Worst Book Parents

[anna0852]

I don't think Scarlett was a particularly good mother to any of her kids but she was doing her absolute best in some shit circumstances and without any maternal instincts. She was raised by Mammy so turning hers over to a nurse/nanny would gave been totally normal. And then after the war she was consumed with survival. There's no money, her mother is dead, her sisters are useless, Melanie is sick and her father had had a break down. And they're all looking to her. She's got to keep everyone fed, housed, clothed and get the farm started back with the threat of enemy troops hanging over her head.

We see with Bonnie that once she can relax a bit she's not nasty or abusive. Just a bit absent and not all that interested in parenthood. 

I always thought Rhett was the worse parent in the long run the way he spoiled Bonnie. Scarlett had a good point there when she tried to reign him in.

[Growsonwalls]

1 minute ago, anna0852 said:

I don't think Scarlett was a particularly good mother to any of her kids but she was doing her absolute best in some shit circumstances and without any maternal instincts. She was raised by Mammy so turning hers over to a nurse/nanny would gave been totally normal. And then after the war she was consumed with survival. There's no money, her mother is dead, her sisters are useless, Melanie is sick and her father had had a break down. And they're all looking to her. She's got to keep everyone fed, housed, clothed and get the farm started back with the threat of enemy troops hanging over her head.

We see with Bonnie that once she can relax a bit she's not nasty or abusive. Just a bit absent and not all that interested in parenthood. 

I always thought Rhett was the worse parent in the long run the way he spoiled Bonnie. Scarlett had a good point there when she tried to reign him in.

Also Scarlett's mother was rather stern, rigid woman and so was Mammy so it makes sense that Scarlett is a stern mother. I don't remember her slapping Wade. She got frustrated with him because he was screaming when she was fending off Yankee soldiers and trying to save her family. When she was married to Rhett she was more relaxed and tried to have a better relationship with Wade but by then he was distant and withdrawn and preferred Aunt Melanie. Which ... of course he would.

I think Scarlett is an absolute shit wife but for a woman of her times and circumstances I think she was an average mother. She wasn't warm and nurturing like Melanie but she wasn't abusive and she made sure her kids were fed and cared for, and weren't mistreated by her new husbands. I think she was right to take a firmer hand with Bonnie. Rhett had been abandoned by his family when he was young so as is typical of people who were abandoned by their own parents he overcompensated and was a helicopter parent.

[peacheslatour]

19 hours ago, Starleigh said:

She wasn't abusive, and she did make sure they were taken care of physically, but Wade was actually terrified of her. And doesn't the book mention her slapping him? Or threatening to. As far as Ella, last time I read the book, I wondered if MM meant to imply she was somewhat mentally challenged because of all the alcohol Scarlett consumed during her pregnancy because it never occurred to Dr. Meade to enlighten her on that score. 

I thought that too. They didn't know back then probably or they were naive enough to think that "nice" women didn't drink.

[Starleigh]

I agree that Rhett hardly qualified for "father of the year award" either. But, in his favor, he was kind and affectionate to his stepchildren, while Scarlett clearly played favorites with her bio kids.

A bit off topic, but am I the only one who assumed the "ward" he referred to a few times in the book was his out of wedlock child? Who was probably Belle Watling's son? I figure there must have been a lot of backstory there that either got cut out of the published book or that Margaret Mitchell just didn't get a chance to delve in to.

[Katy M]

22 hours ago, Starleigh said:

I wondered if MM meant to imply she was somewhat challenged because of all the alcohol Scarlett consumed during her pregnancy because it never occurred to Dr. Meade to enlighten her on that score. 

Of course not.  He wouldn't have known that was bad back then.

[Starleigh]

31 minutes ago, Katy M said:

Of course not.  He wouldn't have known that was bad back then.

It said that straight out in the book, that it never occurred to him to tell her so she didn't know any better about drinking while pregnant. If doctors didn't actually know that back then, I guess it's an anachronistic detail that the author slipped up on! But she did make a point of Ella only being able to have a "foolish" conversation when Scarlett finally tried to engage with her other children, that her mind was very scattered, etc that I wondered if Mitchell meant the reader to make the connection to the prenatal alcohol exposure.

(I reread the book this past summer after a reading gap of at least 15 years so I picked up on all kinds of odd details that didn't register or resonate when I read it as a teen, lol.)

[Growsonwalls]

1 hour ago, Starleigh said:

I agree that Rhett hardly qualified for "father of the year award" either. But, in his favor, he was kind and affectionate to his stepchildren, while Scarlett clearly played favorites with her bio kids.

A bit off topic, but am I the only one who assumed the "ward" he referred to a few times in the book was his out of wedlock child? Who was probably Belle Watling's son? I figure there must have been a lot of backstory there that either got cut out of the published book or that Margaret Mitchell just didn't get a chance to delve in to.

I think Rhett confided that he had a couple "lost years" after he was abandoned by his family, and it's implied that he and Belle Watling have a son. In the movie they sort of touch upon it too where Belle has a heart to heart with Mammy and admits she has a son. It was a very nice moment in the movie. 

I agree Rhett was kind to Ella and Wade, and gave them the affection they needed. I just don;t think Scarlett was wrong for insisting on discipline and structure. 

Speaking of bad moms I always dislike Ma Ingalls in the Little House books because she seems to value personal appearance above all else. She favors Mary because Mary has blond hair. Later on while the family is starving and Laura is dragging herself to teach to support the family Ma nags her about keeping a tiny waist and always wearing corsets. Ma is also racist and a total prisspot. 

[Blergh]

29 minutes ago, Growsonwalls said:

 

Speaking of bad moms I always dislike Ma Ingalls in the Little House books because she seems to value personal appearance above all else. She favors Mary because Mary has blond hair. Later on while the family is starving and Laura is dragging herself to teach to support the family Ma nags her about keeping a tiny waist and always wearing corsets. Ma is also racist and a total prisspot. 

You're right about Caroline valuing personal appearance above. ...literally everything else. I mean, when the family is on the verge of starvation and Laura offers to do some of the hard chores alongside Pa, Ma actually d tries to discourage  her from trying to help because 'only immigrant women' were supposed to work in the fields NOT Americans (never mind that Caroline herself HAD done that and had seen plenty of US American women helping out that way- some even scratching existences on farms solo) . Lady, your family is starving and you have no living sons or any nearby male relatives to help out your already overworked husband, NOW is not the time to try to rain on your daughter's parade instead of attempting to muster a little gratitude that she wants to keep the family afloat (and it sure showed Ma's false pride as well as bigotry against immigrants). 

[Starleigh]

Lol, Ma Ingalls has been hashed out enough on the LH thread, so I won't rehash, except to say that I think she was just as much a product of her times, as Scarlett was of hers, especially the racist attitudes (which was way more egregious in GWTW than any of the LH books, imo). And, Laura changed/added in/left out a lot of details in her books. IRL, she didn't object to Laura working out in the fields, Laura worked at a variety of jobs to help out starting at the age of 12, including in some sort of inn or B&B even though Laura portrayed Ma as being horrified at the idea of Laura doing that sort of job in Little Town on the Prairie.

Edited February 9, 2021 by Starleigh

[Growsonwalls]

19 minutes ago, Blergh said:

You're right about Caroline valuing personal appearance above. ...literally everything else. I mean, when the family is on the verge of starvation and Laura offers to do some of the hard chores alongside Pa, Ma actually d tries to discourage  her from trying to help because 'only immigrant women' were supposed to work in the fields NOT Americans (never mind that Caroline herself HAD done that and had seen plenty of US American women helping out that way- some even scratching existences on farms solo) . Lady, your family is starving and you have no living sons or any nearby male relatives to help out your already overworked husband, NOW is not the time to try to rain on your daughter's parade instead of attempting to muster a little gratitude that she wants to keep the family afloat (and it sure showed Ma's false pride as well as bigotry against immigrants). 

Another instance of Ma setting a bad example is when she tells Laura that Laura can't be nice to cousin Lena because Lena ... rides horses? Her mother Docia is divorced? Being a hardy prairie woman would only help Laura. 

I think LIW had some very mixed feelings about Ma Ingalls and that was reflected in the books. I'm reading Prairie Fire and while it seems as if Laura did not speak of many of Pa Ingalls' financial failures she does speak at length about Ma's rigidity and propensity to make Laura feel like crap.

My favorite set of book parents is Johnny and Katie Nolan in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Not because they're perfect parents (they certainly aren't with Johnny being a drunk and Katie favoring her son so much) but because I really felt so much empathy for their struggles despite their imperfections. I still cry when Johnny Nolan dies.

[Starleigh]

If there are any Diana Wynne Jones fans around, I think we can all agree that the parents in her books tend to be awful but the absolute worst ones imo were Polly's parents in Fire and Hemlock. They pretty much either abandoned her or used her to manipulate the other. 

DWJ was very open about having had bad parents IRL. A year or so before she died, I read an absolutely scathing book review where she ripped a children's book apart for having received positive reviews for being a sweet heartwarming story of family life where actually the parents were neglectful and awful to the protagonist in the story. I don't even think it was an official book review, I think she was just so upset at the praise these fictional characters were getting in the literary world that she felt obligated to speak up. I don't remember the details, but I think it involved a child who was going to school with dirty clothes due to bedwetting because her patents were super involved in their flaky artsy lives. She was horrified that no book reviewers called the fictional parents on their bad behavior.

Edited February 9, 2021 by Starleigh

[peacheslatour]

Quote

In the movie they sort of touch upon it too where Belle has a heart to heart with Mammy and admits she has a son. 

She was talking to Melanie, in her carriage after the Klan incident.

[Growsonwalls]

2 hours ago, peacheslatour said:

She was talking to Melanie, in her carriage after the Klan incident.

Oops I mean Melanie. Yeah she has a talk with Melanie in the carriage. 

I'm always surprised they included Belle in the movie. The arrangement between Belle and Rhett is a little strange. She seems to be little more than a friends with benefits in both the book and the movie. I guess they share the bond of having a child so Rhett supports her.

[peacheslatour]

On 2/11/2021 at 11:35 AM, Growsonwalls said:

Oops I mean Melanie. Yeah she has a talk with Melanie in the carriage. 

I'm always surprised they included Belle in the movie. The arrangement between Belle and Rhett is a little strange. She seems to be little more than a friends with benefits in both the book and the movie. I guess they share the bond of having a child so Rhett supports her.

I always wondered how they met. They seemed to have known each other for a long time.

[Growsonwalls]

2 hours ago, peacheslatour said:

I always wondered how they met. They seemed to have known each other for a long time.

Rhett got kicked out of his parents' home when he was a young man. He drifted for a few years and probably met Belle in a casino or saloon. I think he supports her because they have a kid together. They seem more friends than anything else. 

One thing about the book that I never thought about was that Rhett is so much older than Scarlett. It's actually a little icky that he's interested in a girl who's 17 or 18 when they become friends in Atlanta and he's in his 30's. 

[peacheslatour]

2 minutes ago, Growsonwalls said:

Rhett got kicked out of his parents' home when he was a young man. He drifted for a few years and probably met Belle in a casino or saloon. I think he supports her because they have a kid together. They seem more friends than anything else. 

One thing about the book that I never thought about was that Rhett is so much older than Scarlett. It's actually a little icky that he's interested in a girl who's 17 or 18 when they become friends in Atlanta and he's in his 30's. 

When they met she was sixteen and he was thirty two. I guess in those days that was accepted although he had such a bad reputation. Why, he took a girl riding and didn't get her home on time and then he...he Refused to marry her!

[Starleigh]

Didn't Rhett set up her establishment in Atlanta? As a financial backer. Makes sense if they had a child together, he must have felt a sense of responsibility to her.

Re, the age difference--that was another Hmm moment for me this most recent reading, another little detail that only fully registered with me as an adult reader. Also, how icky it was that Gerald fell in love with 15 year old Ellen when he was about 40 or so.

[Growsonwalls]

12 minutes ago, peacheslatour said:

When they met she was sixteen and he was thirty two. I guess in those days that was accepted although he had such a bad reputation. Why, he took a girl riding and didn't get her home on time and then he...he Refused to marry her!

One thing that's nice about both the book and the movie is that Melanie doesn't care about Rhett's bad reputation. She remembers that Rhett was kind to her and the two remain friends for many years. That's really nice. Rhett seems really heartbroken about her death.

[MadyGirl1987]

4 hours ago, Growsonwalls said:

One thing that's nice about both the book and the movie is that Melanie doesn't care about Rhett's bad reputation. She remembers that Rhett was kind to her and the two remain friends for many years. That's really nice. Rhett seems really heartbroken about her death.

I love the scene in the movie where she comes to comfort him after Bonnie dies. DeHavilland and Gable are great together. Come to think of it, I think that’s the only scene where you see him interacting with Melanie one on one, which is a shame. I am reading the book for the first time after many watches of the movie and one thing that comes across the same in the book is the respect for Melanie and the sincerity he treats her. From the first we see him, in the book and movie, he kinda goes around with a sense of disdain for the social order and treats others with the cynicism he approaches life. However, he always seems to have genuine respect for Melanie.

At the risk of getting off topic, I must say I am really enjoying reading this book. l am finding it gives me so many things to think about and wanting to dive in and discuss deeper. I almost think I might start a GWTW thread to discuss my thoughts.

Edited February 15, 2021 by MadyGirl1987
Spelling

[Growsonwalls]

If Scarlett is one of the worst book parents, can we say that Melanie is one of the best? She's not just a parent to her biological child. She's in many ways a parent to Ashley, Scarlett, Rhett, and Scarlett's children. All of them are absolutely wrecked when she dies because she holds everyone together. 

One of the things the book emphasizes more is that Scarlett has severe jealousy issues about Melanie, but she also cares about Melanie. The two women have a bond from the hellish war years. 

[peacheslatour]

Quote

At the risk of getting off topic, I must say I am really enjoying reading this book. l am finding it gives me so many things to think about and wanting to dive in and discuss deeper. I almost think I might start a GWTW thread to discuss my thoughts.

I wish you would. Lol, I can talk about it all day.

[Growsonwalls]

17 minutes ago, peacheslatour said:

I wish you would. Lol, I can talk about it all day.

I made a thread here.

[peacheslatour]

1 hour ago, Growsonwalls said:

I made a thread here.

I love the title!

[Spartan Girl]

If we may get back on topic...

Helen of Troy in Goddess of Yesterday by Caroline B. Cooney is a terrible mother. She takes baby Pleis with her to Troy because she doesn’t want other people to think she’s a horrible parent, but in reality she doesn’t give a shit about him. She lets him sleep in a little closet and doesn’t come to see him at all, while Paris tries to poison him behind her back. And it’s pretty obvious that she wouldn’t have cared if he had died.

[susannah]

My two cents in regard to bad parents are the mothers in the "Mother Daughter Book Club" series, for juveniles/young adults. This group of middle school age girls were severely and endlessly bullied by this other group of girls, and their mothers knew it. In every single situation where the girls tried to stand up for themselves, they were punished. Not only that but the clueless mothers even invited the bullies into the book club, where the torture went on. It just boggles the mind why a parent would do that. One of the girls was a champion skater who had just lost her father. HER mother, a real jewel, had, within the year, married someone else and was pregnant. Understandably the girl wasn't thrilled so her mother punished her by taking away her skating and sending her to a therapist. This is all practically Gothic. Bad messages to the kids reading the books.

[Blergh]

19 hours ago, susannah said:

My two cents in regard to bad parents are the mothers in the "Mother Daughter Book Club" series, for juveniles/young adults. This group of middle school age girls were severely and endlessly bullied by this other group of girls, and their mothers knew it. In every single situation where the girls tried to stand up for themselves, they were punished. Not only that but the clueless mothers even invited the bullies into the book club, where the torture went on. It just boggles the mind why a parent would do that. One of the girls was a champion skater who had just lost her father. HER mother, a real jewel, had, within the year, married someone else and was pregnant. Understandably the girl wasn't thrilled so her mother punished her by taking away her skating and sending her to a therapist. This is all practically Gothic. Bad messages to the kids reading the books.

Agree- and I hate it when bullying and abuse of children and teens in fiction ( and more so in  Real Life)  gets treated as though it's a joke that everyone in the know is supposed to shrug off instead of calling any of the perps much less standing up to them or punishing them for it! 

[Spartan Girl]

I’m reading a YA novel, A Shot At Normal by Marisa Reichardt. The main character Juniper’s parents are overprotective antivaxxer hippies, and she winds up contracting the measles because of it, inadvertently giving it to a baby at a farmer’s market who dies because of it. She of course is horrified and guilt-ridden and wants to get her vaccinations, but her parents refuse, spouting all the antivaxxer bs. They even blame the baby’s mother just for taking the baby outside. That’s right: they blame the victim.

So after countless attempts to reason with them, Juniper feels like she has no other choice to sue them for rights to her own body. And just like the parents in My Sister’s Keeper they act like the victims and ice her out; claiming that she can’t “reject all their value and expect things to be the same.” Even her own sister blames her for “ruining their family.” Their mindset doesn’t change much even when she wins the case.

A good example of how loving your children and claiming to do what you think is best for them doesn’t automatically make you a good parent.

[Wiendish Fitch]

49 minutes ago, Spartan Girl said:

I’m reading a YA novel, A Shot At Normal by Marisa Reichardt. The main character Juniper’s parents are overprotective antivaxxer hippies, and she winds up contracting the measles because of it, inadvertently giving it to a baby at a farmer’s market who dies because of it. She of course is horrified and guilt-ridden and wants to get her vaccinations, but her parents refuse, spouting all the antivaxxer bs. They even blame the baby’s mother just for taking the baby outside. That’s right: they blame the victim.

So after countless attempts to reason with them, Juniper feels like she has no other choice to sue them for rights to her own body. And just like the parents in My Sister’s Keeper they act like the victims and ice her out; claiming that she can’t “reject all their value and expect things to be the same.” Even her own sister blames her for “ruining their family.” Their mindset doesn’t change much even when she wins the case.

A good example of how loving your children and claiming to do what you think is best for them doesn’t automatically make you a good parent.

We have all heard a variation of the Commandment of "Honor thy mother and thy father".

Well, okay, but how about honoring your fucking offspring, too?!!

Edited July 1, 2021 by Wiendish Fitch
Inclusivity.

[Spartan Girl]

13 minutes ago, Wiendish Fitch said:

We all know the Commandment of "Honor thy mother and thy father".

Well, okay, but how about honoring your fucking offspring, too?!!

Oh, these assholes don’t even honor their OWN parents. When the grandmother/dad’s mom tries to reason with him, he lashes out at her too.

And I hated how in the actual trial, the dad gives this big emotional speech to the court and to June that all their choices were made because they loved their kids even it they seemed “overprotective”. Which kind of comes off as a bit emotionally manipulative since they refused to even speak to June for the past few weeks! Grrr!

[Spartan Girl]

I just read It Will End Like This by Kyra Leigh, a YA thriller that’s a reworking of the Lizzie Borden story. And the dad in that novel is pure garbage. Only four months after the girls’ mother dies (under very suspicious circumstances) he gets engaged to their mother’s assistant. Not only that, he actually gives her his dead wife’s engagement ring, and acts all shocked that the girls are so against him “being happy again.” Or that this behavior leads them to believe that he and the girlfriend killed their mother.

If you know the Lizzie Borden story, you can probably guess how it works out but 

Spoiler

At the end, it’s revealed that their mother was a drug addict and killed herself, and the dad hid her suicide note because he was afraid that they’d blame him. Uh, but you were more than fine with letting your bimbo parade around in your house wearing their mother’s jewelry and being completely sensitive to their grief?! Bit of a flaw in that logic.

Not saying that he and his girlfriend deserved to get murdered at the end, but there are consequences to being a selfish asshole.

 

Edited March 23, 2022 by Spartan Girl

[proserpina65]

On 2/8/2021 at 8:51 PM, Starleigh said:

I guess it's an anachronistic detail that the author slipped up on!

It's an anachronistic detail.  The connection between heavy drinking (emphasis on heavy) and fetal development wasn't even that well established during Margaret Mitchell's lifetime, so she was a bit ahead of her time.  It wasn't until the 70s that the government put out warnings.

 

[Spartan Girl]

I know people have ripped apart both dads in the Heaven books, but I think Sarah Casteel deserves some scorn too. Yeah, Luke was a drunk abusive asshole and that last stillbirth damaged her psyche, but that’s no excuse to abandon your kids, especially when you’re leaving them with a father you know is horrible. She could have at least had the decency to take the little Keith and Jane with her—though unlike Tom, Fanny, and Heaven, they at least ended up in a better place with a loving, stable family. Still. 

Edited May 29, 2022 by Spartan Girl

[EtheltoTillie]

On 2/16/2021 at 5:05 PM, peacheslatour said:

I wish you would. Lol, I can talk about it all day.

Ok, now I understand your avatar, LOL. 

[GreekGeek]

Has anyone  here read The Man Who Loved Children? Sam and Henny Pollit are some of the worst parents ever. The title is Henny's sarcastic description of Sam. He does love the kids in his way, but he also treats them like his servants, forcing them to work on his stupid household projects. The climactic one is the boiling of a marlin for oil, which takes all night. He is especially overbearing towards his oldest child, Louisa, from his previous marriage. Louisa is a budding literary talent, but he blows off her work because he thinks the arts are useless and only cares about science. He makes endless speeches in his own weird baby talk, mostly about how everyone should be like him. Oh, and he loses his job halfway through the book and doesn't look for another, preferring to moan about what an unappreciated genius he is.

Henny is arguably worse. There's some sympathy for her because she's overwhelmed by too many kids and not enough money, but her attitude to Louisa is horrible. Instead of being grateful and affectionate to her stepdaughter, who handles a lot of the child-rearing and other household duties, she calls her fat and disgusting. She should never have had one child, let alone six, whom she seems to hate most of the time (except for her oldest son, whose money she steals). She and Sam have endless shouting matches, but won't get divorced because Sam won't let her break up the family!

[Spartan Girl]

Lady Capulet in Juliet’s Nurse by Lois Leveen was a pretty rotten mother. She’s been depicted as cold and distant in most versions of Romeo and Juliet, but in this one, she resents Juliet because she’s her only surviving child instead of the male heir she desperately wanted.

Granted, she’s got plenty of valid reasons to be bitter. Her family married her off to Lord Capulet at a very young age while he’s old enough to be her grandfather, and understandably hates coupling with him with a passion (hence why she wanted a son). Even worse, it’s Lord Capulet’s second marriage; he lost his first wife and all their children to the plague, and he still loves his dead wife so much he names Juliet after her. That, on top of all the stillbirths and miscarriages, takes a big toll on Lady Capulet, and she takes it out on Juliet. 

Edited August 18, 2022 by Spartan Girl

[Spartan Girl]

Clytemnestra in Elektra by Jennifer Saint. Yeah, Agamemnon had it coming. But Clytemnestra was too busy grieving for Iphigenia and plotting revenge that she neglected the children she had left, this making Elekra’s…well, Elektra complex way worse. And it wasn’t until she got revenge that she realized taking Agamemnon’s enemy as a lover put Elektra and Orestes in danger.

[Haleth]

Yeah, well, I'd say sacrificing your child for better weather is bullet point #1 in How to Be a Bad Parent.

Edited January 6, 2023 by Haleth

[Spartan Girl]

2 hours ago, Haleth said:

Yeah, well, I'd say sacrificing your child for better weather is bullet point #1 in How to Be a Bad Parent.

Oh definitely. Agamemnon was a terrible father. Didn’t mean to suggest otherwise. But sleeping with someone who wants to wipe out your other children would definitely be #2 in How to Be A Bad Parent, so Clytemnestra still screwed the pooch big time.

[CountryGirl]

I read Celeste Ng’s Everything I Never Told You and hated both parents. The mother wanted to be a doctor but chucks those plans when she marries the father and gets pregnant. She then abandons the two kids she has at the time to return to her childhood home and revisit the prospect of school. After she returns, she decides to live vicariously through her eldest daughter and push her to be the doctor from the time she’s a little girl, which helps drive her now-teenage daughter to a very tragic end. She ignores her son and youngest daughter so she can focus all of her attention on the chosen one. The father seems to despise and resent his son and is physically violent with him, he goes along with how his wife treats their daughter and enables her, and also ignores their youngest. He also has an affair with his teaching assistant. I haven’t hated fictional people this much since my days of reading VC Andrews. 

[Haleth]

Wow.  Guess I'll take a pass on that one.  I liked Little Fires, but this sounds awful.

[CountryGirl]

5 hours ago, Haleth said:

Wow.  Guess I'll take a pass on that one.  I liked Little Fires, but this sounds awful.

I loved the kids and so much of Celeste’s writing in this book is just flat-out beautiful, where I found myself re-reading passages, but yeah, the parents were dreadful. 

[Oosala]

On 2/8/2021 at 6:38 PM, Growsonwalls said:

I think Rhett confided that he had a couple "lost years" after he was abandoned by his family, and it's implied that he and Belle Watling have a son. In the movie they sort of touch upon it too where Belle has a heart to heart with Mammy and admits she has a son. It was a very nice moment in the movie.

I think I'm remembering this wrong because I thought it was Melanie that had the heart-to-heart with Belle Watling, when Belle admitted she had a son, and her and Melanie bonded because of Melanie's son.  The way I remember it, Belle is riding in a black carriage and she summons Melanie toward her, and Melanie and Mammy are on the sidewalk.  Mammy refuses to let Melanie approach the carriage because "it ain't fittin'".  Belle wanted to give some gold coins to Melanie to help with the war effort and Melanie gracefully accepted said coins, even though it was a huge breach of protocol for a "lady" to even speak to a prostitute.  The gold coins are tied up in a handkerchief and, when opened, Scarlett notices the hanky is monogrammed with Rhett's initials.

Edited January 16, 2023 by Oosala
Edited because I added more detail.

[Starleigh]

Yes, in the book it's Melanie who Belle shares this info with....not sure about the movie. I've seen the movie a handful of times, but I've read the book probably dozens of times😁

[Spartan Girl]

I’m a little annoyed that the recent Lifetime adaptation of the YA novel Dirty Little Secrets made the hoarder mother more loving. In the book, she was downright abusive, caring more about her junk than the well-being of her daughter. She even had the nerve to blame the mess on her own children, acting like they were the reason she couldn’t keep everything tidy, and not the fact she kept buying random crap every second she got. And if Lucy even asked if they could clean up the house a little, she would viciously lash out at her; she even went as far to say that if she wanted to leave so bad, she could go any never come back.

Book Lucy wasn’t really sad that her mother died in the end. Can’t say I blame her in the slightest.

[Spartan Girl]

Marrying Mozart by Stephanie Cowell** had some pretty shitty parents. First and foremost should be Mozart’s parents who of course basically used their son as a cash cow and dragging him all over the world, and then got upset for wanting to live his own life. There’s a really good line where Mozart laments, “No one will forgive me for growing up, not even my own family.”

And then there’s Cecilia Weber, who like the Bennet mother in Pride and Prejudice, is obsessed with marrying her daughters off to nobility so she can live vicariously through them. When she doesn’t get her way, she gets verbally abusive to her daughters, especially poor Josefa. Arguably the worst thing she does is 

Spoiler

Cruelly drop the bombshell at the father’s funeral that Josefa wasn’t even biologically his!

**Its a great book though, I highly recommend it.

[MadyGirl1987]

Just read "Are You There God, It's Me Margaret." Her mom's parents were piece of work anti-semites, but I also hated how her parents handled religion. She was obviously looking for a greater community connection and while they said she can pick whatever faith they could have really helped her in her spiritual journey by imparting the beliefs of the traditions they grew up in and being more open to her exploring the traditional beliefs of both sides of her family, instead of questioning why she wants to go to temple/church.

[Spartan Girl]

Katniss’ mom in The Hunger Games. She had the chance to redeem herself for her neglect of Katniss and Prim, but Prim’s death gave the excuse to bail on Katniss AGAIN?! Katniss should have just cut her off for good after that.

[Spartan Girl]

I can’t believe I didn’t think of it sooner, but Huck Finn’s Pap. Miserable, abusive drunken excuse for a sperm donor who probably would have killed Huck had he not run away. It’s safe to say that not a tear was shed over him.