Telling her to shut up is actually one of the nicest things Peter has done to Meg.
"If my son talked like that, I'd beat him to within an inch of his life, I'd whip him senseless with my belt, and hold his head in the toilet till he was begging for mercy! I still don't see why the judge cut off my visitation rights."
— Sosumi, Ultimate Muscle
Parents are supposed to be the protectors of children, but these parents are either so damaged themselves that they can't do the job, greedy, or villainous to the point that they never had any interest in doing the job properly or would rather use the child as a means to an end. Sometimes, they're just sadistic assholes.
This includes parents who are emotionally, verbally, physically, or mentally abusive, or who neglectfully allow their children to be abused by others if they don't abuse the child themselves; sexual abuse in particular is typically treated as a special kind of evil. Sometimes, the abuse at the hands of their parents becomes a Freudian Excuse for a villain. Other times, the character manages to not grow up broken, bitter, and hateful, and instead a different and better person than the upbringing would incline one to think; they may even pass down their newfound betterment to their own children. Troubling Unchildlike Behavior is often a tell-tale sign that things are not right at home.
Abusive Parents are commonplace in fairy tales and Classical Mythology which makes this trope Older Than Feudalism. Note that The Brothers Grimm, when they collected European fairy tales, were uncomfortable with the idea of Abusive Parents and so frequently changed the Abusive Parents in the traditional stories into abusive step-parents.
Sometimes, a parent will go as far as to kill the child in question, in which case this is Offing the Offspring. In other cases, the parent's abuse occasionally drives the offspring to snap, become Abusive Offspring in a Cycle of Revenge, and/or finally kill them, thus becoming a Self-Made Orphan. Although other times, the parents end up as a Karma Houdini. Calling the Old Man Out occurs when a fed-up child retaliates with a "Reason You Suck" Speech. If the child gets out of the broken family and forms healthy friendships, but reacts badly when their abusive parents show up again, well, Friends Are Chosen, Family Aren't. Their new friends/family will likely be horrified/infuriated to learn what the parents did, as such actions are evil. If the parents try to get their kids back under their power for whatever reason, expect a Desperate Abuser Apology (though whether or not the kids decide to go back varies due to story).
Bear in mind that not everyone agrees on the line between actual abuse and merely heavy-handed parenting (or even normal parenting). Is Moving the Goalposts merely inspiring the child to achieve more, or the most insidious form of abuse to instill mistrust and paranoia in the children? Some include spanking as abuse; others think it's appropriate given certain guidelines. Some believe it's okay to make a kid go without a meal (they won't starve that easily); others disagree. Making a kid miss a friend's birthday sleepover — is that emotional abuse? Raising a kid without exposure to TV? Telling your daughter she's getting fat? A little name-calling? There's a line here somewhere, but not everyone agrees on where it is.
If a parent has just dumped the child, for whatever reason, that's Parental Abandonment; if they aren't paying attention, that's Parental Neglect. If the parents refuse to discipline their kids, they are Pushover Parents. Contrast Mama Bear and Papa Wolf (where others abuse the children and the parents abuse the abusers), the more extreme variant of Knight Templar Parent (where the abusive parent is violently overprotective) and Abusive Offspring (where the children are abusive to their parents). Abusive Precursors can be considered this, on a metaphorical level. Black Comedy is often connected in the comedic aspect of it, and a Big, Screwed-Up Family may be involved if it is adult comedy. In keeping with the above note, some may call the show on it and say Dude, Not Funny!. Abusive-type parents are mostly wanted criminals being chased by the law.
While they do not have to be the child's actual, technical parents to be part of this trope, they must be closely related and live together, like a Wicked Stepmother or an Evil Uncle taking care of the Parentally Deprived. After all, it's much more disgusting that somebody related to the child could bring themselves to hurt them, rather than a mere foster family.
As in Real Life, this trope can make a child Hate Their Parent.
The psychological damage of abusive parenting can lead to Conditioned to Be Weak, where the abused child is too scared of their abuser to retaliate so they just follow orders to avoid their wrath.
Subtropes include:
- Affair? Blame the Bastard: Someone who was cheated on vents their anger by abusing the child conceived during the affair.
- Archnemesis Dad: An evil father.
- Baby as Payment: A parent gives up their baby in exchange for something else such as money.
- Breaking the Cycle of Bad Parenting: The abused child in question grows up and starts their own family, vowing not to make the same mistakes their parents did with them and will try to treat their own children better.
- Child Abuse Is a Special Kind of Evil: Characters who abuse their children (or who abuse children period) are viewed as the scum of the earth.
- Delusions of Parental Love: The abused child insists that their parents are good people despite their mistreatment.
- Evil Matriarch: An evil mother.
- Fostering for Profit: Foster parents spend the money for a foster kid on themselves, and give their charge the bare minimum.
- Gruesome Grandparent: A grandparent is abusive.
- Hilariously Abusive Childhood: When this is cranked up to absurd levels and Played for Laughs.
- Kidnapped by Family: When parents kidnap their kids.
- Lecherous Stepparent: A sexually-abusive step-parent.
- Loving Parent, Cruel Parent: One parent is abusive and the other isn't.
- Maternal Death? Blame the Child!: A parent blames the death of their wife during childbirth on their newborn baby.
- Offing the Offspring: A parent kills their child.
- Parental Incest: A sexually abusive parent.
- Parental Neglect: Cruel apathy to your children.
- Pimping the Offspring: A parent prostitutes their own (usually underage) child for profit.
- Protagonists Become Bad Parents: The Protagonist grows up and has kids- but turns out to be bad at parenting.
- Resentful Guardian: A parent hates raising their child and longs for the days when they were child-free.
- Royally Bad Parent: Parent(s) within a line of royalty/nobility are abusive to their children.
- Sinister Serial Adopter: A villainous character "adopts" multiple children, usually for unwholesome and abusive purposes.
- Step Servant: A child's step-family makes the child their servant.
- Useless Bystander Parent: The parent allows someone else to abuse their kid.
- Wicked Stepmother: Evil step-parents.
The polar opposite, of course, is Good Parents. Also not to be confused with Teasing Parent, who plays harmless jokes on their kids without intending to hurt them.
Unfortunately, Abusive Parents are Truth in Television and a very sensitive topic for many, so No Real Life Examples, Please! It is sufficient to say they DO exist
and they are also too common.
Note: Please do not use this trope for complaining about parents you don't like.
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Other examples:
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Advertising
- An Australian charity ran a campaign trying to challenge public perception that victims of child abuse should somehow forget or "get over" the trauma as adults. It ran a PSA with a father giving a speech at his daughter's wedding about how he sexually abused her as a child, and everyone (including the bride and groom) laughing along. A radio campaign took a similar format with an athlete giving an acceptance speech thanking his abusive father for making him learn to run fast, and a woman happily reminiscing at her elderly mother's birthday party about how the mother neglected and emotionally abused her daughter.
- There's a series of Jell-o pudding commercials that feature parents punishing their children for stealing it for themselves in ways that can only be described as this. One of them has a mother telling her daughter a story which is a not-so-disguised threat that she'll take her daughter's favorite things (a bike, her teddy bear) and throw them away until the girl gives her the empty containers. Another is told in nursery-rhyme style, featuring a little girl who is sent to work at a coal mine for stealing a pudding. The latter is ambiguous enough so one doesn't know if the child is merely being threatened or if she's already been sent away. There was another ad where two parents scare their children lifeless over the pudding, giving a campfire-story threat involving the "Chocobeast."
- The NSPCC's "Full Stop" ads feature particularly abusive parents.
- “Don’t Look” features a mother hitting her own baby, a father calling his son "brainless" and "stupid", and the aftermath of a mother locking her son in a closet, all off-screen.
- Another NSPCC PSA showed a father abusing an animated version of his son, complete with a Wild Take or two and over-the-top reactions and pratfalls... until the end, when he throws the boy down the stairs. The real kicker is the message at the end: Real children don't bounce back.
- Skittles: The mother in "Harvest the Rainbow" refuses to call a doctor for her son, who has a skittles tree growing out of his stomach, because he's her orchard. Similarly, she considers his dream of going to college silly. From the state her son is in, he's not had a bath or change of clothes in a long time and may not be let into the house anymore. As a bonus, the mother is played by Beth Grant, who often gets cast as an abusive monster.
Audio Plays
- Frankenstein (Big Finish) has Victor's father Alphonse mention that he used to beat Victor when he was a child, but it's downplayed since not only was it a common practice for the time but he still sincerely loves Victor and he decided to spoil him after his mother died. However he would express concern that this sudden mixture of abuse and spoiling had the consequence of turning him into the cruel man he is.
Comic Strips
- Suburban Fairy Tales: The Three Pigs' mother constantly criticizes them. In one strip, she even tried to send them to a sausage factory.
- The Twilight Empire: Robinson's War: Shannara keeps her daughter Beca imprisoned in her castle and forbids her from seeing the outside world, cuts her off from her family outside of herself, and even so largely neglects her to attend to her wars and political schemes. Beca describes herself as being more of a prized possession than a daughter, and has tried to run away at least once before the comic started.
Fairy Tales
- "The Fool of the World and the Flying Ship": The fool's parents are verbally abusive to the fool, not being supportive of him when he wanted to go out and build a flying ship. They also only gave him scraps of food for his journey instead of the lovely meal they gave to his two brothers.
- "Hans the Hedgehog": Hans' father regrets having wished for his half-urchin son to be born and literally wishes him dead. He is all too happy when Hans leaves home on his own initiative, and he does not even care when Hans returns with a big herd of pigs to feed the village with. He only starts caring when Hans returns again, now fully human and married to a princess.
- "Maid Maleen": The titular princess refuses to go through with an arranged marriage, so her father tries to "break her spirit" by locking her away in a tower for seven years.
- "Morozko": The old woman constantly berates her stepdaughter, to the point that the poor child cries every night, and in the beginning of the tale the old woman attempts to get her killed.
- "Mother Holle": The main character's stepmother forces her to work until her hands are bleeding. In the Erstwhile version, it is seen that the woman dotes on her biological daughter as long as she obeys orders and does not talk back.
- "Prince Ivan, the Witch Baby, and the Little Sister of the Sun": In Arthur Ransome's version, Prince Ivan's parents cared little for his mute son, whose "dumbness" they were constantly moaning about, so it should not come as a surprise that Ivan "spent all his time in the stables, listening to the tales of an old groom".
Jokes
Real child abuse isn't funny, period. However there is Black Humor and Comedic Sociopathy. With that being said:
- There's a whole line of short "Mommy Mommy" jokes that are popular:
"Mommy-mommy, why do I keep walking in circles?"
"Shut up dear, or I'll nail your other foot to the floor."
"Mommy-mommy, why is Daddy running back and forth across the field?"
"Shut up and reload, dear."
"Mommy-mommy, why can't Daddy have a proper burial?
"Shut up and keep flushing, dear."
"Mommy-mommy, Grandma has a huge mole on her leg!"
"Shut up and eat around it, dear." - A mother is making jam in the kitchen, and her legless son plays in the other room. He calls for her to bring him some jam, and she answers that he can easily walk to the kitchen. "But I have no legs..." "No legs, no jam!"
- This joke is also told in the "No arms, no cartoons" variety.
Myths & Religion
- Classical Mythology is full of child abuse.
- Ouranos and Cronos both made a practice of imprisoning their children at birth: Ouranos threw them in Tartarus, while Cronos swallowed them whole.
- Greek mortals abuse their children just as often in myth. For example, Echetus stabbed out his daughter's eyes, chained her in a cellar, and made her grind bronze chunks to dust. Acrisius locked his daughter Danae in solitary confinement to prevent her from having children, and then threw her in a box and dumped her in the sea when she got pregnant from Zeus. Mythical women suffer various physical punishments and sometimes death for getting pregnant out of wedlock, even when they were raped. Beating kids barely even gets mentioned in Classical Greece, except when someone like comedian Aristophanes mocks moral relativists by depicting them as opposed to beating them.
- When Hephaestus was born, his mother Hera tossed him off a cliff because she thought he was too ugly. (He survived.)
- Kullervo in The Kalevala is abused so badly he becomes an Omnicidal Maniac and kills himself. At the end of the canto, Väinämöinen especially warns of abusing children, stating that "a boy abused will never have the mind of a man".
Podcasts & Radio
- Ain't Slayed Nobody's "The Between":
- Viola Archer's grandmother was a callous and demanding matriarch who—after the tragic death of her beloved older brother—raised her to take his place as a monster-hunter.
- Roland Kessler's father Aberdeen was a wealthy but callous and cruel man who murdered his other son as a child by dropping him down a well that is still haunted by his ghost. Roland forsook his life of wealth and privilage to escape his father's machinations, first becoming a cowboy and then relocating to London.
- Compelled Dual: Leoril and Phirora's father, Morlin, regularly used enchantment magic on Leoril before he left, and deadnames him behind closed doors. He also casts Dominate Person on Phirora in episode 17. It's little wonder that Leoril's ultimate goal is to see the man dead.
- 3 of the 4 main dads in season 1 of Dungeons & Daddies had very bad relationships with their fathers that contained varying levels of abuse.
- Glenn Close's dad Bill, while the least objectively evil of the Omega Daddies, still really sucks. He was neglectful throughout Glenn's childhood and did very little to prevent Glenn from being cosmically written out of Nick's life and sent to maximum security prison. While he does help a bit in the final battle and try to make half-hearted amends with his son, Glenn still wishes he could've killed him.
- Barry (or Bear Ri'Oak) is emotionally abusive to both his wife Autumn and son Henry. He never cared for Henry beyond his magic, is extremely emotionally distant, and forcibly kept Autumn and Henry away from each other for years.
- Ron Stampler's dad Willy was the worst of the three villain dads. He was neglectful, emotionally and physically abusive, and altogether just a terrible person. The emotional gut-punch of an episode that is Episode 61: Death of a Salesman, goes into the details of Ron's childhood growing up with Willy as a dad. When Ron was very young, Willy would leave him with his incredibly ill mother who wasn't physically well enough to take care of him, forcing him to fend for himself and often leaving him in physical danger. He nearly let Ron drown as a child as a way to "toughen him up" and likely would have killed his dog Rogue (the only real friend that Ron had) if Ron and his mom hadn't snuck away to bring him to a no-kill shelter (it's also heavily implied that he was abusive towards Ron's mom as well, and outright stated that she only stayed with him because she knew that she couldn't care for Ron on her own because of her debilitating illness). The abuse culminates in Willy attempting to murder a teenage Ron, holding his head underwater after Ron accidentally hurt his ear with a fishing lure. Ron is able to escape his father's grasp, which unintentionally leads to Willy slipping and hitting his head on a rock before falling into the water himself. Ron silently watches his dad, contemplating whether he should just let this abusive monster die. By the time he swims out to try and save him, it's too late.
- Ede Valley: Tommy's father is verbally and physically abusive, exploding at him for playing with Tarot cards, burning him with cigarettes, and nearly choking him to death with a belt.
- In In Strange Woods, Howl's father was emotionally and physically abusive to him, and he grew up in a house without love.
- Main character Julian in podcast The Orbiting Human Circus (of the Air) was beaten by his stepfather, and one time was hit so hard on the side of the head it's possible he got brain damage.
Professional Wrestling
- Before awareness campaigns of the 1980s, a child "physical abuse"-type promo was often played for laughs. More common with regional promotions that had their own syndicated TV programs, a heel wrestler or tag team would seriously and in a normal but concerned tone of voice deliver a promo recounting a supposed meeting with a sad-eyed boy or girl, who is crying because (s)he can no longer take his/her father's physical abuse, the wrestler then asking the child if he'd go live with his/her mother to which the boy claims she beats him/her also, then asking who he'd like to live with, to which the kid says, "I wanna go live with (whatever face wrestler/tag team said heels are currently feuding)... because he/they don't beat nobody!" ...with the heel wrestler's demeanor suddenly turning from somber to mocking as he delivers the punch line.
- Toward the end of 2005, Raw wrestler Shelton Benjamin began losing most of his matches. It wasn't long before his overbearing "Momma" (actually actress Thea Vidale in "granny" glasses and a muumuu) showed up on television to reprimand him, threatening to beat him (just as she supposedly did when he was a boy) if he didn't start winning matches. Benjamin began cheating to win or allowing Momma Benjamin to cheat for him, thus turning heel.
- Cheerleader Melissa would joke about how her rival, "Sweet" Saraya, would treat her kids and declared she was going to beat Britani Kight in her mother's steed when they met in SHIMMER.
- Raven claimed that both of his parents beat the crap out of him. CM Punk also said he had issues with his dad, and that he was going to beat Raven because he saw his father in Raven. Some cycle there, huh?
- Vince McMahon often acted this way toward his son Shane McMahon, daughter Stephanie McMahon, and his out-of-wedlock "son" Hornswoggle in angles.
- When Shane returned to RAW on February 22, 2016, people at the stadium heard something that was censored from the TV broadcast.
Vincent: (Into the mic) Good, because I have one last opportunity- (further away, but still audible via mic) to give you a fucking beating.
- When Shane returned to RAW on February 22, 2016, people at the stadium heard something that was censored from the TV broadcast.
- During his early hype vignettes, Bray Wyatt said his daddy was a mean man who made him work on his shrimping boat instead of going to school. Bray set fire to his dad's boat - and implied that his dad died in that fire.
Roleplays
- Dawn of a New Age: Oldport Blues:
- Mrs. Miller forced all her expectations onto Jacob, which eventually developed into her emotionally abusing him if he didn't match up to her standards. His obsession with routine is his way of coping with it.
- Benedict's father micromanages his life, expecting him to get the best possible grades so that he can inherit the family legacy. Even worse, he's blatantly homophobic, going so far as to hurl slurs at his son. As a result, Benedict has become haughty and stand-offish in order to conceal his issues of self-worth.
- Daigo's father and stepmother physically abused him, outed him as bisexual, and frequently mocked his Japanese heritage. This only stopped when his stepmother passed away, and his father grew too frail to hurt him anymore- which, in turn, led to Daigo exacting his revenge against the old man.
- Emmanuel's lack of self-esteem and self-control are a result of his mother, who verbally abuses him about being overweight. Even after he gained a super metabolism and slimmed down, she still tore into him when she found him eating cookies.
- Fairly common as a backstory for characters in Survival of the Fittest, in that there are at least several examples per version. It was particularly common in v1 and v2, and while it isn't as common in later versions they still pop up. V2's Mariavel Varella is one such example, having been abused physically (and in a retconned thread, sexually) by her father, who also killed her brother.
- In Touhou: a Glimmer of an Outside World, Marisa's father. Amongst other things, he threw her out — despite Marisa's being sixteen or seventeen at the most — and hit her when she tried to get back in.
Tabletop Games
- Ars Magica has it come up both in a blood-relation manner and a mentor-student manner. The Gift causes people to feel a great sense of discomfort around magi, and those children born with the Gift frequently find themselves on the wrong end of their parents' irritation. As for master-student, the Code that magi follow allows all sorts of nastiness done to apprentices, up to and including murder. Even passing the Apprentice's Gauntlet and becoming a full-fledged magus might not be enough to escape this; the Flaw "Tormenting Master" indicates that once per year, your parents clears two weeks out of their schedule and spends them trying to break your life to pieces. (Because House Tytalus is built around interpersonal conflict, most Tytalus magi might as well put this Flaw on their character sheet before they even start spending points.)
Web Original
- Life With The Newbies: While trying to get Zainahava back from Holly, Mommy offers to trade her for Estella, her Faerie Cybunny. When Estella is sad about this, Mommy flat-out tells her she isn't as valuable as Zainahava because she was a lab ratnote , and Zainahava was her first pet.
- The Reddit Story Generator absolutely loves creating stories like this. Most stories created tend to paint the parents who would happily shower gifts onto the eldest and/or the youngest while the narrator, who will suffer from Middle Child Syndrome if there's more than one sibling, gets scraps. Sometimes they'll be tossed out of the house believing the "golden children" when they say the narrator did something terrible or even left behind in the middle of nowhere. If the narrator has money, expect them to get fleeced of it until they finally stand up to them. When Laser-Guided Karma hits, expect them to declare Never My Fault.
- UNA: This trope is the central emotional engine of the entire setting, exploring the devastating cycle of trauma created by flawed parental figures, especially among the primordial deities.
- The creator goddess Ego is a prime example. Driven by her own trauma and loneliness, her parenting is a textbook of emotional abuse and neglect. She created her first child, Ghost, as an intangible "mistake" and largely ignored them. She then created her second child, the vibrant Love, to be "perfect," only to treat her as a living battery, literally draining her essence to power the world of Vaporia. This constant abuse eventually breaks Love completely, causing her to snap and leading to a cosmic catastrophe.
- The human Nofta family, a clear Shout-Out to the Aftons from Five Nights at Freddy's, provides a more grounded example. After his wife's death, Bobby Nofta sinks into Parental Neglect, abandoning his daughters and the family amusement park. His emotional distance and refusal to take responsibility puts immense pressure on his daughter Penny. This culminates in the most extreme form of the trope when, in a moment of panic, he commits Offing the Offspring by killing Penny.
Websites
- Dragon Cave: Neglected dragons are the result of an egg not getting any views until close to its time of death. They are extremely rare however, and ironically they are very sought after because of their rarity (the process usually results in killing the egg instead).
- The "extreme neglect" part of this trope is Played for Laughs in this World's Best Father photo series by photographer Dave Engledow.
