Basic Trope: Questionable or immoral actions are justified using concern for someone's wellbeing as the basis.
- Straight: Out of concern for her daughter, Karen's mother lies to her about her boyfriend, Kyle, "ditching" her for another girl.
- Exaggerated: Karen's mother has Kyle "disappeared", passing it off as him skipping town. She tells her distraught daughter that "he wasn't good enough for you anyway."
- Downplayed: Kyle and Karen's mother are on unfriendly terms, and while she tolerates his presence, she connives at every turn to find an opportunity to get him out of her life.
- Justified: Kyle is less than ideal, and Karen won't listen to reason. Karen's mother doesn't want her daughter to go down a bad road, and if desperate measures are needed to fix the problem, so be it.
- Karen's mother believes "tough love" will help her daughter be a better person.
- A string of bad relationships in her youth have left Karen's mother with a skewed view of dating and a desire to protect her daughter from similar heartbreak.
- Inverted: After an honest heart-to-heart regarding dating, Karen's mother decides to let her daughter make her own choices in that arena.
- Subverted: Karen's mother almost has Kyle arrested on trumped-up charges, but reneges after realizing she's gone too far.
- Parodied: Karen notes her mother's meddling always seems to come into play whenever the outcome is advantageous for her.
- Zig Zagged: Karen's mother is okay with her dating, until a serious incident with Kyle turns her by degrees into a more guarded and paranoid parent. Eventually, she cuts off Karen's contact with members of the opposite sex by sending her to an all-girls school, claiming that it's necessary for her safety.
- Averted: Karen's mother stays out of her daughter's love life.
- Enforced: Karen's mother has a domineering personality, complete with boundary and selective perception issues, making clashes with her daughter inevitable.
- Lampshaded: Even while admitting what she's doing is wrong, Karen's mother is adamant that it's the right thing to do.
- Invoked: Karen has made some dicey choices in the past, which are construed by her mother to serve as justification for her intervention.
- Exploited: Karen is aware that Kyle is bad news, but is too afraid to confront him herself. Using her mother as a proxy, she can distance herself from him while acting as if her hands have been tied.
- Defied: Karen politely asks her mother to mind her own business, and when her mother forbids her to date who she likes she brushes it off.
- Discussed: Karen's mother and father privately try to work through why she feels the need to do what she's doing.
- Conversed: Karen's mother jokingly warns her daughter of the consequences if she strays from the straight and narrow.
- Implied: Karen's mother considers her daughter's rights to privacy and her own opinion as "indulgences" to be managed at her leisure.
- Deconstructed: When Karen finds out what her mother has done, she feels infantilized and betrayed. Their relationship collapses.
- Reconstructed: As Karen grows older, she recognizes her mother was at a loss for how to handle the situation, and forgives her.
- Played For Laughs: Karen's mother brushes off her daughter's accusations of meddling, claiming that even if she's wrong, the experience will be good for her.
- Played For Drama: Karen's mother comes to the slow realization that her paternalism is a cloak for her own selfishness, and that she's unwilling to let her daughter grow up because it would mean relinquishing control. By the time she figures this out, it's too late to stop her involvement, and things escalate from there.
"I'm making you go back to the main page through the header. You'll thank me one day."
