Good Parents / Live-Action TV

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• 4400: Hayden had a loving, understanding mother who is about the best a neurodivergent child could hope for, especially in the 1920s.
• 7th Heaven.
  • Not necessarily, as some people see Annie Camden as a potential Abusive Parent instead. She's got good intentions, but some of her punishments (like sending their kids to the garage without any supplies) can be pretty bad.
  • And then there's Eric's hilarious overreaction to finding out that Matt had a joint in their house.
• 30 Rock: Tracy and Angie Jordan. While Tracy's Cloud Cuckoo Lander status makes for some strange child-rearing ideas, it's clear that he's both a committed husband and a devoted father who genuinely loves his two sons.
  "If anything happens to me, promise you'll take care of my sons. I don't want them to have to go to college!"
• The Addams Family: Gomez and Morticia Addams are great parents. Despite being "altogether ooky", they are still a Happily Married couple who love and adore their kids. They have rules like any other family and enjoy a lot of quality time with one another. When a truant officer comes to the house to ask why Pugsley and Wednesday aren't enrolled in public school, Gomez is horrified at the idea of being apart from them all day — "What's the point of having children, if you're just going to get rid of them?" — because that's how much he loves spending time with his son and daughter. (It's also adorable to watch him mope about having no one to play with.)
• Amber Brown (2022): Amber's mom and dad are both understanding, loving people who do all they can for her. The pair are divorced, but always try to put Amber's needs first.
• Angel:
  • In the this universe, good parents are extremely rare, with Fred being the only main character whose parents are truly loving. Lampshaded when this fact is revealed, as the gang spend the entire episode thinking Fred's parents are abusive or out to harm the terrified Fred, only to discover Fred's terror was rooted in her having failed to become a brilliant physicist due to traumatic and tragic events and therefore thinking her parents would view her as a failure. Fred's parents don't care — they only want her to be happy and healthy, are very proud to have a daughter who is willing to help people in need, and leave the gang stunned by how normal and wonderful they really are.
  • Fred herself also acts as one to Angel's son Connor while Angel is temporarily imprisoned and Connor's surrogate mom Cordelia becomes a Higher Power. This stops when she learned Connor was the one who imprisoned Angel however.
  • Can’t forget Angel himself who loves his son Connor and made it clear there is nothing he would he not do for him. As beautifully seen in the scene where Cordelia confronts him about the fact his vulnerability to sunlight limits what he can do as a parent, Angel sticks in his hand out into the daylight and says “If he has to get to the hospital at noon on the sunniest day of the year, he'll get there - even if I don't”. Angel stills loves Connor even after his son has a Plot-Relevant Age-Up into a psycho teen who’s been raised in a hell dimension by Holtz Angel’s greatest foe and brought up/manipulated to hate his vampire father. After Connor fully goes off the deep end, Angel makes a deal with Evil, Inc. Wolfram and Heart to give Connor a normal life and not remember his previous life.
• Avocado Toast: Molly's mom and dad are very loving, completely supportive to her. When she tells them she's bisexual, they give her immediate acceptance. Later, on learning she's in the hospital, her mom reacts by immediately telling her dad to get plane tickets (since they're both in the Netherlands at the time for a vacation), and give her warm support over the phone.
• The Big Bang Theory: Sheldon Cooper's mother is a wonderful mother from everything we've seen, with the exception of how okay she is with other children bullying her son. She knows full well how much of a JerkAss Sheldon can be, but it's obvious that she loves and supports him, even if she doesn't really understand what he's on about at the time. Besides, she knows how to deal with Sheldon better than anyone else. There's a reason she's the first one Leonard calls when he needs back-up.
• Blossom's dad Nick on Blossom (albeit slightly overprotective).
• Boy Meets World has Alan and Amy, Cory's parents. Not only are they Happily Married and good parents to their three (and later four) biological kids, they also are surrogate parents to Shawn and Topanga, to the point where Alan risks a lawsuit by physically attacking a cult leader who brainwashes Shawn.
• The Boys: Becca towards Ryan, even though he is her Child by Rape after being assaulted by Homelander, she still loves him dearly. It’s downright stated and shown she is the only thing keeping Ryan from turning into a superpowered monster like his father and grandfather. Billy Butcher, Becca’s husband though he understandably is repulsed by Ryan, comes to love him motivated partly by Becca’s dying plea for Billy to care for him after she dies being accidentally killed by Ryan while he was trying to save her from Stormfront. It’s because of Billy’s care for Ryan (who’s been taken in by Homelander) that he reneges on the deal that he made with Soldier Boy, as he can’t hurt Ryan even to bring down his Arch-Enemy.
• The Brady Bunch: Mike and Carol are caring parents who aren't afraid to lay down the law when necessary.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
  • The fact that Joyce Summers manages to give Buffy exactly the half-loving/half-stern talk that she needs after her vampire boyfriend's gypsy curse turns him evil, despite NOT KNOWING THAT THAT WAS WHAT HAD HAPPENED, speaks volumes.
  • Not to mention Papa Wolf Giles. Their surrogate relationship builds slowly and subtly at first, but really becomes clear in the episode where her agrees to go to the Ice-Capades with her (there was a lot more going on between them in that episode, but this ultimate outcome was very touching).
• The Turners on Call the Midwife. While their family is... unconventional, to say the least, they're wonderful parents who, though they occasionally make mistakes, clearly love all their children, whether genetic or adopted.
• The title character of Castle. He's immature in a lot of ways, but he's a great father to his daughter Alexis.
• Cobra Kai:
  • Daniel and Amanda LaRusso to their daughter Samantha and son Anthony
  • Carmen Diaz to her son Miguel
  • Hawk’s mother Mrs. Moskowitz
  • Amanda’s mother Joanne
• Dexter: Considering his son was a sociopath, Harry Morgan did a wonderful job raising Dexter. Not so much with his daughter, but still. However, as the show's gone on, it's been shown that Harry was very wrong about Dexter in several aspects — for example, thinking he would never be able to form emotional connections with others — and a fair few viewers are wondering, if he'd gotten medical treatment for Dex instead of encouraging his desire for violence, would Dexter still have his "Dark Passanger"? And then there was the part where he coached Dexter to kill people and then killed himself 'cause Dex actually did it, abandoning both his emotionally damaged children. At least he was trying to do the right thing.
• Many older sitcoms such as Father Knows Best and Leave It to Beaver present parents like this.
• First Day: Hannah's parents (and brother) completely support her in the present as a trans girl. The only rule which we see them lay down (not having a sleepover at kids' houses who don't know her gender) is for her safety.
• The Flash (2014): Joe West is an amazing father to Iris, Barry, and Wally. His parenting is even more impressive given that he was left a single father after Iris's drug-addict mother abandoned them, he took young Barry in after Barry's mother was killed and his father imprisoned, and Joe didn't even know Wally existed until the later was a young man which made developing a relationship difficult. Despite all that, all three kids would agree that Joe is a pretty great dad.
• Freaks and Geeks shows parents that are corny, ridiculous, care for their children, care for each other, can be hurt by their children, have heartwarming moments, and are nothing less than fully fleshed out characters.
• Philip and Vivian Banks on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air are this to their own four children AND their goofy nephew. Uncle Phil's concern in the episode where Will's absentee father returns is very touching. And his reunion with Will after the jerk ditches him again might count as a heartwarming moment if it weren't so sad at the same time. His verbal beatdown of Lou is the perfect personification of what being a good, responsible parent really entails.
  Uncle Phil: (yelling at Lou) Oh bull, bull! Will is not a coat that you hang in the closet, then pick it up when you're ready to wear it. His life goes on. He's not supposed to be here for you, you're supposed to be here for him!
• On Friday Night Lights, Eric and Tami Taylor and Corinne Williams are Good Parents, though there are plenty of lousy parents to go around.
• Full House:
  • Danny, Jesse, and Joey are all loving father figures to Danny's daughters. Danny brings Jesse — his daughters' uncle — and Joey, Danny's college friend, to help raise the girls after the death of his wife, who is implied to have been this as well.
  • Rebecca later acts as surrogate mom to the girls.
• Game of Thrones:
  • Ned Stark is one of the only fathers in this setting who is not an asshole to his children, but is actually a loving and protective parent who raises his kids well. All six of his kids (one of whom is his nephew — Jon Snow — but Ned raises and loves Jon as his own child and claims him as his illegitimate son to protect him from the current ruling regime) love Ned and look up to him, keeping his memory alive long after his death.
  • Davos Seaworth is also a good father to his own child and to the children he acts as a second father-figure to. He loves Stannis Baratheon's daughter Shireen like his own daughter and later, likewise acts in a fatherly role for Jon Snow whose father is now dead and Gendry, who never knew his father. This trope is discussed for tragedy In-Universe with Salladhor Saan after the death of Davos's son Mathos.
    Saan: But Davos, you were a good father.
    Davos: If I was a good father, he'd still be here.
  • Tytos Lannister is remembered fondly as a parent by Tywin, who even breaks out a rare smile whilst reminiscing about him. However, his skills as a liege Lord left much to be desired, especially in his elder son's eyes. A fact that drove Tywin to be a strong ruler who distanced himself emotionally from his children.
• Lorelai Gilmore from Gilmore Girls is the best mother in all of Stars Hollow. She raised Rory by herself just to prove it can be done, even naming her after herself. Sure there are moments where Lorelai and Rory have argued on disagreements, but they still love and care for each other and even consider themselves to be best friends through their sisterly bond. Lorelai always supports Rory in whatever decision she makes and is willing to help her in any way she can and offer her advice. If anyone would ever criticize Rory or put her in harm's way, Lorelai wouldn't hesitate to defend her and make others feel her wrath.
• Hannah's parents in Girls. Although the set-up for the series is their tough-but-fair decision to cut off her allowance so she'll start standing on her own feet, they remain a supportive influence and safety net for her, which she fluctuates between ignoring completely and taking for granted. Also an example of Parents as People.
• Glee:
  • Burt Hummel may be a flannel-wearing, football-loving car mechanic (played by Mike O'Malley, no less) but he still loves his flamboyant gay son Kurt to bits. Their relationship is one of the strongest in the series.
  • Carole is this to Finn.
• The Golden Girls has this with Sophia, who is both Dorothy's actual mother, and a mother-figure to Blanche and Rose. Dorothy and Rose are also shown to be good parents, as are Stan and Miles (their ex-husband and beau, respectively). Blanche, however, averts this.
• Good Times: Florida and James Evans. Despite often being met with with hard times they still manage to be devoted and loving parents to their three children.
• Home Improvement: Tim and Jill Taylor raise three sons and love them no matter what they do.
• How I Met Your Mother:
  • Marshall loved his parents and often asked advice from them though his mother never gets along with his wife, Lily. When his father died of a heart attack, Marshall was devastated until Lily became pregnant, which gave him a realization to become a good father like his dad.
  • Barney and James' mother, Loretta. Despite that she lied about some things during their childhood such as the identities of their biological fathers, the lies that she made were just to make them happy and she knew that at some time, her sons would still be asking about their dads.
  • Marshall and Lily were on the process on becoming this when their son, Marvin Jr. was born. This also made them worried on who will take care of Marvin when something bad happened to them which got them to put up a ridiculous game show on who among their three best friends are best in being godparents and in the end, they decided to let all of them as godparents.
• Katie Morag has lovely parents. Her mum can be a bit ditzy though.
• Don and Glenda Fry in Mortified. Even though Taylor generally regards them as Amazingly Embarrassing Parents, she realises in "Taylor's Song" (the final episode) that while her family might not perfect, they are perfect for her.
• The Munsters has the spooky but affectionate Herman and Lily. They're very loving parents to Eddie and Marilyn (who may technically be their niece, it's very clear she's more of a daughter to them since they've raised her since infanthood). Lily is very devoted and warm, and Herman works ahrd to set a good example for little Eddie. While they think Marilyn is the strange-looking one, they coddle and dote on her, believing her looks will make life a lot harder for her, and constantly try to help her find a worthy suitor.
• Murdoch Mysteries: Inspector Brackenreid and his wife Margaret are shown to be very caring and loving parents to their sons Johnny and Bobby. John especially appears in lots of B-plot stories. In one episode, the inspector proudly anticipates seeing John perform in an amateur play, bragging about family talent because he also loves theatre, but afterwards he's disturbed that his son portrayed a female character and seemed to embrace the role. He's worried he might be gay, which is understandable, considering the homophobia of the era. Finally Brackenreid has a fatherly chat with his son, reassuring the boy that he can pursue his true interests and still have his parents' love and approval. A similar bonding moment happens when teenage John gets drunk for the first time. The inspector is mostly amused because he's a heavy drinker himself and copes with it just fine, but when Murdoch and Dr. Ogden remind him that alcohol doesn't agree with many and that his wife is understandably upset, he talks with Johm and advises him not to drown his youth in alcohol.
• NUMB3RS: Don and Charlie's parents, Alan and Margaret Eppes definitely are this, especially with the differences that came with having a Child Prodigy as a son. Margaret herself went with Charlie when he went to college at 13 and even now as adults, Alan gives his sons plenty of advice and assistance while serving as Team Dad from time to time to Don's co-workers and even as an older brother figure to Charlie's other father figure, Larry. Alan ^note and possibly Margaret depending on how you interpret one particular episode admits that they didn't always get it right, especially when it came to balancing Charlie's needs against Don's, but they did about as well as anyone could have expected.
• Sandy and Kirsten Cohen, Seth's parents on The O.C., who also become Parental Substitutes for Ryan.
• Our Miss Brooks: Martha Conklin, mother of Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold Harriet Conklin. Unfortunately, it doesn't apply to Harriet's father, Osgood Conklin. Although Harriet and her father are close, Osgood Conklin is pompous and overprotective.
• The Outpost: From what little's shown, Talon's birth mother was a kind, devoted parent. So were her adopted ones, although again only briefly seen. Gwynn's foster father is also great with her.
• Burt and Virginia Chance on Raising Hope aren't the brightest tools in the shed and enjoy poking fun at their son, but they genuinely love him and help him become a Doting Parent with his daughter.
• Riverdale:
  • Fred Andrews, Archie's father, is calm and supportive of his son in all things. The worst he ever does is emphasize Archie's football over his music — and when this Double Standard is pointed out to him, he immediately rectifies it by soundproofing the garage for Archie to practice in.
  • Fred stands out so much because every other parent in the show is so horrible. Veronica's mother is a borderline Evil Matriarch who is slowly drawing Veronica into the family's criminal activities, but she still manages to be the second best parent on the show simply by virtue of not actually being abusive.
• The Sarah Jane Adventures is full of them. The title character herself is a good parent to her adopted teenaged-appearing son Luke. Maria's father Alan, and later Rani's parents Haresh and Gita, are the emotional rocks for their respective daughters and much loved by them despite sometimes being embarrassing. Even Clyde's mother, who only has a handful of appearances, is established as a good mother to him during those few appearances. (His father, though...)
• Schitt's Creek plays with the concept in a number of ways.
  • Johnny and Moira were neglectful parents of young David and Alexis, even though they saw their children were well cared-for via nannies and material goods. The show's story largely centers around Johnny and Moira realizing their mistakes and trying (with varied degrees of success) to become better parents to their (now adult) children.
  • Roland and Jocelyn were more traditional parents to Mutt, but at the beginning of the series, they have made enough mistakes so that Roland and Mutt are estranged. When they have a late in life son, they are seen to be devoted parents to little Roland Jr.
  • Patrick had ideal and loving parents in Marcy and Clint, but this is what makes it more difficult for Patrick to come out to them. College-aged David relished causing his parents stress and flaunted his menage a trois to Johnny and Moira, but Patrick worries about telling Marcy and Clint for fear he will disappoint them or they will see him differently. Thankfully, they react with love and acceptance.
• In The Secret World of Alex Mack, Alex's parents are still together, still there for her, and still trying to shape her into a good person. The fact that she matures and becomes a better person over the course of the show tells us that they're doing a good job. Still, there's that whole 'I got contaminated by GC-161 and got superpowers from it' thing that she hasn't gotten around to telling them, until the series finale...
• On Selfie, Charmonique the receptionist is a single mother who is shown to be hard-working at her job and at home, being a nice and loving parent. She's not perfect-she feeds son Kevin almost exclusively chicken nuggets, but truly cares about her son and it is implied rarely goes out, or if she does-takes Kevin with her. Eliza (probably not the best judge, but still) calls her the best mom ever.
• Sherlock: Sherlock sees John and Mary as this, and it's revealed in "The Sign of Three" since they've had practice....with him. Even though Sherlock's parents seem to be friendly, and could possibly count, we never see them until the "His Last Vow" episode and Sherlock didn't think that his mother understood him as well. Also, his older brother kind-of raised Sherlock to be an arsehole, and Sherlock considers himself to be an idiot in comparison to Mycroft, and vice versa. Mycroft considers Sherlock to be an idiot in comparison to him.
  • Sherlock didn't really trust Mycroft to look out for him, and was fine with John helping him out, so much that Sherlock FAKED his death for him. Faked. He also considers Mrs. Hudson to be a good mother figure since, despite the fact she knows how rude Sherlock is, she can put up with it. The idiotic CIA dude found this one out the hard way. Way to go, CIA.
• Skins has very few good parents. In Generation 1, you get extremes like Cassie's parents (who are too busy having sex to look after their kids and Chris's parents, who leave their son on his own, but Tony, Sid, Michelle, and Jal all also have less than desirable home lives. Therefore, seeing that Maxxie and Anwar both have Good Parents who are both there, both loving, and both attentive (though not without flaws) is a bit unusual.
  • Generation 2, similarly, has a range between good parents (Pandora's mother, Thomas's mother), Parents as People (Emily and Katie's parents, Effy's parents, Freddie's dad), and terrible parents (Cook's parents).
  • Generation 3, meanwhile, has a bit more of a positive light on parents (although that's not saying much in this series): Franky's dads are fantastic and loving to her, even when she goes into a mental tailspin. The rest almost all fall into some shade of Parents as People, with Alo's parents being strict but well-meaning, Mini's mother and stepfather generally doing their best (her real father is trash, however), and Grace's parents being extremely overprotective but meaning well. Meanwhile, Mr. Levan encourages Nick's Jerk Jock behaviour and emotionally abuses Matty, Rich has a frosty relationship with his dad, and Alex's father is a controlling and distant jerk.
• Smallville has Jonathan and Martha Kent being just as good as their comic counterparts.
• Star Trek: The Next Generation:
  • Beverly Crusher balances being CMO of the Enterprise-D while raising a teenaged boy. When he's injured at Starfleet Academy, her immediate concern is his well-being, even though the Academy's medical staff is top-notch.
  • Sergey and Helena Rozhenko took in an orphaned Klingon child and raised him as their own. Worf may not be blood, but his values and his sense of right and wrong come from them. The bond is so strong that Guinan tells them that when Worf looks for "home", he does not look to the Klingon Empire, but rather to them.
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine:
  • Benjamin Sisko is an excellent father in between running Deep Space Nine and trying to keep his crew together. His relationship with Jake is one of the most consistently heartwarming things on the show. It runs in the family, as Benjamin himself has a very supportive father, one who is also a very good grandfather to Jake.
  • Nog and his father Rom have this type of relationship as well. Rom has very low self-esteem because he has no head for business — a disaster for a Ferengi. Put Nog's happiness or well-being on the line, however, and Rom turns into a Papa Wolf, as Quark learned the hard way upon sabotaging Nog's attempt to pass the Starfleet Academy entrance exam. Despite having been abandoned by his mother for profit, Nog is loyal to his father, proud of him when he finds his feet as a very talented engineer, and completely accepts Leta when she becomes his step-mother.
• Stranger Things has Joyce Byers, while a bit scatter brained and not quite all there at times, is very supportive of her youngest son, Will's, interests which others view as "nerdy" and supports her other son, Jonathan, in his pursuit to attend NYU. She also refuses to give up looking for Will even when it appears all hope is lost and is costing her her sanity.
  • Chief Hopper was this with his daughter as well, before she died of cancer.
  • Mike and Nancy's parents also qualify, with their mother, Karen, telling her children they can always talk to her and takes a vested interest in their lives and issues. Their father, Ted, while somewhat oblivious, is a caring father as well.
• Carrie Martin from The Suite Life of Zack & Cody is a doting mother to her twin boys Zack and Cody. And while he may not be around to see them often due to being a rock star, their father does very much love and care for his sons.
  • Mr. Moseby is a Good Parental Substitute to London Tipton, whose own father is never around, and never gets a chance to become close to her various stepmothers before her father divorces them. More or less lampshaded a couple times. In the episode where London is learning to drive, Mr. Moseby offers to teach her, having mentioned that he helped her take her first steps across the hotel as well as how to ride a bike and how to rollarblade. London herself is aware of this as she comments how Mr. Moseby is in her family album more than her father or any of his wives. He is usually the one to talk her down from a tantrum (if Maddie isn't available), comforts her when she's sad, and when London graduates school, the two share a tearful goodbye and promise to always remain in touch, while London's birth parents are nowhere to be found.
• While most parents in Supernatural are either bad parents or dead or both, a few major exceptions stand out. There is Ellen Harvelle who protects and supports her daughter Jo, Linda Tran, who despite starting out as a typical Asian mother evolves into a Mama Bear, and Lisa Braeden, who is willing to call out Dean to protect her son. There is also Bobby Singer who, while not a conventional father, is still a far better father to the boys than John ever was after Mary's death, even going out of his way to try and give Sam and Dean as many "regular snot-nosed brat"^note read: "normal childhood" moments as he could. It is also revealed that he never had children of his own because he was terrified of becoming abusive like his own father was to him, although he clearly defies that trope when it comes to his treatment of the Winchesters.
• Teen Wolf: Surprisingly for a show of this kind, almost all of the parents who appear or are mentioned onscreen fall into this category. Despite having a Disappeared Dad, Scott's mother clearly loves him and works long hours at the hospital to provide for him; Stiles' father accepts his Genius Ditz son for who he is and often shows pride or affection towards him; and Allison's parents both care for her a great deal. Even Lydia's divorced mother and Jackson's adoptive parents appear to genuinely want the best for their children. The Argents do however lose points on a number of fronts, most notably in the case of Victoria, as Allison would have probably preferred a live werewolf mother to a dead one and of course Gerard, who ordered his daughter-in-law's death, and later revealed his willingness to kill his son and granddaughter as well.
• That '70s Show: Red and Kitty Forman are mostly like this, despite one being a grumpy hardass and the other being more than a little neurotic. Kitty's emotional support has proven essential to allowing Eric to survive being Red's son, and has also led her to provide support for Eric's friends. Red might seem harsh and strict, but dealing with it leads Eric to become a stronger person for it, especially since Red only really punishes Eric when he's actually done something to deserve it. The one time Eric didn't deserve to be punished (when he took the blame for Donna smoking cigarettes) he apologized for not believing him and making him smoke an entire carton. They aren't just this to Eric, but they are also like this to his friends, acting as surrogate parents, especially to Hyde. They're probably the best parents out of anyone in the series.
• Veronica Mars: Averted with most parents on the show, who range from neglectful to downright abusive, but Veronica's father Keith stands out as one of the greatest dads in television, making her a Daddy's Girl. He lets her help him in his P.I. business all she wants is always supportive when she's down, puts his own personal life on hold when he finds a new paramour because she's still not over her mother Lianne abandoning them, and will destroy anyone who even considers hurting his little girl.
• War of the Worlds (2019): Bill, Helen, Sarah, Jonathan and Chloe are all parents seeking to find or protect their children while aliens invade. Sarah in particular is always reluctant to help others, despite her daughter Emily urging it, because she's concerned with Tom and Emily's welfare over all (plus finding their father/her husband Jonathan). Catherine is also a surrogate parent to her sister Sophie because they lost their parents in Sophie's childhood, who's anxious to learn what became of her. Sophie later essentially adopts Theo, an English boy who's lost his parents to the aliens too, and is a loving dedicated mother (she even gives up using drugs for him, despite suffering withdrawal).

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