Who is the worst fictional parent?

[OneUmberJoker]

Cilla Battersby

Homer Simpson.

Do you mean The Bed and Breakfast Star instead of The Suitcase Kid? I recall Elsa called her step dad Mac the Smack because of his physical abuse.

I remember the step sibling as nasty In Suitcase Kid but not the dad.

Angelica’s Pickles mum in Rugrats. She’s barely aware she has a child.

Yes to Mr Bennet, although he did a good thing supporting Lizzie not to marry Mr Collins...but he should have got Mr Collins to marry Mary instead. Would have solved the issue, and Mary would have been happy too! She clearly had the hots for him 😄

I doubt Mr Bennet could have persuaded him to do that. After Lizzie spurned him, he was completely 'off' the Bennets, and Mary was the least pretty of them.

Mary fancied him but I don't think the marriage would have been successful - Collins needed someone like Charlotte who would let him think he was the clever one in the marriage, and who would be diplomatic towards Lady Catherine. Mary thought too highly of her own intellect and accomplishments to downplay them, she'd have upset Lady Catherine in five minutes I should think!

That's very true...Charlotte was actually perfect for him...hopefully he heeded her encouragement and spent a lot of time in his garden 😄

I thought one of the very few things that could be said for Cersei is that she was an affectionate mother, but a mother's first job is to pick the father carefully and she made a spectacular mess of that.

Linda Radlett in The Pursuit of Love. She had no bond at all with her daughter, barely saw her after the divorce and later justified herself on the basis that she 'couldn't let herself become anchored' to her husband his family (who were, admittedly, horrible).

Agree.

PoL is a very savvy book under the froth - Linda’s the Bolter when she’s Still Pretty Which is All That Counts.

As Bolter says herself. After 50 ‘women like us’ are alone and ridiculous, which is why no one who loves her mourns her dying young.

That’s the moral of PoL, not very frothy at all.

Nancy M had a grudge about bad parents (as did Jane Austen) and disliked her mother for favouring her younger, cuter sisters.

Lady R was not the comedy vague wraith in floaty silk but a deeply conscientious, hard-working, kind woman who gave her life to sorting out and caring for Unity and Diana in their troubled adulthoods. She bust a gut and resented Nancy’s brilliantly convincing, untruthful portrayal.