Abusive Parents / Western Animation

"WHY, YOU LITTLE—!"

Dale: Y'know, Hank, I saw Homer strangling his son on a poster.
Hank: Well, while I don't advocate that kind of thing, I tell ya hwat, if Bobby came home with a skateboard, I might just... well... let's just say I understand.

— King of the Hill

Not even Western Animation is safe from Abusive Parents...

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Works with their own pages:

• The DCU
• Marvel Universe

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Individual examples:

#-C

• Adventure Time:
  • Princess Bubblegum has been implied to have been emotionally neglectful towards her psychotic idiot "son" Lemongrab, by sticking him in a castle far away from her kingdom and not speaking to him. As much as an ass he was, the fact still stands that she did make him, then proceed to bully him for an episode.
    • She subverts this however in Lemongrab's next episode as she tries to teach him and help him. She ends up creating a companion for him to help adjust him.
    • She then re-subverts it, and becomes abusive and neglectful again. She lied when she said she'd keep an eye on them — this led to Lemongrab killing his brother. And in the (canon) second Adventure Time game, she lured both Lemongrabs into a dungeon so she could torture them and perform experiments on them.
  • The mama bear from "Storytelling," who kept smacking her son in the face.
  • Even Joshua qualifies for this at times. He's shown being quite insensitive, even emotionally abusive, towards his children. Even though his intentions were good, this led to Finn getting depressed, even suicidal, at one point.
  • Lemongrab becomes this to an appalling degree. He literally beats and kicks his children, puts shock collars on them, and forces them to punch themselves for his own amusement. Lemongrab 2, however, is a doting, caring parent.
  • Marceline's dad was quite neglectful of his daughter, which led to Marceline even writing a song about it ("Daddy, Why Did You Eat My Fries?"). Thankfully, things get better and Marceline and her dad are starting to rebuild a father-daughter relationship. Her dad even becomes an amazingly embarrassing dad, sporting a fat belly, lounging around the house in his underwear while eating big sandwiches, and affectionately messing up Marceline's hair. He even (possibly) accepted Finn as a friend for his daughter, saying he was "pretty great".
  • The unseen father of the Ancient Magus of Life-Giving would often berate his son for being a bad wizard.
• Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog:
  • Momma Robotnik is both physically and verbally abusive to her son, Dr. Robotnik, from insulting him to hitting him with her umbrella. In her second appearance, "Momma Robotnik Returns", she disowns Robotnik for failing to capture Sonic, then kicks him out of his fortress and overtakes his evil plan to control all electronic devices on Mobius. With the help of an obscure Mobius law, she adopts Sonic and Tails, making the former her slave and the latter her prisoner. Sonic has to be saved by Coconuts and none other than Robotnik himself, both of whom rat her out to a social worker to avenge her mistreatment of them.
  • Momma's mistreatment of Robotnik has rubbed off on him, as he treats his robots, most especially Scratch, Grounder, and Coconuts, the same way she treated him. That being said, there are times when he's affectionate (to the extent that a villain like him can be) towards his robots, namely Robotnik Jr., a robot he made to be his son and modeled after himself as a child, even to the point of treating Junior better than Scratch and Grounder. It isn't until Junior turns to Sonic's side that he disowns him.
• The Amazing World of Gumball:
  • Nicole Watterson, despite being the Only Sane Man in the family much of the time, can fall into this with episodes such as "The Fridge" and "The Hero". In "The Fridge" she abandons Gumball in the middle of the desert, and in "The Hero" throws cement cupcakes at Gumball and Darwin for not respecting Richard, something she doesn't even do herself, and outright refuses to provide for them at all until they apologize to their father. Her children are so scared of her that, in the episode "The Quest," Gumball and Darwin agree without hesitation that they'd rather face Tina Rex than incur Nicole's wrath.
  • Nicole unfortunately is a product of her own raising. A flashback episode of how she and Richard met and got together shows that her mother was an obsessive perfectionist (as in obsessive with making Nicole be perfect), and her father had such a Hair-Trigger Temper that when they got stuck in a traffic jam, he punched the engine out of their car. They never approved of her relationship with Richard to the point that she walked out on them, and unlike Granny Jojo, never re-established contact.
  • Richard's own mother, Granny Jojo, also has shades of this. Her idea of good parenting was making Richard so thoroughly scared of everything that he'd do nothing but sit on the couch and eat, thus turning him into the lazy Manchild he is now. Like Nicole's parents, she reacted badly to their relationship, but apparently made some kind of peace with it since she interacts with the family at all.
• American Dad!:
  • Toshi and Akiko's mother is very abusive to them; she expects them to be perfect at everything they do so they can get into a good college and beats them if they screw up in the slightest, such as playing the wrong note in an instrument. She also doesn't allow them any entertainment or even bathroom breaks.
  • Stan Smith — and on some occasions Francine — also fit this trope. Stan openly admits to disagreeing with everything Hayley stands for even when he understands when they are right. He constantly tries to raise Steve to be just like him, and despises the fact that his daughter is a liberal while his son is a nerd (the latter being something he was, in fact, in denial about for a long time). Francine shows a need for Steve's approval for her rather than acceptance, and goes out of her way to sabotage Steve's relationships with other girls so he can stay a Momma's Boy. She even flat out tells him that his ex, Debbie, never loved him, and that no woman — not even any future wives or daughters — will love him as much as his mother. On the contrary, Stan is usually either neglectful of Steve or obsessive over any coming-of-age obstacle in his way, like getting his first kiss or going to a school dance. It is even revealed once that Stan is threatened that Steve may one day become the man of the house, but is calmed down when he remembers that the true man engages in intercourse, and Steve is a hopeless virgin. He then proceeded to trick Steve into walking in on him having sex with Francine and taunts him over it. At one point, he concocts a perfect plan of revenge that includes having his family go broke, Steve losing a chance at sex, and Hayley selling her body to another man. On the ride home, Stan happily gloats about how good it feels to win while his family looks on with trauma.
    • Stan also shows Peter Griffin's idea of treatment with his children. His idea of shooting down Hayley's or Steve's beliefs is to fart on them (as shown in the first episode, as well as "The Missing Kink"), and giving Steve a charlie-horse for no reason (as seen in "Vacation Goo"). He once even wakes Steve up by scaring him in his dreams. The reaction is Steve jumping out of his window and twisting his arm. Francine is actually impressed by this.
  • It is shown in one episode that one of Steve's bullies is abused by his father, and bullies Steve out of anger. When Steve tells him this, the bully cries on his shoulder, but also threatens Steve that he will beat him up simply because Steve now knows this fact (to which Steve tells him is fine).
  • Stan himself had a pretty crappy childhood. His father ditched him and his mother when Stan was a kid, and then his mother forced Stan to grow up and provide for her, thus depriving Stan of an actual childhood; this reveal was the source of the plot of the episode "Man in the Moonbounce." It's later revealed in the episode "Stan's Best Friend" that Stan's mother also tricked him into shooting his beloved pet dog, Freddy, by claiming that he was sick and needed to be put down; in reality, it was because the apartment they were moving in to didn't allow pets.
• Amphibia: King Aldrich Leviathan. As shown in the episode “The Core And The King”, Aldrich verbally, emotionally, and psychologically abused his son, Andrias while trying to corrupt and manipulate him into invading earth and ravage humanity to claim Earth’s resources. Aldrich went as far as to ruin the friendship Andrias had with Leif and Barrell because he believed that once Andrias became king, they would only serve as a distraction for him and take advantage of him. Even after dying, Aldrich continued to manipulate and abuse Andrias for over a thousand year through becoming one with a machine called The Core, saying at one point that he is “almost proud” of Andrias when Andrias prepares for invasion and doing what his father wanted him to do.
• Arcane: Mel Medarda's mother, Ambessa, sent her daughter into exile for more than a decade, because her presence made her weak. In the past, she once shamed her daughter for refusing to kill a captive princess, and then killed said captive in front of Mel.
• Mallory Archer from Archer wasn't in her son's life until he was 5, then sent him to 12 straight years of boarding school. She stole his things to teach him a lesson (and still paddled him for losing said things anyway), got him drunk and taught him to gamble.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender:
  • Fire Lord Ozai not only had a favorite and an Unfavourite child, but he brutally scarred the latter, Zuko, and has attempted to kill him multiple times (though as for this, only after he joined the revolution against him). Zuko found a better father figure in his uncle and mentor Iroh and eventually outgrew the need for Ozai's approval.
    • Ozai exiled and disowned Zuko when he was thirteen, for speaking out of turn in a war meeting (the kid was not supposed to be there in the first place, but the level of punishment was overkill). In addition to burning a good fourth of his face off, Ozai loudly and publicly called Zuko an embarrassing failure and a traitor without honor, for the high crimes of idealism, a degree of rudeness and reluctance to face his father in a duel. One line says all you need to know about how Ozai treated Zuko.
      Ozai: "You WILL learn respect, and suffering will be your teacher."
    • Because the treatment he gets is more painful in short term, Zuko tends to envy Azula. Ironically, while we never see it, the audience can gather enough about the damage Ozai did to Azula. While superficially nicer to her, Ozai actually subjects Azula to rather cruel emotional abuse, and moreover cultivates her aggressive and ruthless tendencies in order to make her his weapon; her mother, by contrast, tried to help her be more compassionate and fit in with others. Because Azula fails to connect with her mother, this is what brings her eventual downfall. In the end, Zuko points out to Ozai that he is such a horrible father that the best thing he ever did to him was to exile him — Because being treated as Azula is even worse. Further, Ozai's abuse of Zuko is also abusive to Azula by extension, in a "this is what will happen to you if you don't live up to my expectations" kind of way.
      Azula: "You can't do this to me! You can't treat me like Zuko!"
    • There is some debate on whether or not Ursa was a good mother to Azula. Since the only depictions we have of Ursa are Zuko's somewhat biased and idealistic memories and Azula’s hallucination, it’s hard to determine. At best, she was a caring mother who, through no fault of her own, failed to protect her daughter from Ozai.
    • Ozai probably learned to be such a schmuck from his dad, Azulon, who at one point orders Ozai to kill Zuko so he would know what it is like to lose a son. Ozai later admits that he would have actually gone through with it had Ursa not intervened.
    • In Avatar: The Last Airbender - The Search, Ozai's favoritism of Azula over Zuko is revealed to have truly petty and spiteful roots. During an argument, Ursa told Ozai that she wished Zuko wasn't his son. Ozai declared that she would get her wish and stopped treating Zuko as his son. Abusing Zuko was Ozai's way of paying Ursa back for insulting him. The wording also made it clear that if she showed Azula the same affection she'd give Zuko; Azula would get it just as bad. Though justified, Ursa still had to neglect Azula as well; which caused Azula to latch onto Ozai for some degree of family love.
  • Toph's parents are in continual conflict with her. They locked her in the house, ostensibly to "protect" their helpless little blind girl. It's mostly just neglect and overprotective behavior, but verges into pure stupidity when they continue this behavior after she proves how badass she is. Then becomes downright idiotic when she runs away; they assume (at first) the Avatar kidnapped her and hire two of her earlier kidnappers as bounty hunters to get her back.
  • Mai's parents. Though discussed in universe as explicitly as Zuko or Toph's cases, it's revealed that she couldn't do much of anything except sit still and be quiet. If she made a comment at a dinner party, she got in trouble, if she fidgeted, she got in trouble. If she hugged her dad in public, she probably got in trouble. All because her parents just wanted to get higher and higher on the social ladder... and then they put her aside when her little brother Tom-Tom was born. Even worse they attack her when despite her breakup with Zuko they try to indoctrinate her AND Tom-Tom into the 'New Ozai Society'. Mai soundly defeats them and their followers, rescues her baby brother, and permanently moves in with her aunt. Her mother later realises that the 'New Ozai Society' is out of control and poses a threat to them all, leaves her husband and takes Tom-Tom to live with the aforementioned aunt and try to build a relationship with Mai.
• Bob's Burgers:
  • While certainly not at the level of most on this page, Jimmy Pesto is shown to be one. He never displays much love for his three sons. He attempts to stop Jimmy Junior from dancing — which is his passion — leading Jimmy Junior to mention his resentment for his father multiple times. On top of that, Jimmy seems to want nothing to do with his twin sons Andy and Ollie, once even telling them that they had “one more chance to earn his love”, to which they respond “I love when you tell that joke!”, implying he says that frequently. If that weren’t enough, he once told his employee/only friend Trev that he is “the son I always wanted” — right in front of his three actual sons.
  • Several episodes show that Bob's dad was this when Bob was a kid. He made his son work every summer and was always critical of how he cooked. He also threw away the first burger Bob ever cooked because it wasn't the usual order the costumer gets. Downplayed in that while he was a Control Freak towards Bob during his youth, he's shown to love his grandkids and his son enough to keep the first review of the restaurant, admits that he is hard to work with and is proud of his son.
• The titular Bojack Horseman's parents were victims of a Shotgun Wedding and Unequal Pairing, turning them into Resentful Guardians in the process. Neither of them were shy about arguing (loudly) within earshot of their pre-teen son, either.
  • BoJack's father was a deconstruction of the Standard '50s Father, to the point of berating his son for not getting the shape of a heart-shaped Father's Day card right. When BoJack walked in on his dad having an affair with his secretary, Butterscotch coerced him to share a jack and coke as father and son to drug him, and when he got sick and passed out Butterscotch manipulated him to not tell his mother as she’d be disappointed in him.
    Young!BoJack: Daddy? Do you want to meet my Imaginary Friend?
    Butterscotch: Imaginary friends are freeloaders invented by Communists to rip off welfare. Why don't you do something productive like bang your head against the wall until your brain isn't so stupid?
  • His mother Beatrice Horseman is no better, probably being the worse of the two, disparaging every attempt he's made at becoming famous despite pushing him down that career path to start with, and even berated him for having "ruined" her while he was still a child. Best summarized when she invoked the Radish Cure after catching him smoking^SpoilerThis affected him so badly that he's literally incapable of crying in front of others.
    Beatrice: Don't put that out! That is a perfectly good cigarette, and you are going to finish it.
    Young!BoJack: But I don't wanna...
    Beatrice: And I don't wanna be the mother of a quitter. Finish it. (BoJack lights up again, coughing and tearing up) Oh Jesus Christ, you can't even smoke a cigarette right? Don't you dare cry! Don't you ever cry! You wanted this.
    Young!BoJack: Are you punishing me for smoking or for stealing?
    Beatrice: I'm punishing you for being alive.
    • Beatrice herself had these, specifically her father, Joseph Sugarman, who had her mother, Honey, lobotomized after she couldn’t cope with the death of her son in WWII (Beatrice’s brother Crackerjack), implemented misogynistic ideals into her from a young age, including criticizing her weight and barring her from eating ice cream even as an adult, was merely concerned with her growing up to be thin and beautiful so he could marry her off for profit, expressed disappointment in her earning a bachelor's degree at Barnard instead of finding a husband, and callously burning her baby doll after she caught scarlet fever, and chastised her for crying about it, saying almost cheerfully if she can’t control her "womanly emotions" she could end up like her mother. This trauma and upbringing made Beatrice unable to abort nor love BoJack, and led her to being a miserable woman.
  • Diane Nguyen was the White Sheep of her family, which also made her The Unfavorite. Unlike Family Guy, it is not Played for Laughs, as her brothers had even "pranked" her with a fake Prom Date, hiring a hobo to pose as her Secret Admirer
  • Sarah Lynn had a manipulative Stage Mom who crushed her dreams of becoming an architect, one that would carry on into her adult years, when she grew up and is heavily implied to have been sexually abused by her bear stepfather. By the end of the series it’s shown even after her death they are still profiting off of her music and image.
    Sarah Lynn: I wanna be an architect when I grow up!
    Sarah Lynn's mother: Mommy didn't do what she did to that Star Search producer for you to be an architect.
    Sarah Lynn after licking fur: It's bear fur.
    BoJack, Joelle, Bradley: *look horrified*
    Sarah Lynn: What? My stepdad was a bear.
    • BoJack was a downplayed example towards Sarah Lynn, being a surrogate daughter to him. Flashbacks show the horse being a massive asshole towards her, despite being the closest thing to a father figure in Sarah Lynn's life, which further drove her to self destruction, which BoJack would enable in her adult life and would play a large role in her overdose and untimely death.
  • Princess Carolyn's mother would often let her daughter cover up for her shifts as a maid because she was often too wasted to actually do anything. She also constantly put down Princess Carolyn's hopes of going to a prestigious college in California, with the excuse that their family was essentially doomed to have a poor life, and in order to keep her last child at home. However, she does show Princess Carolyn moments of sympathy and kindness, such as giving her her necklace after Princess Carolyn learns she's pregnant and creating a nice story behind it to give her hope. While she does put the blame on Princess Carolyn for having a miscarriage, she still sympathizes a lot with her and even lets her go to UCLA after all.
• In The Boondocks, it's revealed Uncle Ruckus was beaten by his father on a fairly regular basis for even the littlest offenses and threw him out of the house at a young age. This, combined with his mother being a nutjob who glorified "the white man" in everything they do, caused severe psychological damage to him and was also responsible for his deformities and his hatred for other black people. It is later revealed that he beat him because he wanted to take out the stress of being beaten himself by his racist employers.
• Captain Planet and the Planeteers: Wheeler's father is an alcoholic with a nasty habit of belittling his son. In fact, he's the reason that Wheeler pretty much ran away from home. Fortunately, Wheeler eventually reconciles with his father.
• In Centaurworld season one, it's indicated that Durpleton the Genial Giraffe centaur endured severe verbal abuse and belittlement from his father growing up, especially when it came to eating food that he enjoyed. His childhood haunts him so much that he even hears his abusive father's voice in his flatulence, and he understandably wishes to be rid of it. Thankfully, he's freed from this in episode 4 with help from the wish-granting Tree Shamans and he's able to hear kind words from his father at last. Season two episode Bunch O' Scrunch depicts in a flashback just how terrible Durpleton's parents really were, with his father yelling at him, insulting him, throwing away his toys and openly refusing to show any kindness, and his mother calmly accepting her husband's actions without even looking at her son.
• Ulrich Stern's father in Code Lyoko is emotionally abusive towards his son, and his mom isn't any better. In the Christmas Episode, while the Stern family is driving home, Ulrich's dad is berating him while Mrs. Stern just sits there and lets it happen. If Ulrich ever takes them to court, she'll be as legally liable as her husband.
• CatDog: Winslow is revealed to have raised Cat and Dog in "The Great Parent Mystery", however there are almost zero moments of him showing the twins kindness and the special shows him at his very worst.
• Codename: Kids Next Door:
  • Grandfather. He's why Father is the way he is. Notably, Father's childhood was so bad, that even when it's clear he might be stronger than Grandfather, he gives up and walks off to go binge on ice cream rather than deal with him due to his lack of self-esteem and general emotional exhaustion.
  • Father himself is also one of these. He's perfectly capable of being cordial to his children, but if the Delightful Children mess up, he does not hesitate to show them his fury. When his children are turned into sheep in "Operation: G.R.A.D.U.A.T.E.S.", he's fine by it and says they were more annoying as humans. And that's not even touching the movie's revelation that the Delightful Children are a group of former KND operatives that he brainwashed...
  • Played for Laughs with the one-shot villain "Mad Dad". He is a father-themed villain with Red Boxing Gloves who gets mad at operatives after seeing a report card with an F on it. He's joined by the similarly ferocious "Midwestern Mom".
• Courage the Cowardly Dog:
  • While he is unquestionably a member of the family, Courage can also be seen as Muriel's adoptive son, especially after seeing the series finale, which makes Eustace's constant abuse towards him much harsher.
  • Eustace's own mother was emotionally abusive as well.
• Cow and Chicken: The Red Guy's mother feeds him gruel and keeps challenging him to fight her like a man.

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• Danny Phantom: Seeing all of the clones as expendable mistakes so that he can perfect the good one to replace Danny, Vlad does not care all what will happen to Danielle, who is nothing but obedient to him. When he orders her to do something that will more than likely kill her in a polite manner, he then verbally abuses her. This causes her to turn against him.
• It's mentioned very early in Daria that Jake's father, "Mad Dog" Morgendorffer, was verbally and emotionally abusive, leaving Jake bitter towards his old man, and stuck with a few rage issues. What's surprising is that unlike many child abuse cases, Jake never seems to take his anger out on his own daughters, and even tries to be supportive where his father wasn't. A blink and you'll miss it line in Jake of Hearts suggests that he knows that he has the potential to turn into his father and is actively working not to.
• It is implied in Drawn Together that Princess Clara is placed in this manner by her father, the King, when he is not neglecting her. For one thing, he once kissed her that was more passionate than familial, and also had her strip for him.
  • Specifically, Clara's father's biggest habit was simply ignoring his daughter at all time in favor of watching strippers and otherwise acting like a Dirty Old Man. This leads Clara to conclude that the sort of attention he gives strippers is "love" and attempts to get some herself.
• DuckTales (2017):
  • Magica De Spell is this to her niece Lena. Besides not caring about her niece's safety (to the point that she brushes off the danger of her being Eaten Alive by a magical shark), it's made abundantly clear that Lena can't walk away because Magica's power is keeping her imprisoned. Then it's revealed that while Magica could be considered Lena's Truly Single Parent, given Lena's status as her Living Shadow, Magica doesn't care about her, or even consider Lena to be a person. And when Lena finally does manage to break free in Season 2, Magica tries to gaslight her into coming back.
  • In "Louie's Eleven!", we learn that Mark Beaks' mom is the notoriously hard-to-please style critic Emma Glamour. Her willingness to harshly call out Louie on how unoriginal he is combined with how she interacts with her son in the present makes it blatantly clear how Mark became the Attention Whore he is in the present. In an earlier episode, we also hear him make an offhand comment about his dad that implies that the two had a negative Jock Dad, Nerd Son relationship.
    "Who's the loser now, Coach Dad?!"
• It's been hinted that Ed from Ed, Edd n Eddy suffers from both emotional abuse and neglect. His mom treats him like The Un-Favourite in contrast to his spoiled sister Sarah, while his father seems largely apathetic to both his children:
  Ed: It's Sarah! We are so doomed! Help me, guys! She'll tell Mom and Mom will tell Dad and he'll say "Not now, I just got home from work!"
  • Probably best seen when Ed unconsciously sublimates the abuse to Johnny 2x4 in an All Just a Dream episode.
• The Fairly OddParents!:
  • Timmy Turner's parents zig-zag between this, Parental Neglect and Parents as People, always Played for Laughs. While they are generally neglectful, they have occasionally crossed into emotional abuse of Timmy by letting him know that they were much happier before he was born. They also let him know frequently that they wish he'd been a girl. In later seasons they acted like complete assholes towards Timmy to the point where they were jumping on a trampoline on hearing Timmy was going to military school (so that they could use his bedroom for extra space). And Timmy's mother has openly spent Timmy's college fund on stuff for herself several times. On one occasion, Timmy's father directly told him that if he had to be miserable because of Timmy's letter, then Timmy has to be miserable as well. They regularly take any possible opportunity to have fun on their own and leave Timmy with Vicky, who is best described as the Babysitter from Hell (though they themselves believe her to be perfectly kind and friendly).
  • Remy Buxaplenty's parents are even worse as they are rich business people always busy with their work and rarely have time to spend with Remy. They hardly even notice their son's existence and tend to forget his name on occasions. Timmy actually felt sorry him over this.
  • And in School's Out! The Musical, H.P and Sanderson are this to Flappy Bob after they adopted him as a baby for their 37 year plan to take over Fairy World. They put him through law school and raised him to be a boring businessman, even leading him to believe that business and rush hour is fun while playtime is banned. This led to Flappy Bob founding Flappy Bob's Learn-A-Torium and signing a contract that allows the Pixies full domination over both Earth and Fairy World.
  • Even Timmy's own fairy godparents are guilty of this. Ever since Season 6, Cosmo and Wanda have been putting more focus on their son Poof rather than Timmy and rarely help out their godchild, even if his life is put into danger, like in the episode "Open Wide and Say Aaagh!". They even leave him to babysit Poof despite him not being a good babysitter. The worst offenders have to be the ending of the episode "Bad Heir Day" (where Timmy explains what happened to him while he tried to get Poof back, and Wanda poofs him next to rabid alligators so that he could be eaten as punishment) and "Lights Out" (where Timmy makes Poof cry after telling him a scary story, so Cosmo and Wanda decide to outright traumatise Timmy by turning into abominations who threaten to eat him so that he'll never do it again).
• Family Guy:
  • Peter Griffin and Lois both became this since the fourth season. Meg has been treated very poorly by her father; he slaps her, beats her, throws things at her, sits on her head and farts on her, and in a cutaway in "Peter's Daughter", he greets her by shooting her in the face at point blank range. She is also frequently belittled by her mother, Lois, calling Meg disgusting for having a normal womanly problem, and at one point even implied that Meg should commit suicide. Lois can't even find it in her to tell her daughter that she loves her, and it is revealed on two occasions that if Meg or the Griffins entirely ended up in a deadly situation, Lois would willingly let Meg die.
    • Peter also exhibited an odd attraction to her, forcing her to kiss him on the lips when tucking her in bed, and once implied when going through a redneck stage that he wanted to have sex with her.
    • In the episode "Brian Griffin's House of Payne", Peter reveals to Meg and Chris that he has knocked both of them out plenty of times when they were younger and would hide their subsequent injuries, and is willing to continue hiding Stewie's unconsciousness from Lois until he can frame her for causing the injury. The next day, noticing Lois pulling out of the driveway, Peter throws Stewie behind her rear tire, making it appear that Lois has run him over. Lois suggests they frame someone else, but Peter only professes his love for her, finally suggesting they take Stewie to the hospital.
    • In the newer episodes, Peter and Lois frequently steal money from their children, doubling theft with the implications that they are also unable to financially support the family.
    • Additional neglect and emotional abuse for Meg includes Peter telling her "Who let you back in the house?" and grabbing her by the seat of the pants and kicking her out the door, once when James Woods tied up Brian outside, Peter told him "Why are you tied to Meg's pole?", another shows him locking her out in the winter while she's cold and hungry and gets buried under a pile of snow, and in yet another, all Lois packed for Meg's school lunch was orange peels, the crust of Chris' sandwich and a photo of herself eating a turkey leg.
    • They also sometimes abuse Chris, but not as often as they do Meg. This is partly because Chris is so thick-headed, it bounces off, so it's not as funny. Also, in "Space Camp", he overhears them saying bad things about him and is hurt, and it isn't Played for Laughs.
    • In one episode Peter and Lois become abusive stage parents to Stewie after he stars in a peanut butter commercial and do things like yell at him when he doesn't get a part, force him to practice dancing at 3 in the morning, giving him cocaine, threatening to take away his toys, telling Chris he's no longer their favorite son and letting a coyote maul him, and making Stewie become anorexic. Keep in mind he's around 1 year old. Brian was the only person calling them out on all this, and he, as previously mentioned, isn't exactly the best father himself.
  • Peter's parents are suggested to have been abusive; his mother Thelma threw whisky bottles at him when he had toothaches, and his fundamentalist father Francis acted like a total Jerkass to him. Both of them let his sister Karen pick on him. In Francis's case, he did have a reason: Peter's not his biological son, since Thelma cheated on him with an Irish drunk.
  • Brian could be seen as this as well. He uses his son Dylan to get a spot as a writer on a show by tricking him into thinking he wants to reach out and connect with him. When Dylan finds out he is less than pleased. To be fair, Brian felt genuinely bad for what he did and did everything to apologize for it.
• F is for Family:
  • William "Big Bill" Murphy, who spent years mentally, verbally and physically abusing his son, Frank and then basically denied it ever happened. His abuse is part of the reason why Frank struggles so much to be a good father to his own children. Luckily, Big Bill eventually realizes how terrible a father he was, and he works to rebuild his relationship with Frank and tries to be better as a grandfather than he was as a father.
  • Jimmy Fitzsimmons is abused by his father, who also encourages his bullying tendancies. We later learn Mr. Fitzsimmons was similarly abused by his own parents, suggesting a cycle of abuse.
• Futurama
  • There's Mom, who treats her three sons like punching bags, regularly insulting and hitting them (and once said she flipped a coin to decide whether to keep Igner or the afterbirth which comes with a truly wonderful helping of Fridge Horror when the viewer remembers the parallel universe where all coinflips have the opposite outcome).
  • Bender adopted kids to get child support, then neglected them, which also qualifies under neglect unto abuse, and wound up trying to sell them as food to a Chinese restaurant when he worked out he wasn't making any money from them. In the second movie, he punts his own son into a vat of molten metal as trade for the Robot Devil's army. Even the Robot Devil was impressed. The only time this was subverted is with his son Ben in "The Bots and the Bees," and even then, the fact Bender treated his son with kindness was remarked upon as surprising.
    Robot Devil: Wow, that was pretty brutal even by my standards.
    Bender: No backsies.
  • Amy's parents are often snappy and dismissive towards her, with her mother seemingly only caring about Amy settling down and giving her children while her father is a Straw Misogynist who's made fun of Amy's gender and weight since she was a child.
• In G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, Low Light's father not only openly mocked him as a child for his "cowardice", he forced the kid to prove himself by dumping him in a junkyard at night and telling him not to come home until he had killed twenty rats. Even as an adult, this gives Low Light recurring nightmares.
• Pete on Goof Troop regularly insults, shames, and rejects his son when he fails to live up to unrealistic or hypocritical expectations, as well as repeatedly snubbing his wishes for affection and comparing him negatively to other people. While he hasn't physically attacked PJ he is prone to rough handling of him even at 11 years old. He manipulates him through guilt, lies, and faked affection, usually for selfish reasons but occasionally even because he thinks it's funny. He exploits PJ with long lists of chores in poor conditions for no reward. He's also very controlling of PJ, not as a well-meaning but overprotective dad but as a narcissistic bully, with arbitrary rules, threatening behaviour and one-sided tirades. Not only does PJ not trust his father, but the abuse is such that he has difficulty trusting others and making new friends, a very real symptom of Domestic Abuse in general. He has become a Shrinking Violet who is counting down the days until he can escape the house on his 18th birthday. In An Extremely Goofy Movie, he is the most elated to get out, while Pete is just as pleased to get rid of him (mockingly referring to it as the end of "free babysitting). The sad part of this appears to be that Pete thinks he's a great father because he is respected due to the fact that PJ will do whatever he tells him and doesn't argue if he can help it. As such, he would likely never acknowledge any faults on his part no matter their future interactions, or apologize for any of his behavior because he believes himself to be in the right. The line that solidifies this for most fans is in A Goofy Movie:
  Goofy: [calmly] You know, maybe Max isn't all the things that you think a son should be, but... he loves me.
  Pete: [defensive] Hey, my son respects me.
• According to the backstory, Murdoc Niccals of Gorillaz was, as a child, forced to participate in talent contests to win his father money, the most humiliating incident involving a performance of the Pinocchio song "I've Got No Strings" in costume, complete with false nose. Adding insult to injury, the prize for that one was only "£2.50 and the chance to humiliate yourself further in the biannual county finals". Murdoc also claims to have hit puberty at eight and lost his virginity at nine, so if he's telling the truth this may fall under the sexual abuse heading as well.
  • There's also the implication of physical abuse, since Murdoc's father is shown kicking the young boy onto the stage and threatening to smash his teeth in. It's widely known that Murdoc's wonky nose is the result of getting it broken and mended numerous times, but the artwork of him as a 10-year-old child suggests his face was already pretty wrecked by then. Fridge Horror, anyone?
• From Gravity Falls:
  • Pacifica Northwest has emotionally abusive parents to an extent, as their ideas of what is important for her is "winning and looks" and go to parties instead of spending time with her. This gets explored in "Northwest Mansion Mystery" when it is shown that her parents are even worse in that regard. To the point that if Pacifica goes as so much to disobey her own parents in regards to wearing her dress by her own choice or trying to tell Dipper her parents made her hide the truth about the curse to him, her father responds by controlling her with a simple ring of his bell to keep her in line not unlike one of Pavlov's dogs, just to keep their upper-class pride—even if it gets other people killed.
  • Grunkle Stan's father threw him out of the house before he even finished high school because he accidentally destroyed his brother Ford’s science fair project that was going to get him into his dream college. His father's harsh treatment leaks into how he treats his own great-grandniece and nephew in that while he does truly care for them, he often is shown to struggle with being emotionally honest and believes in Misery Builds Character.

H-M

• The neglectful and emotional abuse variety turns up in Hey Arnold!, in regards to Helga. Her parents always preferred her older sister and would ignore Helga for hours at a time — meaning she'd get no lunches for school, or walk to school through the inner-city, alone, in the rain, when she was three. Her father was particularly gruff and abrasive towards her. Meanwhile, her mother was The Alcoholic, and her attempts at being a good mother didn't always succeed.
  Helga: Miriam isn't exactly World's Greatest Mom material. What type of mother packs a lunch with silverware and towelettes, and no sandwich? Or takes impromptu naps behind the sofa when I'm starving? Or constantly forgets to pick me up from football practice?
  • It turns out that they're (particularly Bob) just as abusive to Olga, but in a completely different way. Their constant attention makes Olga feel forced to constantly perform "like a wind-up doll" and it's implied that her perfectionism is the result of some pretty extreme Education Mama tendencies. When The B Grade drove Olga into a nervous breakdown, she admitted that she'd rather be treated like Helga.
• Professor Membrane from Invader Zim rarely looks out for Dib and Gaz, and primarily focuses on science. Let's not forget he blamed Dib for using his technology when he is supposed to be responsible for his stuff in "Halloween Spectacular of Spooky Doom". And when he starts observing Gaz as the pig-girl in "Gaz, Taster of Pork", it started a merchandise of her, meaning he is using his own daughter as his cash cow! Experiment tours, plush dolls, story books, and even a theatrical film! Best Nickelodeon father? NOT SCIENTIFICALLY POSSIBLE! (Although he Took a Level in Kindness in the movie that quote comes from.)
• Jem:
  • In the episode "The Music Awards", One-Shot Character Danny is implied to have a father like this. An unused sequel episode would have revealed he was an Alcoholic Parent and would have gone into more depth on the issue.
  • Pizzazz's father was at minimal neglectful. After his wife ran off, he became committed to his work and only gave Pizzazz attention through gifts. This caused Pizzazz's spoiled nature but also caused her to act out in an attempt to either get his attention or get attention elsewhere. Even as an adult, her father's neglect still affects Pizzazz.
  • Word of God is that Roxy ran away from home as a teen, implying she lived in an abusive household of some sort.
  • Word of God is that Rio had an abusive father who lied constantly. Rio's father eventually ran off, but he left his impression on Rio. As a result, Rio has an intense hatred of liars.
• The entire Heinous line on Jimmy Two-Shoes is like this to the next generation. A flashback shows Lucius VI denying Lucius VII cake on his birthday for no other reason than For the Evulz. In another episode, Lucius VII notes he keeps Beezy "nice and miserable". In-series, he has given him a Sand Necktie and forced him into a Shotgun Wedding.
• Hubert Test of Johnny Test is a huge jerkass to his son. He's no better to his daughters, as he tends to disapprove of virtually all of their experiments, which is sometimes justified because of the mass amount of havoc they can (and often do) cause, but also regardless of whether or not they're inherently harmless (infusing Johnny with spider DNA to give him extra limbs) or can assist humanity (a device that can turn anything into gold), though his animosity toward Johnny is more pronounced; in one episode where he and Johnny made a bet after disagreeing on table manners, he forbid the girls from assisting Johnny and then tried to sabotage him, and in another episode actually desired the idea of Johnny being sent to military school. Despite the fact he says he loves Johnny, it's heavily implied he utterly hates him, and would take any excuse to get rid of him short of murder.
• Part of the premise for Kevin Spencer is how bad Kevin's parents treat him. And everyone else. Aside from severe emotional neglect and constantly making fun of him, they fail to provide him with proper nutrition, schooling, or any sort of discipline. One episode establishes that they'd also physically abuse him if not for the fact that a) they're too lazy to do it, and b) they don't want to upset him too much, in case they ever need a liver donor. The end result has made Kevin a Villain Protagonist sociopath.
• King of the Hill:
  • Hank's father Cotton is an abusive jerkass of the highest order, who has considered Hank to be a horrific failure ever since the day he was born (it is said in one episode that this is because, through Cotton's negligence and lack of concern for his wife, Hank was born in New York City instead of Texas). While there are incremental moves towards a better relationship between the two, they always backslide by the end of the episode due to Cotton's aforementioned jerkass nature and Hank's difficulty with and distaste for anything emotional. When Cotton is finally called out on his deathbed, it made for one of the best scenes in the show's 12-year run. Despite this abuse, Hank is one of the most well-adjusted characters on the show.
    • You know what Cotton's idea of complimenting his son is? When he finally admits that Hank is a much better father than he ever was, his evidence is "You made Bobby! All I made was you." It's highly likely that he genuinely meant it as a compliment too.
    • One of the longest running gags in the show is how Cotton feels deep shame over the fact that Hank never served in the military, and would occasionally refer to him as "draft dodger." While Cotton lied about his age, and went on to fight in the Pacific during WWII when he was fifteen (15) years old, Hank waited until he was eighteen (18) to enlist, and the Vietnam War had been over by then. When Hank did enlist, he was disqualified due to having a narrow urethra, a fact that Cotton, nor anyone else in the cast let Hank forget.
  • Hank Hill is somewhat abusive towards Bobby, as well; he's nowhere near as bad as most of the examples on the page in any way, but his entire relationship with Bobby is an attempt to make him a mini-Hank, and he doesn't allow his son anything he doesn't agree with; (fantasy books, clouds on his wall, learning to bake, generally stuff that could make people see him as a nerd, a sissy, or someone actually living in the present time period). In the Grand Finale, he finally accepts his son and shows joy in what he's doing... because he's doing something Hank's been pressuring him to get into probably since he got into propane.
    • Another abusive attribute of Hank is how he constantly contradicts himself when teaching Bobby, which might explain the latter's Too Dumb to Live mentality. Half the time Hank stresses that Bobby needs to grow up (such as "Life in the Fast Lane –- Bobby's Saga") while the other half he's telling him that he's too young to do something (such as not letting him watch wrestling because it's rated TV-14). An example of the negative consequences this has on Bobby is the episode "I'm with Cupid". Hank and Peggy finally let Bobby stay home by himself only to have Bill of all people check up on him. The next time Hank and Peggy want to go out, Hank chastises Bobby for being afraid of being by himself.
    • It is interesting to note that while Bobby may slack off, he generally learns his lesson when Hank wants him to grow up. The only time he actually rebels is when Hank tells him he's too young to do something. See Credit Card Plot, and he also once drank because of the before mentioned TV-14 incident.
    • Hank has repeatedly shown that he cares more about the family dog then he does about Bobby, for example, Hank once told Bobby that the house was more Ladybird's than his. It eventually reached the point where he kicked Bobby out of the house when he became inconvenient to them keeping Ladybird. When this happened, Peggy had automatically assumed Hank told Bobby he'd stop loving him if he didn't move into the doghouse in the backyard.
  • Bill's father was also said to be abusive (we only ever see him once in a flashback, he's dead in the present). It has been said that he spanked Bill consistently every day for 8 years, he often humiliated him and made him wear dresses, he also said he was worthless and would never amount to anything. This is partially (although far from the only reason) why Bill is not the most stable person, and whenever the subject of his father comes up, he either calls him a bastard or begins to cry.
    Bill: My daddy spanked me every day for eight years and I turned out alright. (Beat, voice cracking) Bastard.
  • This is all in contrast to Dale, a Conspiracy Theorist nutjob who is barely capable of running his own life, unknowingly raising a son who's biologically not even his. He manages to be the most loving, devoted, and caring parent on the entire show.
• Virtually all the misery that happens in The Legend of Korra's first season can be laid at the feet of Tarrlok's and Noatak's father Yakone. Both Tarrlok and Amon used to be sweet kids, but upon discovering their inherent Waterbending abilities, Yakone was consumed with the idea that he could use his sons to get back at Republic City, so he taught them to hone their Waterbending in an incredibly strict and harsh manner. He forced his children to learn Bloodbending, up to making them Bloodbend each other, just so they could avenge him.
  • And honorary mention goes to Hiroshi Sato. When he could see that Asami was not going to join the Equalists with him, he tries to kill her, deciding that she "cannot be saved". That is until Bolin comes to her rescue and calls him out for being a terrible father. Years in prison do make him realize the error of his ways.
  • Unalaq is as bad as Ozai. He's not only an Evil Uncle to Korra who nearly has both her parents killed for a crime they didn't commit, he doesn't even acknowledge his daughter Eska's mental instability after Bolin ran out on their marriage. He also berates and verbally abuses both Desna and Eska, calling them failures to their faces and he doesn't care at all when Desna gets injured when the three try to open the Northern Portal. When Desna desperately tries to defend Unalaq against Korra's accusations that he doesn't care about them and that he's crazy for trying to release Vaatu, he visibly acts like Unalaq is about to hit him and then resigns himself in a droning tone 'My father is the wisest man in the world'. Once he turns into the Dark Avatar, they openly betray him. Both agree in the end that he was a deplorable man, with their only regret being how they would explain this to their mother.
  • Kuvira, the final major antagonist of the series, was abandoned by her parents when she was 8 years old. They flat out didn't want her, and kicked her out.
• Dr. Mar Londo from Legion of Super Heroes (2006) manages to be physically and emotionally abusive towards his only son Timber Wolf. For starters, he performed illegal genetic experiments on his son, transforming him into a werewolf-like monster, and in Season 2, he implants nanites into his son's brain, driving him insane and using him to kill a clone of his just so that he can get Timber Wolf to work with him again. The sad thing is, the photo Dr. Londo shows to the Legion in Timber Wolf's debut episode seems to imply that he wasn't always abusive.
• Looney Tunes:
  • The 'Three Bears' series directed by Chuck Jones is all about Papa Bear smacking Baby Bear — a big hulking dimwit who heaps injury on his "Paw" in his many attempts to be helpful. Of course said abuse always backfires, leaving Paw in worse shape than before.
  • The mother goat from "Porky’s Super Service" keeps her infant son quiet by smacking him on the face. Considering the hell that he put Porky through, you can say he deserved it.
• Metalocalypse:
  • Toki was brutally beaten at the hands of his father, Reverend Aslaug Wartooth. His offenses include whipping him heavily, leaving him (mostly) unclothed and out in the bitter Norwegian cold, and chaining his wrists together and letting him hang from the ceiling. It's implied that his father knew Toki was a herald of the apocalypse, and was using roundabout methods to try and kill him. He dies before he has time to learn that Toki and the rest of Dethklok might be on exactly the other side of the spectrum. His mother Anja passively went along with it, and causes Toki to revert to complete silence whenever he's with them.
  • Murderface's father committed chainsaw Murder-Suicide in front of Baby Murderface. Which is shown to have an effect on him, as he pissed himself when flashing back to it in "Performanceklok".
  • Skwisgaar's mother, Serveta, was emotionally neglectful and had no qualms having sex in front of him, traumatizing her son in the long-run. He also suffered from not knowing who his biological father was because Serveta had sex with so many men before and after his birth, it caused hordes of men to try claim parental descent when Skwisgaar's parentage became public years later. He does gain a father figure in one of Serveta's newest husbands, finally putting his issues to rest... only for said husband to run away because he couldn't deal with the revelation that his wife was actually a massive slut. This devastates Skwisgaar and influences him to believe that his biological father was not a mortal, but a god.
  • Pickles' father flat-out said that he 'belonged in a garbage can' and showed no remorse for it, while his mother blatantly favors his brother Seth, despite Seth being a criminal who made nothing of himself (and later on works for the band Pickles is in). Pickles' mother is given focus in "Motherklok", where her constant disapproval of his musical successes drove Pickles to become an extremely successful real estate agent just to please her... only for her to go back on her words and pressure him into making Dethklok records again. Pickles gets so fed up with this that he later snaps and angrily tells his mother to "GO FUCK YOURSELF!"
  • In fact, the point is specifically made that the only one in the band without abusive parents is Nathan. While he has claimed to hate both of his parents in public interviews and has treated them with disdain, he loves them more than he lets on and might be just embarrassed by them, as "Fatherklok" shows Nathan having flashbacks of him participating in father-and-son activities with his father such as go-karting, fishing, and Scrabble. And while Oscar and Rose are not perfect, they're Good Parents whose positive influence was implied to have contributed to Nathan's Papa Wolf tendencies towards the band, especially Toki. The worst they have ever gone with their son was when they screamed at Nathan for treating them so poorly in "Dethfam", though it's mentioned Nathan and Oscar reconciled off-screen after the former endorsed the making of "Explosion Sauce". It's really telling when Nathan himself would openly state that he loves his dad with such a fond manner in front of his bandmates, whose own fathers have been either abusive, absent, or both.
• Miraculous Ladybug gives us Adrien's father, Gabriel Agreste. While not physically abusive (he'd need to actually be there in person for that), Gabriel goes out of his way to isolate Adrien from the world, obsessively micromanaging his son's life while at the same time rarely spending any time with him, even canceling plans to spend time together in favor of work (or supervillainy). While Gabriel tries to paint his acts as the work of a Knight Templar Parent and has an occasional Pet the Dog moment, there's no denying the negative effect his parenting has had on Adrien. The fact that he's also secretly the Big Bad doesn't help his case.
  • Audrey Bourgeois, Chloé's mother, is also downright horrible, constantly forgetting Chloé's name and going out of her way to belittle her on camera. Of course, that's just how she treats everybody in general, so at least she isn't specifically abusive to her daughter, for what that's worth.
  • Tomoe Tsurugi, mother of Kagami, is so strict and controlling that she thinks Gabriel is too permissive with Adrien. Her rage at the one time her daughter defies her authority is sufficient to get her Akumatized. She also forbids Kagami from drawing (which she really enjoys doing), and has apparently outright told her that her drawings suck so she shouldn't bother wasting her time doing it. Not only is that not true, Tomoe is blind, so how can she even tell?
  • Colt Fathom, Félix's late father (and Adrien's uncle), is described by his son as "a thousand times worse" than Tomoe Tsurugi. "Representation" reveals the full extent of his horrific actions; he would use Félix's amok to control him like a puppet, destroyed anything that brought the boy happiness, and denounced him as a monster to the end of his life. No wonder Félix snapped - by the time he appears, he's (eventually revealed to have) become an obsessed Anti-Villain hell-bent on securing his own freedom, everyone else (except Adrien and eventually Kagami) be damned, as a result of his father's abuse.
• Moral Orel:
  • Doughy Latchkey has extremely immature parents who still act like teenagers. They frequently kick him out of the house so they can have sex and sometimes threaten him with violence if he doesn't stop bothering them.
  • Clay Puppington often takes his son into his den and belts him whenever his exploits causes hilarity to ensue before giving out a Spoof Aesop based off of bigoted 1950's beliefs. He gets even worse as time goes on. In one of those, he instinctively reaches for his belt even though Orel hadn't done anything wrong and had to (innocently) have this pointed out. The show gives him a particularly disturbing Freudian Excuse for being the person he is by showing how as a kid he accidentally caused his mother to die of a stroke, at which point his father became so emotionally distant that him slapping Clay was his only form of emotional acknowledgment to the point that he provoked his father whenever he could. Clay himself states in a drunken rant that he believes that the true meaning of "family" is constant suffering for people you despise for the sake of being a "good person". This knowledge is required to fully understand why he cries in "Sacrifice" after giving a massive "The Reason You Suck" Speech to everyone in the bar and failing to provoke a violent reaction.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: It's revealed in "Crusaders Of The Lost Mark" episode that Diamond Tiara has an emotionally abusive mother, Spoiled Rich. She berates her foal when she loses, raised her to be a haughty Alpha Bitch, and created deep insecurities in Diamond due to making her believe Second Place Is for Losers. She seems to care more about Diamond's social standing than she does about Diamond herself.
• My Little Pony: Make Your Mark: It's revealed early on that the Big Bad Opaline is one to The Dragon Misty Brightdawn who is her adopted daughter. She emotionally manipulates and abuses her throughout the series, through isolation, berating her and emotional manipulation. Due to this Misty is a Nervous Wreck which often has Nervous Tics.

N-Z

• Lord Boxman is like this to his robot "children"/henchmen in OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes. He does genuinely love and provide for them, but he's also a serious Jerkass and Card-Carrying Villain who expects slavish devotion and constant success from them in exchange for basic decency. He also doesn't hesitate at all to destroy their bodies when they screw up badly enough; this just causes them to jump to a new body so there's no lasting physical harm, but the fact that he does it at all is pretty screwed up.
• The Owl House:
  • Alador and Odalia Blight are established as deplorable people from their very first appearance in a flashback when they blackmail their youngest daughter into cutting ties with her best friend (during her birthday, no less). Later appearances show that while Odalia is just as nasty as advertised, Alador was more of a neglectful enabler than directly abusive. When Amity calls him out on this at the end of "Reaching Out", he promises to start being a better father to his kids, and subsequent appearances show him working towards that goal. "Clouds on the Horizon" reveals that Alador's failures as a father were at least in part a result of his wife overworking him and deliberately hamstringing his relationship with his kids.
    • "For the Future" deconstructs this. Odalia tries to ingratiate herself to The Collector to take advantage of him so she can Build the Boiling Isles "Bigger and Better," something that The Collector has no interest in. Because Odalia never learned how to reason with, compromise with, or really do anything other than bully her children into submission, she finds herself totally unable to manipulate The Collector and is stuck doing menial labor.
  • Emperor Belos manages to be even worse than the Blights. While he's Hunter's uncle, he's still the boy's guardian and treats him only as a tool, constantly holding the threat of replacement over him and using emotional and implied physical abuse to keep him in line. It's then revealed any care he seemed to have for Hunter was just another part of his carefully calculated manipulation to control him, and Hunter is really a Grimwalker clone, part of a long line Belos keeps killing off for betraying him. When Hunter questions him over the atrocities the emperor has committed, Belos doesn't even hesitate to try and kill him.
• Pantheon: Caspian's father is a different kind, he's emotionally condescending and constantly challenges his son with complicated equations to gouge his intelligence, clearly never satisfied and smug.Turns out both he and his wife are acting this way to monitor an emotional response on their prodigy son. It doesn't make them any better.
• Paradise PD: Randall and Karen have verbally and psychologically abused Kevin all throughout his childhood, profanely insulting him, shunning him from family gatherings, and blaming his very existence for their divorce. Kevin also never got a middle name because the one Randall wanted to give him was apparently a racial slur.
  Randall: I thought of a middle name for our son; Kevin I Should Have Pulled Out Crawford.
  Karen: Or Kevin I Wish I'd Swallowed Crawford.
• Phineas and Ferb:
  • Dr. Doofenshmirtz had these, played for laughs. He was The Un-Favourite of both his parents, his mother preferring his younger brother Roger while his dad preferred a dog, which he named "Only Son". His father made him replace the family lawn gnome after it was repossessed, forcing him to stand still for hours and through the night. Another episode revealed that his parents failed to show up at all of his birthdays, including the actual day of his birth. Yet another has him saying he was disowned by his parents and grew up with a family of ocelots. He often uses this as his Freudian Excuse for his Evil Plans.
  • Interestingly, he himself is not an example. He's over-protective, if anything, to his daughter, Vanessa. It's the combination of this and his abusive parents that often gives him the Draco in Leather Pants label.
• Pingu: In at least two episodes, Pingu's mother slaps or spanks him for misbehaving. Because Corporal Punishment is forbidden in several countries in Europe, these two episodes are now considered lost episodes.
• Walter White from Poochini. No wonder his son Billy is such a jerk.
• Suga Mama is both physically and verbally abusive towards her son, Oscar in The Proud Family. Most of the time, Oscar brings it upon himself, but sometimes, she’ll just do it unprovoked.
• Rick and Morty
  • Rick Sanchez was a terrible father who was emotionally abusive of Beth, and still exploits her after returning to her life, and his treatment of his grandson Morty, while played for Black Comedy, is highly abusive and toxic by the most forgiving real-world standards. By Season 5, he comes to realize this, and tries to do the right thing and leave Morty's life but at this point their codependence leads to Morty begging him to come back. It's also revealed that Beth was a Replacement Goldfish for the one that died in Rick's original timeline contrary to his claims otherwise, explaining his occasional callousness towards her and by extension the rest of the family.
  • Beth Smith downplayed as it not really shown often and is mostly shown to be a good mom but there are times where she is emotionally abusive to her son and daughter, as well as genuinely neglectful. Beth even admits at one point that deep down she doesn't have a "maternal instinct", and that she has to be especially encouraged to come to the aid of her children.
• On Rocky and Bullwinkle, a Fractured Fairy Tale retelling of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" has Papa and Baby Bear portrayed similar to the Looney Tunes incarnations, with papa constantly punching baby bear in the face.
• Samurai Jack plays this up in its first episode of the fifth season. Septuplet girls are born into a cult honoring Aku, and their mother (the psychopathic High Priestess) puts them through Training from Hell. This includes forcing them to bathe in a symbiotic-type substance that clearly didn't look pleasant and making them fight larger cultists who have no qualms in harming young girls. Their leader, Ashi, even gets punished by their mother just for looking out into the outside world. In another training exercise with rock spires, the High Priestess tells one daughter to not help Ashi while she's hanging from a ledge while crushing her hand with her staff because there is no room for weakness in Aku's cult. By the time they're older, they've become merciless assassins, trained to the strictest level by their mother.
  • Aku also counts as he ends up being revealed to be Ashi's father as she was born from the same materials as him. He uses her for his own whim to beat Jack and didn't care about all the abuse Ashi had through the High Priestess. Later, he also tried to kill her.
• Nester's Mother from Scaredy Squirrel is this. Both to her son and everyone else, being utterly crazy and jerkish enough to make Nestor himself (who’s a bit of a tightwad) look like a saint in comparison.
• She-Ra and the Princesses of Power:
  • As an adoptive parent to Adora and Catra, Shadow Weaver fits right into this mould. Adora was emotionally manipulated, praised and rewarded, but never encouraged to develop her own goals, and expected to take on responsibility for everything that happens — she demonstrates symptoms of PTSD during the series, and it takes her a while to get her guilt complex under control. Catra was treated in much more overtly cruel ways: Shadow Weaver would hurt and berate her for any failure or disobedience, and never hesitated to let Catra know that she was The Un-Favourite (even treating her more like Adora's pet than a full person). Adora ends up mostly functional through some help from The Power of Friendship; Catra, who stayed in the Fright Zone, ended up much worse, especially since her eventual support network ended up being Scorpia, who was far too besotted with her to be too much more than an enabler. There's a reason that a common Archive of Our Own tag is "Light Spinner | Shadow Weaver (She-Ra)'s A+ Parenting".
  • Horde Prime exaggerates this trope. Prime is Hordak's genetic progenitor, and thus the closest thing he has to a father. However, Horde Prime treats his clones like disposable tools, robs them of individuality, and refuses to tolerate any displays of autonomy from them, Hordak included. In a flashback, Horde Prime neck-lifts Hordak when the clone first exhibits a defect, then casts him out. Everything Hordak does thereafter is a futile attempt to win back Horde Prime's approval. When the two men reunite in "Destiny, Part 2", Horde Prime humiliates Hordak for his displays of free will, neck-lifts him, and subjects him to a horrific Mind Rape that concludes with Hordak being mind-wiped.
• The Simpsons:
  • Abe Simpson would waver between being a decent parent that Homer liked and a distant and condescending jerk toward him, which is why Homer tends to act deliberately neglectful and callous to him when they aren't able to put their differences asides. From what we know of Abe's father he had a habit of choking him like Homer does to Bart (see below).
  • Homer Simpson himself started off with more paternal pride (even if he was too muddled to always do the right thing by his children) but became a complete jerk in the double digit seasons. The man went from being too blunt with his children ("Just because I don't care doesn't mean I don't understand," said when his envy of an intelligent male substitute teacher his daughter Lisa was missing got her calling her father none other than "a baboon!") to barely caring whether they lived or died ("I have three kids and no money! Why can't I have no kids and three money?") The second comment was made right in front of Lisa and her older brother Bart. That all said, Homer's infamous habit of choking his son (as pictured above) started very early on. The episode "Grampa vs. Sexual Inadequacy" does a lot to explain his behavior by explicitly linking it to his upbringing at the hands of Abe; he genuinely wants to be a good father but hasn't had much of an example to follow, and his attempts at Breaking the Cycle of Bad Parenting are so overdone that they get a We Want Our Jerk Back! reaction from his kids.
  • In "Changing of the Guardian", when Homer compliments Selma's adopted Chinese daughter Ling Bouvier, Patty and Selma lash out at Homer because they're Education Mamas who push Ling to the limits and don't give her any praise, raising her in a cold, callous, harsh, emotionless environment, which if any indication, means that she may probably grow up as cynical and snarky as her guardians.
  • Inverted with Ned Flanders. Ned's neglectful beatnik parents used no discipline at all which was just as bad as playing this trope straight. Eventual Flanderization turned him into one of these to his sons by means of his overprotectiveness and religious fundamentalism turning them into Innocently Insensitive yet overtly-sissy, apparently incestual and religiously bigoted.
• South Park:
  • Poor Butters manages to hit every single instance of this trope and then some — he's frequently punished by his parents, Stephen and Linda, for every little thing (even if it was something completely out of his control), yelled at by them, and all-around belittled and humiliated. In "Jared Has Aides", he's alluded to being physically beaten by them; Comedy Central later yanked it off the air for this reason, though it can still be seen on the South Park Studios site. In "Pre-School", he is being beat up by a bully, and though his parents hear him screaming and begging, they refuse to let him in. It's implied that his uncle abused him sexually at one point. In "Stupid Spoiled Whore Video Playset", his parents sell him to Paris Hilton as a pet for $250 million — even though all her previous pets have killed themselves, and then ground him after Paris Hilton ends up shoved inside Mr. Slave's rectum and therefore can't get any money from her anymore. In "Marjorine" he fakes his death, and his parents are devastated. However when he returns they think he is some sort of demonic monster returned from the dead, chain him in the basement and try to feed him a dead body. His total absence (even as a background character) in the next episode is rather telling, suggesting that he may have been kept in the basement for up to a week.
    • One would wonder how do his parents avoid being arrested for their treatment of Butters after Linda's attempt to drown Butters and then kill herself in "Butter's Very Own Episode".
    • It's worth noting that Butters regularly calls his father "sir" rather than "dad".
    • In "Super Best Friends" (well before "Marjorine") Butters mentions that he falls asleep to the sound of his own screams, then wakes up screaming most mornings, suggesting he has been traumatized for a long time. Later, in "Imaginationland" we see that it's become so bad, Butters' mental visualization of his father is as some kind of grounding-monster.
    • It's been suggested ever since "Marjorine" that Butters is so afraid of 'grounding' because he may directly associate it with more physical abuse such as the beatings he has mentioned being more frequent than he lets on, or that it may always involve him being locked in the basement.
    • Butters also has an abusive grandparent in Grandma Stotch. She actively hits Butters and stabs him with a fork when no one is looking and threatens to harm him even more if he says anything to anyone. It's implied that she was a straight example to Stephen and that is why he became one to Butters.
    • More recent seasons have seen Stephen and Linda take a massive level in kindness. For one, they're much nicer to Butters, and Stephen only grounds Butters when he actually deserves it, such as punching Stephen in the balls, pressing his penis against the window of a Starbucks door (or as Bill Cosby put it, "pressing pickle"; Stephen himself later used the term "smooshing snake"), and using Facebook to spread fake news about Coon & Friends.
  • One episode turns the formula on its head, revealing that Mr. Garrison is estranged from his father because he wasn't sexually molested as a child. Everybody else agrees with this, including Mr. Garrison's mother and Mr. Mackey the school counselor, and they try to convince Garrison Sr. to molest his 41-year-old son (prompting him to ask if he's the Only Sane Man in town). Eventually, he gives in and hires Kenny G to molest his son while making him think it's his father, which mends the relationship between father and son.
  • The McCormick kids' strictly agnostic foster parents in "The Poor Kid" are quite terrible. They hose their adoptive children with Dr. Pepper for not abiding by their agnostic beliefs, force them to clean the house until it's almost spotless, and only allow them to eat at designated meal times.
  • Clyde's mother according to "Reverse Cowgirl". Her public humiliation of her son over the toilet seat makes you have to rethink Kyle's mom as the biggest bitch in the whole wide world. Lucky for him, she dies near the end of the first act by falling into the toilet, because he left the seat up.
  • The McCormick kids' actual parents count as well. While they do love their kids, they make no effort to avoid fighting in front of them, nor do they spend their money wisely, blowing it on weed instead of actual food. Their alcoholic dad apparently frequently brawls with his oldest kid Kevin, and more than once in the show we see the mother belittling Kenny.
  • Subverted with Henrietta, who claims her parents are abusive despite them being cheerful and nice. "Goth Kids 3" depicts her friends reporting them to Social Services for calling her an "Emo" instead of a Goth (which are, of course, totally different).
    • Although her mother called her "fatty" in the ending. But that was perhaps called for (depending on how you look at it) judging by all the horrible things Henrietta says to her on a daily basis, which she usually just shrugs off.
  • Tweek's parents. They constantly feed him dangerous amounts of coffee possibly containing meth; make him work in the back room of their coffee shop and pick up deliveries from a meth lab with no help despite him being only ten years old; use extreme scare tactics to teach him to stay away from strangers; and at one point his father jokes right in front of him about selling him into slavery, even though his son has obvious anxiety and paranoia issues. It's also implied that Tweek's father supports his son's relationship with Craig not because it makes him happy, but because having a gay son is good publicity for his coffee business.
  • Gerald Broflovski became this as of Season 20. When he came close being exposed for his mass trolling (which caused a woman to commit suicide), Gerald frames Ike for it to escape repercussions. Later, when blackmailing Ike to keep up the ruse, Kyle discovers Gerald's misdeeds and asks why Gerald would do these thing, to which Gerald responds by calling Kyle a pussy without a sense of humor.
  • Just like Gerald, Randy Marsh became this as of Season 23 when he had previously mostly averted this. He began to regularly insult and belittle both Stan and Shelly for hating living on a farm and selling weed. Randy would also regularly try to exploit them for marketing. It says a lot that when Randy gets arrested, they both actively want Randy to go to jail.
    • Shelly gets it worse of the two. Randy took her on what he claimed to be a father-daughter day, but was really an attempt to show tons of people use weed. By the time Randy makes his claim that he'll change his ways, he seems to have forgotten that Shelly even exists, only promising to be a better father to his son.
    • Even in The Stick of Truth, Randy calls the new kid his "favorite kid" in front of Stan.
  • Scott Malkinson's father Clark mocks the way his own son speaks for having diabetes (just like Cartman does), out of insecurity.
• In Squidbillies, Early Cuyler commonly abuses Rusty, in ways such as shoving him down a well for media fame, breaking his fingers for being better at playing the guitar than him, and beating him for interrupting a singing mounted fish. Any time he supposedly seems to show care for Rusty is for an ulterior motive such as only worrying about his safety because if he dies the government stops sending him his dependency welfare check. As revealed in flashbacks, Early's own father, Ga-Ga-Pee-Pap, was just as bad.
• In The Powerpuff Girls episode Mommy Fearest, Ima Goodlady who is really Sedusa punishes the girls and prevents them from saving the day, so that she can commit more crimes. It made Professor Utonium very furious and then tells the girls to call the police and declares that the crook isn't going to deceive the girls and him anymore.
  Professor Utonium: GIRLS, CALL THE POLICE! This crook isn't going to deceive us, anymore!
• The episode "Skooled" in Star vs. the Forces of Evil reveals that after Eclipsa was imprisoned, her infant daughter Meteora was given to St. Olga (a robot) to be raised, the king having deemed her unfit to inherit the kingdom. St. Olga had absolutely no regard for young Meteora's feelings and forced her to repress her half-monster heritage. She even raised her under the name "Heinous" after King Shastacan declared the baby "heinous" while giving her to St. Olga. In hindsight, it's really no wonder she turned out the way she did.
• Steven Universe:
  • Priyanka and Doug Maheswaran initially have many rules for their daughter, Connie, to follow and punish her harshly if she breaks them. That is why she is reluctant to continue her friendship with Steven since his magical adventures actually interest her more, but she's afraid that her parents wouldn't approve of this. In "Nightmare Hospital", Priyanka realizes that they were making her miserable and didn't mean to be abusive, promising to lay off on the rules as long as she would be more open about her life choices.
  • During the "Diamond Days" arc in Season 5, Pink Diamond's past with the other Diamonds is fully revealed. Though they did love her, the Diamonds had no problem locking Pink up for days on end when she didn't conform to their standards, and apparently made her cry multiple times throughout her early life. When her son, Steven, experiences the same abuse, he stands up for her and calls them out on learning nothing from their behavior, pointing out that it's the reason why she betrayed them as Rose Quartz in the first place.
    Steven: Maybe Pink thought you guys were right to lock her in here when she messed stuff up. But I know what it's like to have a loving family, and we don't do stuff like this to each other. [...]
    Blue Diamond: That's enough! (throws energy blast that sends him across the room)
    Steven: ...This isn't normal. How many times did you lock her in here? How many times did you make her cry?
    Blue Diamond: (stammering) I didn't, I... and I'm doing it again, aren't I? And this is why [Pink] left, isn't it?
• Tangled: The Series:
  • Besides Gothel's behaviour with Rapunzel in the movie, she was shown to be as bad with her biological child. She treated her own daughter as a glorified servant and once she kidnaps Rapunzel for her Magic Hair, readily abandons her own daughter with no remorse.
  • Rapunzel's actual parents (Frederic especially) aren't any better as shortly after reuniting, they confine her within the walls of the castle, they're willing to invade her personal privacy by reading her diary, sending guards to watch over her even after promising otherwise, sends mercenaries behind her back that nearly led to her death and in worst case, confine their own daughter to her own room after a single breach on their castle. Even though they claim to do so for her own good, nobody buys it including Rapunzel and point blank told them that they're acting no better than what Gothel previously did.
• For a kids' show, The Three Friends And Jerry has quite a frightening example in Jerry's dad, the school’s P.E teacher with an extremely foul temper. He has good intentions though, but the leader of The Three Friends is understandably terrified of him.
• Total Drama
  • Implied. Heather parents are thrilled to get her out of the house in her video from home, not just throwing a party, but even selling all her personal belongings (though with Heather being a total Hate Sink in the original Island, the audience was likely meant to side with them). Heather also claims in Action that her parents sent her to electroshock therapy as a child to make her nicer. However, it's implied Heather sees her mom as her best friend in "One Flu Over the Cuckoos."
  • Trent reveals in "Brunch of Disgustingness" that his parents used to hold him down and force-feed him broccoli "for his own good". It left such an impact that when his team uses the same tactic during the gross food challenge, Trent mentally reverts to infancy.
  • Priya parents have forced her to train to qualify for a potential Total Drama reboot since the moment she was born literally. As she grew up, Priya was forced to undergo harsh training that involved climbing a wall to escape from a feral bear, fighting with jousting sticks, being catapulted in a catapult camp and being abandoned in a forest for a month without food or water, and even after winning, they keep all the money. Despite all that, Priya loves them and gets mad at Millie for writing negatively about them in her notebook.
  • Implied as Ripper comments about his parents make it clear that his mother feels his birth was a mistake and his father dropped him and his siblings when they were just babies.
  • Implied. Julia's parents made her work at their bakery every summer when she was a child, and Julia referring to them by their names instead of "mom" and "dad", as well as the statement about only talking to them to them through her lawyers, seems to indicate that they didn't exactly treat Julia in the best of ways.
• It's difficult to pinpoint where to put the dads of The Venture Bros., but a mixture of neglect and emotional abuse likely puts all of them here.
  • On a meta level, the show considers any parent such as Jonas Sr. or Benton Quest who would bring their children on dangerous adventures to be this. Honestly, the way the show explains it makes sense — they constantly put their children in harm's way and secluded them from a stable or normal life, leaving them with severe social handicaps and crippling trauma that in Rusty's words "rouse him from sleep in a chilling sweat to this day." As a result, Jonny (or, as the show was later forced to call him, "Action Johnny") and Rusty both have crippling drug addictions, severe trauma, and are socially stunted. This isn't even touching on emotional abuse that Rusty received, either.
  • Rusty Venture has almost no interest in his sons, particularly Hank, and barely shows any concern for them. He appears to love them deep down, as he kept making clones of them after they died upwards of twelve times, but he shrugs all his parenting duties off to the much-more-attentive Brock Samson. After his cloning facility got trashed, he showed a bit more concern for the boys, but is very verbally abusive to Hank and his "guidance" of Dean is likely screwing the boy up even worse.
  • Professor Richard Impossible is a Jerkass to his entire family, which eventually drove Sally to marry another man. At one point, when his infant child went missing and he decided to stay and work on an invention rather then look for him, Sally asked him what could be more important than his own son. Richard replied, "Science?"
  • Rusty's own father, Dr. Jonas Venture Sr., manages to somehow top them both. In spite of having the outward image of a God-like scientist, he was secretly an immense Jerkass who treated his son as little more than a prop. Particular instances of abuse include him forcing Rusty to kill a man with a house key at age ten, acting as Rusty's "therapist" by way of sneaking out of the room when Rusty was talking about his problems and then calling him ungrateful and whiny when he came back, and throwing him a birthday party and then inviting only supermodels, playboy bunnies, and prostitutes who were all much older then Rusty himself (this ended with Rusty having his swim trunks pulled down by other members of Team Venture and having his penis shot with a Shrink Ray, which is made even more traumatizing by the fact that Jonas' own penis is quite impressive, which is enough to traumatize Rusty for life, having seen his dad's penis at a young age). Aside from Rusty himself, no one seems to know about what a terrible person Jonas really was, to the point that there's a museum devoted to how awesome he was (which contains no reference to Rusty).
    • The museum was built by Jonas' other son, Jonas Jr., who was born (in an extremely unusual way) long after Jonas himself died. JJ goes by his father's public image that he was some kind of godlike figure and doesn't believe Rusty when he tries to tell him what an ass he was. However, the episode where this museum opened featured an old clip of Jonas being interviewed, where he did say that Rusty was the most important thing to him....which played after Rusty left the opening party. Although there's possibly an implication that Jonas said this for publicity.

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