They Suck: Worst TV Parents

[Kel Varnsen]

I am pretty deep into a Sopranos rewatch and for most of it I have thought that Tony and Carmela were possibly the worst parents on tv. Part of the reason I think that Tony didn't die in the finale is so that Tony has to live with how terrible his kids are due to how they were raise. 

But now I am on season 6 and have been reminded that Tony's sister Janice is a mom and also a step mom. So maybe Tony and Carmela aren't the worst.

[SusanM]

I know it's a sitcom but on Two and A Half Men the first few years we see what a truly awful parent Evelyn was to her sons while her son Alan and his ex Judith seem to be trying their best to be good parents to Jake.  Then somewhere along the line both Alan and Judith totally became absolutely terrible people AND terrible parents.

[proserpina65]

Howard & Marion Cunningham were terrible parents.  They completely forgot an entire child.

[SVNBob]

12 hours ago, proserpina65 said:

Howard & Marion Cunningham were terrible parents.  They completely forgot an entire child.

Same with Carl and Harriette Winslow.  And their case is worse because it was their youngest daughter.  At least Chuck was the oldest (presumably college-aged, and thus technically an adult) son.

[kathyk2]

21 hours ago, SVNBob said:

Same with Carl and Harriette Winslow.  And their case is worse because it was their youngest daughter.  At least Chuck was the oldest (presumably college-aged, and thus technically an adult) son.

The Olivers on Reaper did the same thing. Sam had a younger brother named Kyle. He disappeared after the second episode.

[KWalkerInc]

Bob and Midge Pinciotti on That '70s Show also had at least one child disappear, if not more than that.  In an early first season episode, they go away for the weekend and Donna's little sister (Tina?) tries to interfere when there is a party at the house.  She is never seen again, though they did make a joking reference to her at the end of one episode:  they were doing a tribute to Soap with the announcer doing a voiceover about various storyline cliffhangers and said, "Will Midge remember her other daughter?" as they showed her looking confused (pretty much her usual expression though).  There was also an early episode where Midge had a conversation with Kitty Forman where Midge was talking about her reaction when an older daughter went away to college. 

The Pinciottis were okay parents to Donna until Midge took off--but that was because Tanya Roberts had to be written out to care for her dying husband.  (She returned for some episodes later on.)  Hyde was abandoned by both of his parents several times, with them finally reuniting to run off together a few months after his father had taken him in as an attempt to repair their broken relationship.  At least he was cared for by the Formans and also established a relationship with the record store owner who turned out to be his actual birth father. 

[MargeGunderson]

13 hours ago, kathyk2 said:

The Olivers on Reaper did the same thing. Sam had a younger brother named Kyle. He disappeared after the second episode.

I really liked Reaper and wished it had more episodes.

[AgathaC]

Much as I adore them, Moira and Johnny Rose were pretty lousy parents — at least before being stuck in Schitt’s Creek. Especially to Alexis:

Moira’s idea of mother-daughter bonding was to take 7-year-old Alexis on a wine-tasting tour. And to the Playboy Mansion.

She once brought the wrong little girl home from pre-school.

Neither parent was aware that Alexis didn’t finish high school.

For that matter, they also had no clue all the insane things she was doing while globetrotting: held hostage, locked in palaces and car trunks, caught up in coups — and some while still a young teenager.

Their complete inattention left it up to David to worry about her and try to bail her out of jams. Which he should not have had to do.

And, of course, neither parent could remember her middle name.

It was all played for laughs (I certainly laughed — and Johnny’s horrified reactions to Alexis’s stories were gold) and they did redeem themselves but the Roses with money were not exactly great parents!

[DrSpaceman73]

12 hours ago, KWalkerInc said:

Bob and Midge Pinciotti on That '70s Show also had at least one child disappear, if not more than that.  In an early first season episode, they go away for the weekend and Donna's little sister (Tina?) tries to interfere when there is a party at the house.  She is never seen again, though they did make a joking reference to her at the end of one episode:  they were doing a tribute to Soap with the announcer doing a voiceover about various storyline cliffhangers and said, "Will Midge remember her other daughter?" as they showed her looking confused (pretty much her usual expression though).  There was also an early episode where Midge had a conversation with Kitty Forman where Midge was talking about her reaction when an older daughter went away to college. 

The Pinciottis were okay parents to Donna until Midge took off--but that was because Tanya Roberts had to be written out to care for her dying husband.  (She returned for some episodes later on.)  Hyde was abandoned by both of his parents several times, with them finally reuniting to run off together a few months after his father had taken him in as an attempt to repair their broken relationship.  At least he was cared for by the Formans and also established a relationship with the record store owner who turned out to be his actual birth father. 

This made me recall that Katey regal played Hyde's mom. One episode but still ...

You add in Gemma teller and peg Bundy, she had to be the queen of worst tv mom's.  

I never watched 8 simple rules so don't know about that one. 

[Spartan Girl]

Jake’s abusive alcoholic dad on Chucky is the worst. Oh excuse me, was the worst.

[Bastet]

I recently tried Parenthood, and gave up after season two, because the Bravermans were all pretty much the worst parents, which led to most of the households being ruled by the bratty kids.  It's possible Julia and Joel raised an actual demon in Sydney, Sarah waited years to take off her blinders and realize hey, ya know what, letting teenagers do whatever the hell they want leads to disaster, and the way Kristina and Adam failed Max - chalking everything up to his autism and thus excusing utterly abhorrent behavior and demanding the world contort itself to do the same rather than accepting he could have ASD and be a shithead sometimes, not everything he did was something he was powerless against due to the disorder, and, overall, they needed to teach him how to function in the real world - was too much for my blood pressure medication to overcome, so I bailed. 

Edited February 3, 2022 by Bastet

[SparedTurkey]

2 hours ago, Bastet said:

the way Kristina and Adam failed Max

And ignored Haddie.

Much preferred Brothers & Sisters even if Nora Walker was into all her kids business and vice versa

[Blergh]

4 hours ago, SparedTurkey said:

And ignored Haddie.

 

Except when she dated anyone and that got them seriously ranting about the possibility that she might not remain a virgin. At least, they relaxed and were accepting of the last flame she brought home from college- another girl so I suppose Adam and Kristina concluded that Haddie couldn't have gotten pregnant by her intended. 

Edited February 3, 2022 by Blergh

[Bastet]

12 hours ago, SparedTurkey said:

And ignored Haddie.

As noted, other than when they were flipping out about her dating.  And, no, dating Alex was not a good idea, but that was for her to learn, and it would hardly be the end of the world for her to do so.  They did eventually realize that, but were their usual ineffectual selves there, too, because they told her she could see him twice a week, she immediately began having him over every single day, and they did nothing.

They never stuck to anything!  Their system of bribing Max not to be a holy terror was bad enough, but they weren't even consistent in enforcing it.  All he had to do was go on long enough, and they'd say "Okay, you can have another reward if you do what you already agreed to do for the first reward".  That kid was utterly unwatchable.  It's their fault, not his, but that doesn't mean I was willing to endure it.

[Blergh]

Ah, the irony of Parenthood was that virtually all the parents were rather flawed but the ones who were the worst (Adam and Kristina) seemed to be the most self-righteous and considered themselves to be the standard that all others were supposed to aspire to (and, evidently, the show seemed to try to compel the audience to worship them).

[Bastet]

On 2/4/2022 at 7:07 AM, Blergh said:

(and, evidently, the show seemed to try to compel the audience to worship them).

That's what sent me around the bend - that the other parents' mistakes were generally acknowledged as mistakes (if not - at least at first - by the parents making them, by the show, via other characters having sage conversations about it).  But all Kristina and Adam ever got was one comment from Zeek to Camille (when he stayed at their house for a while during the separation) that the eight-year-old is running the place.  And Zeek is presented as an old school out of touch curmudgeon who just doesn't understand modern parenting, so we're meant to dismiss it as another example of that. 

And I could chalk it up to my having only hung in for two seasons, but through a weird sequence of events I wound up talking about Kristina and Adam's parenting this morning with a colleague who has one child with special needs and one without, and who watched the entire series, and she loathes these people with the heat of a nova.  From the recap she gave, they only got worse.

Max is a spoiled little shit, and his parents have decided that because he has ASD, that's just fine and dandy, and the entire fucking world must learn how to cope with Max instead of Max needing to learn how to function in the world.  Someone inadvertently triggers a meltdown by doing one of the 873 perfectly acceptable things that set him off, and they're just supposed to duck while he screams and throws stuff, accept his forced apology a few days later, and then devote themselves to not doing any of those 872 other things lest it happen again.  If he's as high functioning as the show constantly told me he is, then he can learn how to control his actions, and it's their job to teach him that.

Every time someone tries to impose a consequence and teach this kid the lessons his parents refuse to, Kristina and Adam agree with him that it's "not fair", cast him as the misunderstood victim, tell him he has to apologize anyway (instead of saying he needs to apologize because he was wrong), and give him some sort of reward to make up for this terrible injustice.  Notably, when someone points out Max's behavior makes things unfair to the other kids in his class/activity, they don't give a shit about that injustice.  Hell, they didn't care that it was unfair to their own daughter.

Yet the show seriously wanted me to accept they were the model parents in the Braverman clan, the stable stalwarts those messy younger siblings were working to emulate.  I probably still would have bailed on the show because, my gods, the sexism in the way the male characters are propped up and excused while the women are written as these beastly creates the poor menfolk must figure out how to endure, but if the show had acknowledged how badly Kristina and Adam screwed up, I might have stuck around a little longer.

Okay, I swear I'm done now. 

[SparedTurkey]

I think Stef and Lena from The Fosters had problems but I think some were partially the timeline disaster that was that show. They flipped between strict and lenient, were generally decent with birth control and never seemed to try the whole 'I'm friends with my teenagers vibe' that is very commonly done. However, their big downfall was the way they managed their one bio kid - Brandon - and the relationship with him and Callie. Didn't take it serious enough mostly and then jumped into a restraining order before ignoring it again forever.

Also, Mitch and Gale Leery - who actually lets their kid have that much input into their relationship? As if and vomit

[Spartan Girl]

August Smith on Peacemaker. Not only was he a white supremacist, he made Chris fight his own brother, then had the nerve to blame him for his death.

[Spartan Girl]

The McGills on Better Call Saul were, by all accounts, enabling idiots that played favorites with Jimmy and Chuck. Their blindness was an extreme reverse situation of the Pinkmans on Breaking Bad, who overcompensated writing off Jesse as a lost cause by helicopter-parenting Jake, believing he’d turn out fine as long as they kept him away from Jesse—not knowing, of course, he was already dipping his toe in pot all on his own. Ironically, it was Jesse who intervened and not only took the rap but got the pot away from Jake.

Perhaps if the McGills had listened to Chuck and disciplined Jimmy for stealing money from the shop, things could have turned out differently.

[Egg McMuffin]

Jock and Ellie Ewing on Dallas were pretty bad.

• Ellie openly favored the middle (Gary) son and Jock the youngest (Bobby) son. So the neglected older son (J.R.) became obsessed with winning his father’s approval, often by immoral means.
• Jock considered Gary “weak” because he was sensitive and not interested in the oil business, so he ran off, abandoning his wife and daughter. Then Jock and Ellie kidnapped the daughter (their granddaughter) and bought off a judge so that the girl’s mother would never see her.
• Both had an obsession with keeping their grown sons living with them on the ranch, and viewed any of them moving away to start their own lives as “losing” them. Massive guilt trip going on there.

[Rootbeer]

Anyone watching Ozark knows that Marty and Wendy Byrde are probably the worst parents ever.  It's bad enough they laundered money for a drug cartel, but they brought their teen kids into the business to assist them and eventually the kids discovered that their mother arranged a hit on their uncle and other fun stuff.

[JustHereForFood]

15 hours ago, Egg McMuffin said:

Jock and Ellie Ewing on Dallas were pretty bad.

• Ellie openly favored the middle (Gary) son and Jock the youngest (Bobby) son. So the neglected older son (J.R.) became obsessed with winning his father’s approval, often by immoral means.
• Jock considered Gary “weak” because he was sensitive and not interested in the oil business, so he ran off, abandoning his wife and daughter. Then Jock and Ellie kidnapped the daughter (their granddaughter) and bought off a judge so that the girl’s mother would never see her.
• Both had an obsession with keeping their grown sons living with them on the ranch, and viewed any of them moving away to start their own lives as “losing” them. Massive guilt trip going on there.

This, so much.

Also, don't forget that Jock basically decided for Sue Ellen and J.R. how their son will be called. Like the overpriviledged patriach that he was, not even thinking that things might no go his way.

[AgathaC]

17 hours ago, Egg McMuffin said:

Jock and Ellie Ewing on Dallas were pretty bad.

• Ellie openly favored the middle (Gary) son and Jock the youngest (Bobby) son. So the neglected older son (J.R.) became obsessed with winning his father’s approval, often by immoral means.
• Jock considered Gary “weak” because he was sensitive and not interested in the oil business, so he ran off, abandoning his wife and daughter. Then Jock and Ellie kidnapped the daughter (their granddaughter) and bought off a judge so that the girl’s mother would never see her.
• Both had an obsession with keeping their grown sons living with them on the ranch, and viewed any of them moving away to start their own lives as “losing” them. Massive guilt trip going on there.

Well, technically, JR kidnapped her (or had it done), but Jock and Ellie didn’t exactly object. Ellie did express regret about it later but too little, too late.

But, yeah, their favoritism was obvious and awful and laying on all sorts of emotional blackmail to keep everyone but Gary living there was just next-level controlling.

[merylinkid]

I'll give Jock and Ellie a pass on all the family living together thing.   1) its a tv show.   You can't have everyone off in their own houses, too many sets.  They would all be at the ranch all the time anyway.   The viewers would be going "don't you have your own home to go to" at seeing them at the ranch all the time if it were established they lived elsewhere.   2) That's how its done on the big ranches.   Everyone lives there.   You can't have someone driving from an hour away (remember these are HUNDREDS of acres, not 20) when there's a storm and the fence went down and the cattle have gotten out and need to be rounded up.   So you had a BIG house that everyone lived in.   

The rest though, yeah they sucked at raising their kids.   And grandkids.

[Blergh]

On 5/4/2022 at 11:35 AM, JustHereForFood said:

This, so much.

Also, don't forget that Jock basically decided for Sue Ellen and J.R. how their son will be called. Like the overpriviledged patriach that he was, not even thinking that things might no go his way.

But let's not let Sue Ellen and, especially, JR off the hookeroo for not even putting up minimal resistance to Jock's name dictum re how their new son was to be named! I get that JR was often a kiss-up to manipulate the old man but even HE had to realize that this baby was the firstborn son of the firstborn son of the family so no way that Jock wouldn't have treated him like an heir presumptive regardless of whatever name they'd have chosen for the baby- even had they named him Sue Chopped Liver! 

Of course JR had more serious faults as a parent (and Sue Ellen wasn't perfect) but they do deserve some share of the blame for not being putting on their grown up pants and letting Jock stew in his own re the baby's name! 

[DrSpaceman73]

I can't believe people recall so much about Dallas 40 years later!!  It's not on in reruns anywhere I know of.....I know it was popular at the time and I was young not as into it but still, the sum total of my recall of Dallas would fit in one paragraph. 

Edited May 6, 2022 by DrSpaceman73

[JustHereForFood]

5 hours ago, DrSpaceman73 said:

I can't believe people recall so much about Dallas 40 years later!!  It's not on in reruns anywhere I know of.....I know it was popular at the time and I was young not as into it but still, the sum total of my recall of Dallas would fit in one paragraph. 

I watched the whole series over 10 years ago, so I am surprised too by how much I remember. I first came accross it as a little kid in 90's when my mother was watching it and I saw some of it with her. Later, when I watched the whole series, I realized that all I remember from that first time was the crazy stuff: someone shot J.R., they later had a shooting conflict with some neighbor and J.R. got shot again*, Bobby was killed by a car, someone was thrown off a balcony, someone was pushed into a swimming pool...

*I remember my kid logic from that time made me think that even if one gets shot non fatally, it can only happen twice and the third time, one dies for real no matter what. So I remember thinking that J.R. has only the last chance. How I got to that idea, I don't know but I was probably around 6 years old.

[Ceindreadh]

5 hours ago, JustHereForFood said:

Bobby was killed by a car,

 

But he got better. 

[Egg McMuffin]

On 5/6/2022 at 7:41 PM, Ceindreadh said:

But he got better. 

Hahaha. There’s a funny bit on the Dallas gag reel where Pamela’s mother (who is being killed off the show) is lying in a hospital bed, all bandaged up with Pam weeping over her. Suddenly, she sits up and brightly says “Actually, I feel much better now!”

[januaryman]

Ann Romano

Sophia Petrillo

Darlene Conner

Carla Tortelli

The parents on Mr. Belvedere

[magicdog]

I happened to catch an episode of Gunsmoke (a show I’d heard of and only occasionally watched) last night I watched “Millie” from season 7.

Millie and her younger brother (she’s 17, he’s about 9) are essentially neglected by their drunken father.  To the point they were starving to death! The father is always in Dodge City buying alcohol for himself while his kids grab what they can find (berries and such). After seeing another girl married and not worried about food or clothing, Ie thinks she should marry and take her brother with her to survive. The father at best is told he won’t be served at the Long Branch Saloon anymore (Matt and Kitty are aware of the kids) but for some reason don’t do much more until the father is arrested for murder and Matt arranged for a local widow to care for them.  Did I mention the kids were also dressed in rags?  The whole time the dad thinks his kids are fine and living free!

[Spartan Girl]

Chucky: Chucky and Tiffany are terrible parents, and not just because they’re homicidal maniacs. Tiffany loves Glen and Glenda, but in a very selfish way. While she accepts their gender identities, she’s also lied to them their entire life, not to mention traumatized Glen by murdering people right in front of them.

[SunnyBeBe]

Is this for fiction only or does it include reality show parents?   Lol. 

[Stats Queen]

4 hours ago, SunnyBeBe said:

Is this for fiction only or does it include reality show parents?   Lol. 

That would be an incredibly long list…

[proserpina65]

Viserys Targaryen.  Did he even know he had children named Helaena and Aemond?

[Ambrosefolly]

On 11/18/2022 at 11:07 AM, proserpina65 said:

Viserys Targaryen.  Did he even know he had children named Helaena and Aemond?

Otto is a close second. Instead of arranging a marriage with someone younger that could have kept her at the level of comfort she was accustom to, he basically pimps out his daughter to the her best friend's dad in order for him to gain even more power and status. Viserys does beat him because he married said best friend, knowing how upset it would make Rhaenyra.

Edited November 19, 2022 by Ambrosefolly

[proserpina65]

On 11/19/2022 at 5:49 PM, Ambrosefolly said:

Otto is a close second. Instead of arranging a marriage with someone younger that could have kept her at the level of comfort she was accustom to, he basically pimps out his daughter to the her best friend's dad in order for him to gain even more power and status. Viserys does beat him because he married said best friend, knowing how upset it would make Rhaenyra.

Oh, I think Otto gets the title of Worst Parent in Westeros/House of the Dragon edition, for sure.

[Haleth]

On 11/19/2022 at 5:49 PM, Ambrosefolly said:

Otto is a close second. Instead of arranging a marriage with someone younger that could have kept her at the level of comfort she was accustom to, he basically pimps out his daughter to the her best friend's dad in order for him to gain even more power and status

Real life medieval society would applaud him for a brilliant match.  At least Viserys was a kind, gentle man.

[proserpina65]

On 11/22/2022 at 6:25 AM, Haleth said:

Real life medieval society would applaud him for a brilliant match.  At least Viserys was a kind, gentle man.

Oh, yes, that's very true, but it doesn't make Otto a good parent because he didn't care what kind of man Viserys was.  He just cared that he was king.

[Bastet]

I just came across an episode of L&O: SVU with two of TV's most horrifying parents.  A woman gets married to a judge, and her pre-teen daughter starts acting out in all kinds of ways, and turns up pregnant at age 11, saying she doesn't know who the father is.  The judge abuses his connections to ship her off to a facility and falsify adoption records (they raise the baby as their adopted child, but hide who his biological mother is).  Over the next several years, the girl's behavior only grows worse, and they keep blaming and punishing her without any effort toward identifying and addressing the cause; they just write her off as a troublemaker.

Fast forward, the girl is 16, and found murdered.  The cops discover she'd been corresponding with murderers over whose trials her stepfather presided, and met up with one of them upon his release.  In the midst of this, the judge is shot but survives.  The ex-con is their suspect in both, but he says he only shot the judge, and because the girl asked him to in exchange for sex. 

The cops figure out the stepfather had raped her, and a paternity test confirms he fathered her baby.  He admits to his cop buddy it's true, but that he did not kill her.

It turns out the mother killed her daughter:  She found out she was meeting some guy at the sleazy hotel, got there as the daughter is leaving, and they got into it about her behavior.  She demanded to know who fathered the baby, and the daughter finally revealed it's the stepfather.  Instead of realizing, OMG, that's why she started acting out, including with hypersexual behavior, and being disgusted and infuriated about her husband, she hits her daughter over the head with a bottle, watches her fall down a flight of stairs, and leaves her there to die. 

About a week later - so there's no heat of the moment/shock thing happening - when the cops confront her with the baby's paternity, she claims the daughter seduced him.  When they tell her they found her fingerprint on the bottle, leading her to confess to the homicide, her description of hitting her with the bottle concludes with her incredulously saying, "She gave me this Iook, Iike I was the one who had betrayed her."  YA THINK?!

Edited March 2 by Bastet

[Spartan Girl]

On 3/1/2024 at 4:19 PM, Bastet said:

About a week later - so there's no heat of the moment/shock thing happening - when the cops confront her with the baby's paternity, she claims the daughter seduced him. 

I will always love how Stabler, the second she said that, just glowered and moved away from that bitch as fast as he could as if he was fighting the urge to hit her—don’t condone violence against women, but I certainly don’t blame him if he was imagining it!

And I also loved how the aunt, who knew exactly what kind of person her sister was, told Benson and Stabler that she married the judge for his money and wasn’t going to let her daughter much it up.

In a show like SVU with a plethora of terrible parents, those two are definitely in the top 10.