Who is the worst fictional parent?

[OneUmberJoker]

Cilla Battersby

Great thread!

my first though was the Dursleys.

The mum (Beech?) in Goodnight Mar Tom is a great call. That film is so moving.

Frank Gallagher from Shameless!

Yes that would make sense

haven’t read the book for years’ but didn’t Earnshaw pick him up in Liverpool or something

Good point. The theme arises in Jane Eyre too, in relation to Adele Varens; why did Rochester take her on if he didn't have grounds to believe she was his daughter? Emily and Charlotte seemed to have shared an interest in uncertain parentage and weren't shy about addressing illegitimacy.

Threads about books and reading definitely boost my mood. When I'm in a bookworm huddle, online or off, with other readers, it completely takes me away from everything else. I might not have much in common with others in the huddle except a love of books - but for me, that's a huge thing to start with, because I love reading so much.

frank harkness (father of slow horse River Cartwright) has to be up there.

I was coming to say Marigold from The Illustrated Mum but I see that’s already been mentioned. I actually reread this last week and it’s a shocking read as a mother in my 30s compared to how it was when I read it as an 11 year old! I also remember the mum in the The Suitcase Kid being useless. Sitting around doing nothing while her boyfriend physically abused her child. I’m sure at one point she even blames the child for bringing it on herself.

The parents of the baby in the rock a bye baby rhyme, baby in the tree tops?
“when the winds blows the cradle will fall”
I sing a different ending, cant bear the original

Slow horses is fabulous! We’ve binged watched it all week, last episode on Wednesday.
Gary Oldman is hilarious.

The McFizzitz in The Dwindling Party by Edward Gorey. Each family member disappears on a day out and not one person notices.

The Dursleys and the mother from Goodnight Mr Tom. All awful but the mother in Mr Tom is the worst.

I’ve really enjoyed reading this thread.

The parents in Ozark.

Wasn't the mum in Goodnight Mr Tom mentally ill? What about the mother in The Sixth Sense?----

I thought schizophrenia but may have misremembered. My teacher read it to us in year 4, which is quite shocking!

He said he was going to Liverpool, but none of the details in the book support that he did. He couldn’t have walked to Liverpool and back in the time given and that would probably have been very obvious to a reader at the time it was written. The details fit better with his wife’s accusation that the boy is a gypsy. Earnshaw goes on to name him after their dead son. That’s all I remember off the top of my head but there’s more than that.

The book is incredibly precise in other aspects - timelines etc., so it’s unlikely to be author error.

Polonius! Pompous, judgmental, absent.

🤣

Polonius gave some good advice, though.

Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
for loan loses both itself and friend,
and borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine ownself be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.

Horrid Henry’s parents. He isn’t horrid, they are abusive and nasty.

My god I’d forgotten about those bastards. I think I was a bit too young to have read that way back then.

Marvin Gaye’s dad.

Sorry forgot, non fictional. :-/

They are all siblings in WGOABH. Parents are obviously neglectful for leaving the children alone, including a baby.

Archibald Craven, the Dad in The Secret Garden is a useless, selfish bastard for sure

Noone’s mentioned Medea yet. Killing your children to spite your ex husband is pretty poor parenting

Yes but she was overworked and had been left by the father or fathers of all those children, during a time when there was clearly no CMP from absent fathers and there was no easy access to contraceptives.

It was all left to her to parent all those poor souls, and her soul was probably in need of a break.