edit: rule
I don’t think everything is black and white like that. My dad has mental health issues but he does try when he manages to think about doing so.
Ninjago is the Bioncles of middle zoomers
Yesss. I remember the first episodes coming out so well. Loved them as a middle zoomer child
The what is the what of what now?
I am more pissed at how it takes like 5 minutes of apologizing to fix all awkwardness and resenment completely.
You run into the problem where generations of men were raised that showing love for your family meant providing for them; most men didn’t work at home. So if you were physically at home with your children, that meant you weren’t out trying to give them a better economic life.
It has only been recent that this paradigm has shifted.
Lots of stuff can be explained by untreated mental health, and intent without action is a symptom of a lot of that stuff. It’s worth being forgiving IF they’re willing and trying, correctly, to improve.
Life is often too nuanced for memes
I get what you’re saying, but the overriding thing here is that people write what they know.
Abusive fathers aren’t the issue. Abusers with unearned redemption arcs are
I rewatched Inception recently, it’s interesting because it has this trope centered in the plot. Cillian Murphy’s character, Robert Fischer Jr., had a father like this, and while he never believed in his son (at least as far as we’re revealed), the plot centers around having him believe that he did.
Hey hey, ho ho, the father who neglected their kid but actually loved them all along trope has got to go!
Yesn’t? I think it is possible to love your kid while being a shit parent. In fact I know. If anything I’d like to see it revamped into a bad parent attoning for their failures, accepting that they have harmed their kid and adress it with the kid. “I see now how I was a bad parent to you. I see the hurt I caused and I am sorry. And while it doesn’t erase what happened, I will do better.” I’d love that as a signal to bad parents that they can do better. An an empathic wake up call
This x1000. Cobra Kai never dies!
That’s fair. The real issue is when that redemption is not earned, or when the fact that the parent did love them is used to garner them sympathy from the audience. Love without action doesn’t count
Yeah id be happy to see the parent attempting to atone, the child accepting that attempt, but still not forgiving them.
And then here’s the important part, the parent keeps atoning even though they get no forgiveness from the child.
So much about that abusive relationship is tied to control. You need to re-earn trust.
Ive seen so many parents try to recognize their fuckup only for it to end in “well i tried once and the child didnt forgive me so screw that brat”
I agree. You need to reflect your own behaviour and adress it. Only then can this be meaningful.
Also dont factor out someone’s situation and how that contributes. My mom left when I was like 4 so my dad became a single father of three, he didn’t want to be neglectful but he also had to work 12 hour shifts to afford the house and everything else we needed. Never once have I felt like my dad didn’t love me I just wish society would be better so we could have spent more time together as a kid.
Invented entirely by deadbeat dads in writing rooms.
“Not now, son. I can’t attend your birthday party because I’ll be busy writing a deadbeat dad who works too much. Luckily, it’s really easy for me to get into his mindset for some reason.”
I was positively surprised by Drops of God (Apple tv series) in this respect.
At the start you’re like “father can’t have been this bad, I’m sure people are overreacting”. At the end you’re like “omfg what a massive cunt”.
I liked “Waiting for the Out” a lot. It’s kind of this trope but then it’s the exact opposite.
Just about everything coming from AppleTV right now is hitting these marks. Very believable relationships and stakes. The main character’s dad in Shrinking has a moment very similar where he begs him to be better but he just refuses.
Neglect is absolutely a form of abuse. I feel the need to point out, though, that some dads are dealing with emotional scars of their own. In a few cases, neglect is actually an improvement from what the dads themselves went through.
Trauma is most often generational–almost certainly most cases, and definitely all I’ve personally encountered
There’s a stage of maturity in being able to acknowledge why someone acted the way they did, but still recognizing that they needed to do better and need to actually work to heal the damage they did.
What about the dad that abandoned their kids but then reappears to ask for help now that their kids have reached success as a physician or other professional peak?
It’s always some bullshit excuse - “they’re going to cut off my electricity” “I need help paying for food” “I got kicked off Medicaid buy haven’t bothered to try to reapply” “I got heart surgery but still don’t plan to stop smoking”
There’s the human appeal of not wanting to see your father suffer. Knowing what it’s like to be poor. Every ~2 months it’s the same phonecall… Hey, can I get $3-500 just to get me through this month?
Where were you for 25+ years mother fucker.
That one is really hard. You aren’t wrong if you say no, change your number, connect them with services, ignore, etc. But you have a heart so it still feels bad. So dad extra sucks for this.
I wouldn’t give a stranger a bunch if money, why would I give someone who abandoned me money. They’re basically a stranger and just using the father/family angle to manipulate who they can into giving them money.
Am I a bad person for wanting to see my father suffer? He’s an asshole, my three younger siblings and myself unfortunately have to live with him as my mom cannot find her own home (she’s staying with her dad). He’s inducing depression in even the youngest here (11 y/o). It’s infuriating.
You are not a bad person. It is in fact quite common to wish gor the bad parent to suffer. I know it is hard to take this step, there is a lot of red tape, fear and shame, but have you considered talking with Child Protective Services about the situation?
I’ve had a couple of years of therapy, and am waiting for some other orgs to make contact with me after an intake I had yesterday. But that’s mostly for myself, anything related to my siblings I think I cannot easily initiate.
You are taking care of yourself, that’s good! I also think I unintentinally placed way to much responsibility on you in my previous comment. I didn’t expect it to read as you having to take care of your siblings wellbeing or didn’t realize how hard this is. This is a put your own oxygen mask on before helping others situation. It sucks but it’s the right thing. Hope the orgs call back soon and can help you through this.
Legally, I’m an adult (21 y/o), so CPS wouldn’t apply to me. That’s why I assumed you were talking about my siblings 😅 but you had no way of knowing my age
For what it’s worth, if you’re his only child, he left before you were born, and never had another relationship after, there’s a very good chance he’s not a motherfucker. An asshole, yes, but not a motherfucker.
I’m proud to be a motherfucker, shows I stuck around after the baby was born (though that should be baseline).
That one is realistic though, the one in OP is just giving them redemption without making any effort to repair the damage or grow as a person.
You’re ruining my plans to say “I’m going for a pack of smokes” was actually my sleeper agent activation code.
That’s really why daddy has been gone for 20 years, I was undercover for the CIA and they required me to reassimilate a bachelor lifestyle. I’d like you to meet my partner Crystal Diamond, that’s her codename. I know she’s your age, but she’s shown a lot of promise as a new agent.
We both have been staking out a strip club hideout. A front for a terrorist organization. I know this is hard to understand but that’s why I use most of your child support money there, to defend our country.
Some heroes wear too much cologne.
