Basic Trope: A parent disowns his/her child.
- Straight: Alice disowns her son Bob for dishonoring the family.
- Exaggerated:
- Alice not only disowns Bob, but also kills him.
- Bob is disowned by both of his parents, both sets of his grandparents, all of his aunts and uncles, and even his ailing great granduncle who barely even remembers his name.
- Alice disowns all of her children.
- Downplayed:
- When Bob is disowned, he's an adult with a steady job. So while he can take care of himself, she cuts him out and it's still technically disowning.
- While Alice doesn't officially disown Bob, she became more emotionally distant to her son.
- Alice only disowns Bob in the sense that his dishonorable actions have made him separate and/or unrecognizable from the child she had remembered him as.
- Alice was never Bob's actual parent, but harshly shots down his attempts to treat her like a mother figure.
- Justified:
- Alice realizes that disciplining Bob didn't make him a better person, and kicking him out was her last resort.
- Alice is just an Abusive Parent who gets a kick at making Bob miserable, and decides to kick him out after finding out she'll be better off without him.
- Bob is an Enfant Terrible who bullies other children, steals, drinks, does drugs, disobeys, and jaywalks.
- Alice has always been a Resentful Guardian and wanted an excuse to get Bob out of her life.
- Bob did something really terrible, as in Moral Event Horizon level terrible. Alice is so disgusted that she declares This Is Unforgivable! and does not want to be associated with Bob anymore.
- Bob always got away with his actions due to the family name, to the point where his family has to explain he is no longer a respected member of the family so he is unable to wave it around.
- Inverted:
- Bob gets emancipated from his mother.
- Alice declares that the unrelated Bob is her son.
- "You're Not My Mother": Bob disowns Alice after telling her what a horrible excuse of a mother she is.
- Subverted:
- Alice kicks Bob out, but a few months later, she decides to let him back in.
- Alice loudly and angrily declares, "I have no son!" A moment later she starts apologizing profusely, saying she didn't really mean it, and that she loves him.
- Bob comes out to Alice as transgender. Alice stares at Bob, and declares, "I have no son!" and Bob thinks she's disowned for being trans. But then Alice hugs Bob and follows it with a second declaration — "I have a daughter!"
- Charlie tracks down Bob's mother who declares she has no son, literally as Charlie found the wrong woman.
- Double Subverted:
- ...at least until she realizes that Bob has disgraced the family again, and she kicks him out of the house with no indication that she misses him at all.
- ...because her other son, Charlie, walked into the room just in time to hear that, and thought she was talking to him. Bob is still disowned.
- ...but a few years later, Alice actually does disown Bob for an issue unrelated to her being trans.
- Alice isn't Bob's mother, but she has disowned or later does disown her actual son, Jim.
- Parodied:
- Alice disowns Bob at birth for crying.
- Bob is sickened by his family's religious fundamentalism and confesses his loss of faith. "I have no son!" Bob quits the Family Business to follow his dreams. "I have no son!" Belle, overcoming her family's constant disapproval of her actions, comes out of the closet. "I have no s- uh..."
- Bob's friends try to bring him back to his mom Alice. Alice cries "I have no son!", and one of the friends complains that they've come such a long way to the wrong woman.
- Zig-Zagged: Alice kicks Bob out because he's a criminal. And lets him back in. And then everyone thinks she kicks him out again, but this time she was really kicking out Bob's twin (her other son, Charlie) who had been committing crimes and framing his brother for them. But then it turns out she had it wrong, and Bob was actually the criminal all along, and he had framed Charlie, making it look like Charlie had framed him. But Alice decides they're both her sons in the end, regardless of what they have done, and lets them both come home.
- Averted: Alice doesn't disown Bob.
- Enforced:
- "We need to show what an awful mother Alice is. Let's have her disown Bob."
- "We need a dramatic scene between parent and child. We'll have the parent disown the child."
- Lampshaded: "Go ahead and kick me out! I never wanted to be around a pathetic excuse of a parent like you anyways!"
- Invoked: Bob wants his overprotective mom to let him leave home so he can move in with his girlfriend. Bob misbehaves in the hope of being disowned.
- Exploited: Bob's brother Charlie tipped their mother Alice off to something unforgivable Bob may or may not have done so that Alice would disown Bob and disinherit him (so Charlie would get a bigger share).
- Defied: Bob fears his mother may kick him out, and tries to behave better so that she won't.
- Discussed: "Mom, you're not going to, like ... disown me, are you?"
- Conversed: "Why is everyone on TV disowned? Has anyone you know even been disowned in real life?"
- Implied: Bob and Alice fight a lot. In one episode, Bob becomes homeless with no In-Universe explanation. Alice still lives in the same house as before.
- Deconstructed:
- Alice disowning Bob has made her a pariah in the eyes of her friends, other family members, and the rest of society.
- Bob being kicked out of his house has made him an Antagonistic Offspring, seeking revenge on Alice.
- Alice disowns Bob, but when Bob immediately shoots back with "You were never my mother!", Alice flies into a rage and proceeds to chase and beat him for daring to talk back to his own mother. In reality, Alice never really meant to disown Bob; she is a narcissist and a Control Freak who only says this to exert her power over him, and Bob disowning her in return is a massive insult to Alice.
- Reconstructed:
- But she couldn't care less about what they think and continues to enjoy her life without having to deal with Bob.
- Living on his own makes Bob recognize the consequences of his actions and become more responsible. He also finds that he likes living on his own and better than living with Alice. Eventually, he and his mother reconcile and both forgive each other. And then agree that they get along better when they are not living together.
- Played for Laughs: Alice disowns Bob for the most ridiculous reasons in every episode, so much that it becomes her catchphrase. Bob is so used to being disowned for minor incidents that he just shrugs it off, knowing it'll be dropped half an hour later.
- Played for Drama: After being called out by practically everyone, Alice realized what she has done, and searches for her son to apologize. But in the meantime, Bob grew bitter and becomes resentful towards his former mother, and seeks revenge. When the two finally met, the result was a powder keg in dry heat attached to a fuse a fraction of an inch long.
- Played for Horror: Alice disowns Bob, but he plans revenge involving shocking her physically and verbally, disempowering her socially and economically, and finally killing her gruesomely.
Back to I Have No Son!
