Worst Book Parents

[nodorothyparker]

It's been awhile since I've read that one but as the parent of an autistic child, I did struggle with it.  While I really do get that she probably felt very alone and overwhelmed and sought fulfillment elsewhere, she abandoned her child and seemed to give very little consideration to how he would have struggled to process that.  I have a very limited sort of sympathy for Christopher's dad despite his awfulness because he was the one who was still there day in and day out.  Knowing how my own son perseverates endlessly on things to try to make sense of them (six months and counting of daily rehashing every last detail of the death of our oldest cat), I can at least sort of understand the temptation to simply write the missing mother out of the story rather than answer daily multiple rounds of painful questions again and again about where she went and why if she truly never made any effort to come back or contact her child beyond letters.  But it's a terrible idea that never should have made it past his initial hurt and anger.

Killing the dog in a fit of rage and his handling of the kid endlessly obsessing over it?  No bueno.

I will say that Christopher rang pretty true to me.  It's a terrific portrayal.

[Spartan Girl]

I would like to add that killing the neighbor's dog just because she won't fuck you is Stalker 101 behavior, so I think Christopher was totally justified in fearing his father after that. And no, buying him a puppy at the end doesn't make up for it.

I don't get why the neighbor decided not to press charges. If it were my dog, they'd have to put me in jail for aggravated assault.

[Spartan Girl]

Has anyone read Written in the Stars by Aisha Saeed? Those parents were AWFUL. When they find out their daughter is dating a boy they don't approve of they basically drag her to Pakistan and force her into an arranged marriage, all do that they can preserve their reputation. And she she tries to escape before the wedding, they drug her into submission.

It's a good book but they made my blood boil.

[Spartan Girl]

Bumping up thread because I think Amy's parents in Gone Girl should be on this thread. They were not the doting parents the media portrayed them to be; they practically used Amy as their cash cow model for their children's books. Not to mention they were so blindly stupid about the fact she was a sociopath. As Nick summed it up: those "adoring, worshipful assholes created that thing and let her loose on the world."

[Dr.OO7]

Speaking of godawful Sweet Valley High parents, Emily Mayer's father (in the book Nowhere To Run) is a fucking asshole. After years of his daughter being a good girl, he's willing to believe all the lies his bitch of a wife tells him about her? To the point of throwing her out of the house because he thinks she tried to hurt her baby sister instead of saving her from choking? Speaking of whom, her stepmother is who the term "wicked stepmother" was made for--always screaming at her and criticizing her and making the poor girl's life hell. The scene where Emily slaps her (to get the choking baby away from her and do the Heimlich) is terrific, because most readers chose to think Emily was enjoying getting a little revenge on the bitch.

[Spartan Girl]

Zach's mom in Only Child by Rhiannon Navin.  I know it sounds harsh because she does lose a child (Zach's older brother Andy) in the most horrific way, and God knows grief does not always bring out the best in people, but that's not an excuse to neglect/lash out at the one child you have left.  Granted, she does see the error of her ways at the end of the novel, it's too bad it took Zach running away from home to do it.

[Katy M]

I can't believe nobody's mentioned the mom in My Sister's Keeper.  At least I didn't see it.

She kicked her daughter out of the house (granted to go with her dad to the fire station, not be homeless) because she didn't want to donate a kidney.  She wouldn't take Jesse to buy shoes for baseball(?) after she promised him because Kate was sick.  Sure, Kate wasn't in remission any more, but she was in the back yard playing with Anna. 

She didn't want to go see Anna in her room after she donated blood marrow because she was with Kate.

On ‎2‎/‎15‎/‎2018 at 5:34 PM, Spartan Girl said:

Bumping up thread because I think Amy's parents in Gone Girl should be on this thread. They were not the doting parents the media portrayed them to be; they practically used Amy as their cash cow model for their children's books. Not to mention they were so blindly stupid about the fact she was a sociopath. As Nick summed it up: those "adoring, worshipful assholes created that thing and let her loose on the world."

Not only did they use her as a cash cow, but they passively-aggressively used their books to let Amy know that she wasn't good enough.  Then they more or less demanded her trust fund back because they mismanaged their money.  And for all of their complaints about Nick trying to look good for the media, that's exactly what they were doing the whole time.  Probably trying to figure out if they would need to write an Amazing Amy's funeral book, or an Amazing Amy's harrowing escape book.

[Spartan Girl]

Eve's parents in The Art of Racing in the Rain. Her father never thought Denny was good enough for Eve, so after Eve dies he helps manipulate allegations of rape so that he can get custody of Denny and Eve's daughter. Enzo the dog sums it up perfectly when he calls them the Evil Twins.

[Dr.OO7]

I don't have the time to be specific, so I'll just say everyone from every VC Andrews novel EVER.

The grand prize has to go to Damien Adare from My Sweet Audrina, who rather than helping his daughter deal with her trauma normally, opted to completely brainwash her into believing that it was an older sister who was gang-raped and murdered instead of her, arguably making her even worse off than she was before.

Edited June 11, 2018 by Camille

[Spartan Girl]

Emma's parents in Asking for It by Louise O'Neill. Their daughter is gang-raped by a bunch of boys at a party, and instead of standing by her, they not only blame her for what happened (because she was drunk), they also blame her for getting shunned by all the friends and neighbors that support the guys. And because of them, Emma winds up feeling pressured to drop the case.

[Spartan Girl]

The news that Chris Evans is going to star in an Apple TV adaptation of Defending Jacob reminds me of how much I loathed the idiot enabler mealy-mouthed lawyer dad living in denial about his son. He

practically helps his son get away with TWO murders. At least the mother puts a stop to it, albeit in a drastic way

[Wiendish Fitch]

Marilyn and James in Everything I Never Told You are definitely questionable parents, favoring and pressuring Lydia while putting Nath on the back burner and basically neglecting poor, surprisingly well-adjusted Hannah. They make mistakes on par with any of the parents in the average Jodi Picoult novel, but, unlike in Picoult's novels,

Spoiler

Lydia's death forces them to reexamine their lives and parenting choices, and they actively decide to move on from the tragedy and treat Nath and Hannah better, and you truly believe they will.

 

So I'll give them points for that, but it sucks that it took something like that to happen.

[Katy M]

I just started the book KIll the Farm Boy, but so far the parents in that book named their kids Bestley and Worstley.  

[Spartan Girl]

Adora in Sharp Objects. She poisoned her daughters just so that they'd "need" her more. One dies, one turns into an alcoholic mess, and the other turns into a freaking serial killer. Great job, lady.

[BookWoman56]

I've been re-reading some of the Pern series by Anne McCaffrey, and had forgotten how much I loathed a set of parents in one of the novels. There is an adolescent girl, Menolly, who has a huge amount of musical talent and who has been given lessons by the resident harper (musician/teacher/storyteller) in the fishing village where her father is essentially the head of all the fishermen. When the harper dies of old age, Menolly is tasked with teaching the children their lessons (via officially approved ballads) until another harper can come to replace the one who died. Not only do her parents forbid her to sing any of the songs she has written herself, her parents (especially her father) don't want the  new harper to know it was Menolly who taught the children in the absence of a fully qualified harper. When the new harper arrives and there's an evening of singing, where everyone can join in, her mother forbids her to sing. The worst part, though, is when Menolly accidentally slices her hand open while gutting a fish that apparently has some pretty nasty/toxic parts, her mother lets her hand heal wrong so that Menolly would have trouble stretching her fingers enough to play any musical instruments. All because they were embarrassed that she is a girl with musical talent and aspirations, when most of the harpers are male. The point when she decides to run away rather than stay there with the constraints that have been placed on her is one of those "hell, yeah" moments for me, as is the point later in that book when the harper who leads the equivalent of a music school identifies her by a few songs she's written and takes her to the school so she can get the training she wants. Very telling is that after she's run away, her father won't get anybody to go look for her (even though she could have been injured or ill, as far as they knew, because she didn't leave a note to say she was running away). When the  new harper is talking to Menolly's brother and volunteers to search along the coastline for her, her brother tells him not to, because even if Mennolly is dead, she's better off than she was at home.

What the fuck kind of parents would do that to a kid of theirs? They attempted to take away her one pleasure in life, all because they wanted to reinforce some obsolete gender roles. I will say this for McCaffrey, though, in later books there is not ever any reconciliation between Menolly and her parents. She has contact with the brother who was actually supportive of her, but apparently there is nobody else in her family that she sees. And there is a point when major changes are occurring to their civilization, and Menolly realizes that while some people will embrace the changes, people like her parents won't. There is no sentimental reconciliation where her parents admit they were wrong, and/or she states that they were just doing the best they could. There's just this calm acceptance of the fact that they were crappy parents to her, and while she no longer has the same level of anger at them, she's not forgiving them either. 

[Browncoat]

8 hours ago, BookWoman56 said:

I've been re-reading some of the Pern series by Anne McCaffrey,

Me, too!  Mostly just to remind myself that Gigi McCaffrey apparently didn't read the series before writing her abomination.  We know Piemur's story!  Anyway, I completely agree about Menolly's parents, and I'll throw Robinton's father, Petiron, in for good measure.  He was pretty mean to Robinton when Rob was young, and then contributed to Menolly's abuse by not mentioning that she was a girl.  Petiron, of all people, should have known that the Harper Hall would accept Menolly.

[Spartan Girl]

The YA novel, Suffer Love by Ashley Herring Blake, is about two teens that fall in love even though her dad and his mom had an fair with each other. Both sets of parents are pretty terrible in this book, but his mom is THE WORST. She not only cheats, but she blames her son for outing her affair and the subsequent divorce and spends the next two years treating him like crap. It isn't until she finds out that his little sister was actually the one that exposed the affair that she acknowleges that she's the one to blame for everything and is all about forgiveness blah blah blah...

What kind of mother puts the blame for her divorce on her children?! As he points out, it shouldn't have mattered who exposed the affair -- SHE was the one who cheated and messed up not one but TWO families. I'm sorry but he shouldn't have forgiven her for the way she treated him, even if she really was going to do better in the end. I wish he and his sister would have just moved in with their dad.

[HazelEyes4325]

My kids and I recently listened to the Henry Huggins books (we've read them before, but we needed something for the car) and I'm aghast at what shitty parents the Quimbys are.  Of course, they are much better in the Ramona books and Ramona is younger in the HH books, but pretty much they totally exist to ignore their bratty preschooler and expect her older sister and the neighbor boy, who just wants to do his paper route and hang with his dog, to watch her all day.

[Neko]

9 hours ago, HazelEyes4325 said:

My kids and I recently listened to the Henry Huggins books (we've read them before, but we needed something for the car) and I'm aghast at what shitty parents the Quimbys are.  Of course, they are much better in the Ramona books and Ramona is younger in the HH books, but pretty much they totally exist to ignore their bratty preschooler and expect her older sister and the neighbor boy, who just wants to do his paper route and hang with his dog, to watch her all day.

I think that's typical of 1950's parenting, though.  Parents didn't start spending a whole lot of time with their kids until the baby boomers were old enough to have kids, of their own. Until then, it was not unusual to expect the older siblings to keep an eye on the younger ones while they were playing outside, all day.  That's the way my parents grew up, and they're just a bit younger than the characters in the 1950's B.C. books.

Edited December 22, 2018 by Sweet Summer Child

[HazelEyes4325]

54 minutes ago, Sweet Summer Child said:

I think that's typical of 1950's parenting, though.  Parents didn't start spending a whole lot of time with their kids until the baby boomers were old enough to have kids, of their own. Until then, it was not unusual to expect the older siblings to keep an eye on the younger ones while they were playing outside, all day.  That's the way my parents grew up, and they're just a bit younger than the characters in the 1950's B.C. books.

I don't disagree with that--my parents are also of that generation.  However, Henry's parents are pretty involved with him, as are the Quimbys in the Ramona books.  Also, Ramona is so horrible in the HH books that I find my 21st-century sensibility blaming it all on neglectful parenting.

[Black Knight]

Yes, interestingly enough today's mothers who work outside the home actually spend far more time with their children than the stay-at-home moms of the supposedly halcyon '50s did. Fathers, too, but it's women who catch most of the crap for "working instead of being with their children."

And I grew up in the early 80s when there still wasn't yet the thought of supervising children 24/7. Booted out in the morning to go play with neighborhood kids, return for lunch, go back out for afternoon and come back for dinner. I loved it. I can't believe there even has to be a term now for how I grew up - "free range" - or that parents can be arrested for it. I don't think I'd want to be a kid today. (Or a parent, but I've never wanted to be a parent anyway.)

[Mabinogia]

26 minutes ago, Black Knight said:

I can't believe there even has to be a term now for how I grew up - "free range"

Haha, I was "free range" too. It was awesome. As long as we were home by dark we were free to roam the neighborhood. Everyone knew the kids in the neighborhood so our parents didn't feel the need to monitor us 24/7.

I, too, would not want to be a kid today. It just sounds so stressful, and scheduled and kind of boring. I never had a play date in my life. We just went outside and there was almost always some other kid(s) out playing. If not, you just played with yourself alone.

These poor kids can't even ride in the back of a pickup truck, or ride a bike without a helmet, or in a car without a seat belt (I used to love sliding across the bench seat when we turned a corner. lol Ah, the simple pleasures). Were those things dangerous? Sure, but I don't recall hearing about tons of bicycle accidents that caused more than a broken bone and a broken bone isn't the end of the world. Well, it is now, but back then it was practically a right of passage. 

[Wiendish Fitch]

Alice in What Alice Forgot is one of the most dangerously, frustratingly stupid moms I've read in fiction in recent years. 

Plot: Alice bumps her head at the gym and gets amnesia... which, in Liane Moriarty's world*, causes Alice to regain the mind and personality she had 10 years ago. She's horrified that she's 10 years older, is the mother of 3, and that she's getting a divorce, but she tries to keep her amnesia a secret while trying to adjust to her life. 

The book frames younger Alice as superior to older Alice, in that she was an easygoing free spirit who ate chocolate with abandon and hated the gym (yeah, honey, see how where that gets you when middle age spread attacks), as opposed to the type-A bitch she's (allegedly) become. This is hammered in when Alice's daughter gets in trouble in school for cutting off the braid of a girl who was mean to her. 

Now, this may sound innocuous; after all, it's just hair, hair grows back, right? Well, yeah, except Alice's daughter (sorry, I don't remember her name) still basically committed assault. I mean, if a co-worker randomly punched you in the face, gave you a black eye and you reported them, would you want them to get away with it because, hey, it's just a bruise, bruises heal, right? Even if this particular classmate was "asking for it", Alice's daughter still did something wrong, and her parents should punish, or at the very least reprimand her, right?

Wrong. When Alice gets this news, she takes her daughter to the beach and buys her ice cream. That's right, she rewards her daughter for assaulting a classmate! No reprimand, no grounding, not even a simple "what you did was wrong", she rewards her!! Even if rewarding wasn't the intent, it's what it amounts to! Now whenever the daughter wants something, she'll just do something horrible and get it! How do we know if, somewhere down the line, she thinks, Hmm, maybe if I kill the neighbor's cat and stuff its carcass in their mailbox, Mom will buy me a car!

Even worse, when Alice gets her memory and current personality back (not a spoiler, it had to happen), she thinks back to rewarding her daughter's bad behavior, beats herself up for being so stupid... and we're meant to disagree with her! No, Liane Moronic, Alice is right to berate herself, because she's basically encouraging sociopathic behavior! The moral is that she finds a happy medium with her past and present selves, blah blah blah, and oh, fuck that ending, because it's such a load.

 

This, and the mention of the Quimbys from the Ramona books, reminds me of something that happened in Ramona the Brave. Ramona, like Alice's daughter, has a snotty classmate named Susan to deal with. At one point, Ramona and her classmates are making paper bag owls for an art project, and the teacher will select the ones to display. Ramona is happily making an owl she feels confident that will win, until she discovers that Susan is copying exactly what she's doing. The teacher chooses Susan's owl to display and even makes an example of her "creativity", and Ramona is rightly pissed off at this. In a blind fury, she rips Susan's owl off the display and crumples it up in front of everyone. Needless to say, she's in big trouble. After a parent/teacher conference, her parents talk to her and a contrite Ramona explains what happened and, to their credit, Mr. and Mrs. Quimby listen, believe her, and empathize (Mrs. Quimby says she feels sorry that Susan has so little imagination and talent she has to copy others).

BUT.

They tell Ramona the teacher expects her to apologize to Susan in front of everyone, and that they agree. They gently, but firmly, inform her that while her feelings were justified, her actions weren't. And the frustrating thing? They're absolutely right. It doesn't matter how understandable Ramona's anger was, she still had no right to destroy Susan's property like that. So a chastened Ramona apologizes, and is wiser and better for it.

Well done, Quimbys. Well done, Beverly Cleary. A+. 

 

*I'm not an expert on the workings of the human mind, certainly not in regards to amnesia, so if there is indeed a form of amnesia that works this way, please feel free to correct me and forgive my ignorance.

Edited December 24, 2018 by Wiendish Fitch

[Mabinogia]

25 minutes ago, Wiendish Fitch said:

They tell Ramona the teacher expects her to apologize to Susan in front of everyone, and that they agree. They gently, but firmly, inform her that while her feelings were justified, her actions weren't. And the frustrating thing? They're absolutely right. It doesn't matter how understandable Ramona's anger was, she still had no right to destroy Susan's property like that. So a chastened Ramona apologizes, and is wiser and better for it.

Well done, Quimbys. Well done, Beverly Cleary. A+. 

Wow, that is good parenting right there. Empathizing with the child, saying she is justified in being upset but also teaching her that lashing out in a destructive way is not the answer. Bravo Quimbys, bravo! If only we had more parents like that there would be a lot less bullying and child on child hate in the world. 

[Wiendish Fitch]

46 minutes ago, Mabinogia said:

Bravo Quimbys, bravo! If only we had more parents like that there would be a lot less bullying and child on child hate in the world. 

I agree wholeheartedly. Parents? Be a Quimby, not an Alice!

[HazelEyes4325]

1 hour ago, Wiendish Fitch said:

This, and the mention of the Quimbys from the Ramona books, reminds me of something that happened in Ramona the Brave. Ramona, like Alice's daughter, has a snotty classmate named Susan to deal with. At one point, Ramona and her classmates are making paper bag owls for an art project, and the teacher will select the ones to display. Ramona is happily making an owl she feels confident that will win, until she discovers that Susan is copying exactly what she's doing. The teacher chooses Susan's owl to display and even makes an example of her "creativity", and Ramona is rightly pissed off at this. In a blind fury, she rips Susan's owl off the display and crumples it up in front of everyone. Needless to say, she's in big trouble. After a parent/teacher conference, her parents talk to her and a contrite Ramona explains what happened and, to their credit, Mr. and Mrs. Quimby listen, believe her, and empathize (Mrs. Quimby says she feels sorry that Susan has so little imagination and talent she has to copy others).

BUT.

They tell Ramona the teacher expects her to apologize to Susan in front of everyone, and that they agree. They gently, but firmly, inform her that while her feelings were justified, her actions weren't. And the frustrating thing? They're absolutely right. It doesn't matter how understandable Ramona's anger was, she still had no right to destroy Susan's property like that. So a chastened Ramona apologizes, and is wiser and better for it.

Well done, Quimbys. Well done, Beverly Cleary. A+. 

 

*I'm not an expert on the workings of the human mind, certainly not in regards to amnesia, so if there is indeed a form of amnesia that works this way, please feel free to correct me and forgive my ignorance.

3

Oh I do remember that!  Despite my griping about Ramona and the Quimbys in the Henry Huggins books (and I stand by that!) I do love them in the Ramona books.  The last 2 Ramona books came out after I was of the age that I would be reading them, so I read them for the first time as an adult (to my daughter) and they are just wonderful.

[Spartan Girl]

Since @Wiendish Fitch brought up Edgar Linton from Wuthering Heights as a good parent, I'd like to add that Heathcliff was an absolute shit father to his both his biological child and his "adopted" children.

I also have mixed feelings about Baba in The Kite Runner. On one hand, he taught Amir good values. On the OTHER hand, he was also way too hard on Amir, disappointed that he wasn't a strong athletic younger version of himself, and he took out his frustrations that he couldn't claim Hassan as his son out on Amir. 

Edited December 25, 2018 by Spartan Girl

[peacheslatour]

On 1/1/2017 at 9:13 PM, SmithW6079 said:

I just re-read "Gone With the Wind" for reasons unknown to me. Scarlett O'Hara is a shitty mother, although I will give her props for having the self-awareness to realize it. Rhett is a decent stepfather, but way too overindulgent with Bonnie. And I just realized that when Melanie's dying, Scarlett leaves Wade and Ella with Prissy at the hotel (in Marietta, I think) to rush to Melly's bedside, and then runs home to tell Rhett she loves him after all. I'm really hoping she remembered to get the kids and take them back to Tara with her.

Here's the thing about Scarlett. She was only 17 when she had Wade. She was bewildered by the whole thing but she did what her mother before her did: Give the baby to servants to raise. Then, after they moved to Atlanta, suddenly they were in a war zone. She made it back to Tara only to be confronted with terrible poverty, a dead mother and a father who had lost his mind. She had to get real tough real fast. Wade was a terrified child and she had no time to comfort him. Fortunately Melanie was there for that. Then when she had Ella, she again gave her to servants and Aunt Melly for their coddling. Secondly, she did not love either of the children's fathers and saw only their worst traits in those children. And as you say, she knew she was no great shakes as a mother. But think about this: Meg March and Scarlett O'Hara were the same age at the same time. But Meg and her sisters were allowed to be children. They had certain responsibilities, true but they weren't expected to be mothers or breadwinners in the way that Scarlett was. And the Civil War wasn't raining down, literally, on their heads. It's an interesting contrast.

Edited February 17, 2019 by peacheslatour

[Dr.OO7]

3 hours ago, peacheslatour said:

Here's the thing about Scarlett. She was only 17 when she had Wade. She was bewildered by the whole thing but she did what her mother before her did: Give the baby to servants to raise. Then, after they moved to Atlanta, suddenly they were in a war zone. She made it back to Tara only to be confronted with terrible poverty, a dead mother and a father who had lost his mind. She had to get real tough real fast. Wade was a terrified child and she had no time to comfort him. Fortunately Melanie was there for that. Then when she had Ella, she again gave her to servants and Aunt Melly for their coddling. Secondly, she did not love either of the children's fathers and saw only their worst traits in those children. And as you say, she knew she was no great shakes as a mother. But think about this: Meg March and Scarlett O'Hara were the same age at the same time. But Meg and her sisters were allowed to be children. They had certain responsibilities, true but they weren't expected to be mothers or breadwinners in the way that Scarlett was. And the Civil War wasn't raining down, literally, on their heads. It's an interesting contrast.

I agree with a lot of this. There's no denying Scarlett was a grade-A bitch most of the time, but I actually felt sorry for her or understood her very often. She became a mother without wanting to be or knowing how to be at a time and in a society where such a thing was completely unheard of and had absolutely no one to confide about this. Not to mention that it sounds like she legitimately developed post-partum depression after having Wade, something else that wasn't understood at the time.

[Spartan Girl]

But doesn't she at some point wish that Ella had died instead of Bonnie? That's just an awful thing to think.

I know she became a mother young and it was the Civil War and all that, but it doesn't change the fact that she was an awful mother (and awful person in general).

[Wiendish Fitch]

2 hours ago, Spartan Girl said:

I know she became a mother young and it was the Civil War and all that, but it doesn't change the fact that she was an awful mother (and awful person in general).

That's probably one of the reasons why the film excised Wade and Ella altogether. 

I think Mr. Earnshaw from Wuthering Heights is pretty lousy, given how awful Cathy, Hindley, and Heathcliff turn out. I mean, if one out of three of your kids grows up to be a crappy person, it's probably not your fault, but all three?! Yeah, ya done fucked up.

[gofar575]

how to make post??

[HazelEyes4325]

5 hours ago, Spartan Girl said:

But doesn't she at some point wish that Ella had died instead of Bonnie? That's just an awful thing to think.

I know she became a mother young and it was the Civil War and all that, but it doesn't change the fact that she was an awful mother (and awful person in general).

It's been a while since I read Gone with the Wind, but if memory serves, here are my thoughts.  Scarlett was an incredibly compelling character, but she was also a raging sociopath.  She did some horrible, horrible things yet, somehow, I found myself rooting for her (even if I felt dirty for it).  As for being a mother, I see something looking at it through a 21st-century lens.  Her only model of motherhood was her own, a woman she loved and respected, but who had handed off actual parenting to someone else.  Scarlett may not have been the mother of the year, but I think she was probably the best mother she could be.

Now, that being said, I think Mitchell's intent was for her not to be considered a good mother, which presents that age-old conundrum or what exactly we should see in books "of a certain age."

[Blergh]

So despite Mrs. O'Hara and Mammy  both having been  positive role models to Scarlett, she STILL wound up being a neglectful mother to her elder two children.

[peacheslatour]

2 hours ago, Blergh said:

So despite Mrs. O'Hara and Mammy  both having been  positive role models to Scarlett, she STILL wound up being a neglectful mother to her elder two children.

She did. And I think she would have been regardless of the war. She was too young for one thing and again she married her first husband out of spite and her second out of financial necessity. Those poor kids were byproducts of loveless marriages. 

[Spartan Girl]

McLean's mother in the YA novel Whatever Happened to Goodbye by Sarah Dessen was a real piece of work. She dumps McLean's dad for a guy that happened to be McLean's favorite basketball star. Naturally, McLean is upset and embarrassed and doesn't want much to do with her mother, opting to live with her dad. But instead of acknowledging that she's right to be angry and giving her daughter some space, the mother plays the victim, blaming the dad for "taking her away" and trying to shoehorn herself back into her daughter's life, even going to the courts when she doesn't get her way. Yeah great idea, lady, that will get your daughter to forgive you.

They make up in the end, but it doesn't really feel earned because right up to the end the mom never owns up to her part in the whole mess.

[Jenniferbug]

Totally agree, @Spartan Girl. I never liked Auden's mom in Along for the Ride either. She refuses to ever let her child be a child, favors her brother blatantly, and somehow doesn't notice that her 17 year old is out at all hours of the night and not really sleeping? I think McLean's mom is worse, but Auden's isn't far behind her. 

[peacheslatour]

I don't know if anyone has brought this up but Mr. March was a deadbeat dad. He never contributed a dime to his family while Jo, Meg and Marmee worked their asses off to support the family.

[Black Knight]

On 3/20/2019 at 1:42 PM, peacheslatour said:

I don't know if anyone has brought this up but Mr. March was a deadbeat dad. He never contributed a dime to his family while Jo, Meg and Marmee worked their asses off to support the family.

That seems a bit harsh. He serves in the Union Army during the Civil War as a chaplain until he's wounded, and afterwards, he's a minister. So aside from the time he's laid up recovering, he's always working - he just doesn't make much as either a soldier or a minister, and it's a large family.

[peacheslatour]

6 minutes ago, Black Knight said:

That seems a bit harsh. He serves in the Union Army during the Civil War as a chaplain until he's wounded, and afterwards, he's a minister. So aside from the time he's laid up recovering, he's always working - he just doesn't make much as either a soldier or a minister, and it's a large family.

I know all that but he comes home, gets better and basically sits on his ass for the rest of the book.

[Black Knight]

2 minutes ago, peacheslatour said:

I know all that but he comes home, gets better and basically sits on his ass for the rest of the book.

He gets a congregation after he gets better. It just doesn't pay much. Though I guess he could be criticized for not starting a prosperity church and cashing in like Joel Osteen et al. 😇 In any case, since he works both before and after he's wounded, he does not fit my definition of a deadbeat parent. He doesn't make enough to support his entire family so that none of the rest of them have to work, but he's no different from the majority of people in that regard.

[peacheslatour]

19 hours ago, Black Knight said:

He gets a congregation after he gets better. It just doesn't pay much. Though I guess he could be criticized for not starting a prosperity church and cashing in like Joel Osteen et al. 😇 In any case, since he works both before and after he's wounded, he does not fit my definition of a deadbeat parent. He doesn't make enough to support his entire family so that none of the rest of them have to work, but he's no different from the majority of people in that regard.

I guess I'm really calling Amos Bronson Alcott a deadbeat.

[Spartan Girl]

Catherine aka the Queen of Hearts' parents in Marissa Meyer's Heartless were horrible social climbers that forced her to marry the King of Hearts. And in its only when she finally marries him after her boyfriend gets murdered and she's a shadow of her former self that theyto act like concerned parents and have the nerve to ask her if this will make her happy.

Catherine awesomely replies, "How very different things would have been if you asked me that before." And cuts them out of her life. Good for her.

[Homily]

On 3/24/2019 at 7:00 PM, Black Knight said:

He doesn't make enough to support his entire family so that none of the rest of them have to work, but he's no different from the majority of people in that regard.

I haven't read Little Women in awhile but my recollection of the girls working after Mr March comes home is more that they are adult women who should be working not that they are working to help support their parents.

[peacheslatour]

5 hours ago, Homily said:

I haven't read Little Women in awhile but my recollection of the girls working after Mr March comes home is more that they are adult women who should be working not that they are working to help support their parents.

I still think it was Louisa taking the piss out of her own father. It was subtle but it was there.

[Blergh]

On 4/5/2019 at 9:38 AM, Homily said:

I haven't read Little Women in awhile but my recollection of the girls working after Mr March comes home is more that they are adult women who should be working not that they are working to help support their parents.

Back in that time, non-working class females who were  a few years past  puberty were expected to MARRY not actually work for wages- with the expectation that their husbands were to provide for them and their offspring (of course, any monies or properties these girls and women may have inherited/possessed were legally  considered the automatic, outright properties of their husbands alone from that point on). While Meg and Amy did just that and Beth was   exempted due to her frail  constitution ,  it was somewhat significant for Miss Alcott to initially champion Jo's goal of being a self-sufficient,working woman her entire life -even to the point of rejecting the proposal of an adoring (and wealthy) long time friend who would have easily and amply provided for her. What was also significant was that both of her parents respected her decision rather than try to push her into a  bond against her wishes  that could have put the whole family on easy street from that point! Yes, she later married Professor Bauer but only because she herself loved him AND she did insist on keeping on earning her own way in the world (and he respected that) even after marriage!

Edited April 7, 2019 by Blergh

[Katy M]

The parents I Everything I Never Told You are awful.  They have 3 kids.  The father belittles the oldest, while the mother ignores him.  The mother tries to live out her dreams through the middle child while not even noticing she's not cut out for it. And everybody ignores the youngest and she's well aware that she's just a bother that nobody watned in the first place. It's heartbreaking.

[Spartan Girl]

Pretty much any of the parents in Jodi Piccoult's novels.  Just pick one, they're all awful.

And just so this thread won't be limited to heterosexual parents, I would like to nominate the biological mom in the YA novel Between Mom and Jo.  She and her girlfriend/spouse Jo raise a son together, but then she not only leaves Jo for another woman, but she pretty much cuts Jo out of their son's life.  No matter how many times the son begs to see Jo, pointing out that she's his mother too, she refuses to listen, acting like she's entitled to sole custody just because she's the one that gave birth to him.  She even GROUNDS the poor kid when he sneaks out to see Jo.  I have no patience for any parent that would do that to their child just to spite their ex.

Edited April 11, 2019 by Spartan Girl

[Black Knight]

I vaguely remember flipping through that one in the bookstore. After an entire book of being horrible, doesn't she finally cave at the end and allow him to live with Jo?

[Crs97]

Just about every parent in Little Fires Everywhere.