep her off my little brother. Sounds like there are many ways to be cruel to kids. I'm sorry any of us had to go through that. But it was the stuff my mother *said* that still affects me today more than anything. That makes me pause, doubt myself, and remain a little distrustful of everyone who shows me intetest/affection. I remember reading somewhere something about how your voice to your kids becomes their inner voice. It's why I am so careful how I speak to my kids, the words I choose...and no yelling or hitting or personal attacks allowed in our home. I remember Liz saying she drank and smoked during her pregnancy, but many women did back then and still do now (without malice then or afterwards). Other than hearing she went through men and couldn't stick to any kind of job, smoked pot, etc, I still am unaware of any specific details relating to Jess's childhood that meant he was abused. Raised in an unstable home? Ok. Abused? Never heard that.

We have zero real detail about Jess's childhood, so I think a lot of assumptions are being made. By the time we meet Liz, she's ditsy but well-meaning. The Gilmores continue on with their malicious nutbaggery. More can be extrapolated from their behavior. Again, maybe it's because you have no personal experience with this, but I really feel you are understating what an emotionally abusive or neglectful childhood can be like. I was there to see what happened to my friends who were accessories in the lives of their parents and who were told to be appreciative for everything they had when all they got was criticized and put down and never good enough. I do agree that you can only go so far in life blaming your childhood for the way you act. We all have choices about how we behave. That is why don't accept the excuse that someone is "having a bad day" for their rude behavior. They are not. But did you willingly hang out with your grandmother and pal around? I don't trust anybody who continues to associate with people who are mean to someone else just because they are not mean to them. As Rory did eventually learn, that behavior did turn on her.

My wife won't let our kid nap if she doesn't go down before 2 because then she'll be up at 10pm and the next morning will be hell on everyone. Nap at 4 is ludicrous, especially if she is going to school the next morning. Kids her age need 10-11 hours of sleep a night.

Worse is how Richard lets Trix treat Emily. It's insane.

Ugh. In that Kropog episode, it's a perfect distillation of how Emily treats Lorelai all the time in more subtle ways. It was awful. Can you imagine someone talking to a kid that way? Mind boggling.

Yeah, I don't think it's a contest where "my parents were worser than yours, so I have more claim to be a jerk." And I think you're understating how bad R&E are as parents and people by saying it's just being critical and not going to the mall. They are truly horrible people, made worse by the fact that they parade around acting like they are paragons of society.

No. I just noticed it in another episode that was supposedly in the winter-ish time. Melted snow?

I'm sorry. That must have seemed like a non sequitor. Apologies. Everyone who loves Jess defends his acting like a grade A turd on his upbringing. Same with Tristan. We rarely see the same for Lorelai. Just vitriol.

Must have 2 exits bc the cars were going both ways. :) In the beginning of Raincoats and Recipes, Lorelai uses a chair to trap Rory in her room. No. Rory's door opens in. You can't use a chair from the outside to hold it closed. Also, the Dragonfly's first reservation was May 8. In 2004, this is a Saturday. That means the shakedown took place May 1. That was ONE WEEK AFTER Rory's final exam (she was a "Saturday orphan" - presumably the last day of finals). Yale does not do finals in April. It does it the first couple of weeks in May.

Like the empty coffee cups and empty luggage? That's like in every show. Makes me nuts. Shouldn't the actors, I dunno, ACT like there is stuff in there? I also get annoyed that everyone always has perfect hair and new, ironed clothes at all times. Even pjs aren't wrinkled.

In Nag Hammadi, when Jess is having his car pushed, there is a traffic jam of honking cars. The streets are wet (implying recent precipitation or snow that has melted). There is dirty snow in the gutters. Yet every car is pristinely shiny clean. There is even a shot of a car with snow on the bottom of the rear window...which is also otherwise clean and shiny.

Why do you feel people give teenage Jess and Tristan a pass bc of their bad parents/childhood and not her? [ I am a health care provider. But this isn't the forum to argue the difference between times we actually tell people to get help taking care of their love ones and "chronic ear infections."] There are many times Lorelai expresses incredulity at speaking to/with her parents about personal matters. The trust required to demonstrate vulnerability is not there...and there's a reason for it. Not to mention Emily still routinely pulls sh*tty stunts/digs/insults.

Oh, yeah. I agree. This is the active (and boy, am I active on it) Lorelai's flaws thread. Traveling didn't make him a bad parent. Never talking to his kid made him a bad parent. However, there are actually many who would argue that purposely not being physically present (when it is a choice) does make you a bad parent. I went back and watched the WBB speech again. Yeah...it's pretty clear that after they had exhausted their nannies AND the housekeeper, it fell to Emily. I don't know why you think it's not the parent's job to sit with their kid when they have a bout of sickness. I mean, it's pretty much what most of us do (and we wouldn't want anyone else there (except the other parent)) to do it. Not that Richard was going to soil his hands on that one. I don't think you have to be an ogre parent who beats their kid and leaves them chained to a bed to affect their adulthood negatively. You can be not present, you can be overly-critical, and you can be overall neglectful (even with benign intent) and do plenty of damage. I don't care for Lorelai, There are a bazillion reasons I think she is not a good person. And I think she milks this whole "love/hate" parent thing way too much. Not only that, she acts like she's so independent, but the truth is that she, too, has the weight of her parents $$$ to fall back on. My post was about not giving too much credit to R&E for "putting up" with her behavior. They created it.

Now, hold up, fans of Richard and Emily. They were never going to ask her to have an abortion or give it away. They were insanely conservative and they would have been way too protective of the Gilmore blood to give a baby away. Not harsh when she was wild...no, I think the point is they weren't around. She was wild because they were missing. We know Richard was always flying off here and there. We know he didn't take her anywhere or play with her. We get pretty good detail even from Lorelai herself about how he was focused on providing and wasn't a hands on kind of guy, but that was how he thought he was doing good for his family. When you can remember the one time (or few times) your dad supported you and comforted you because it stands out so much, that's a bad freakin' dad. Did you notice at their vow renewal (a garish testament to how much they don't care about anyone else but themselves) the story Richard told? Maybe I'm sensitive to this story because I have little kids, but it hit me right off the bat. He said that Lorelai was having ear infections with pain and crying all night. And it was so horrible that they couldn't keep a nanny, so eventually "it fell to Emily" to sit up with her and comfort her. HER MOTHER was the last resort for them when their kid was sick and in pain? I think that right there speaks VOLUMES about the kind of mother Emily was. Proper frocks and cotillions (and maybe other material things), but no actual mothering: guidance, confidences shared, comforting, etc. Lorelai likely felt like an accessory and that's probably all she really was. I am fortunate enough to provide my kids with every material possession they could ever want. They even go to the best schools for $$$$. But every single time, what they really want is my attention. My involvement. Cuddles. Stories. They want me to listen to them share their ideas. Lorelai probably had none of that. Not to mention that if Richard and Emily treated their kid they way they treat everyone else, it had to be crap in that house.

Yeah. I think that's why she has some credibility telling Jess she's been there and done that with the whole bad teenager thing. But geez. As a parent, I'd be at a loss to know what to do with a kid that wild.

I think I realize now one glaring reason the revival is so terrible. The show itself had these moments of goofy ridiculousness that made certain scenes or characters or episodes charming. And it had certain emotional scenes, confrontations, etc, that grounded it and brought you down for a second. This usually flowed well, because they were sprinkled in here and there. The revival is like 100% go go go ridiculousness or heart string pulling chaos THE ENTIRE TIME. So very, very bad. I think it's funny people claim the 7th season was so different bc ASP didn't have a hand in it. Geez...she had total control of these 4 episodes are they are NOTHING like the original show.

To be fair, her parents really are (by most standards) pretty horrible people. But I don't think the ways they are horrible people are the same reasons she continuously rebels against them (and she freely admits she does purposely rebel: remember how she told her mother that in That'll Do, Pig?).