History Main / DaddyHadAGoodReasonForAbandoningYou

* {{Discussed}} in ''WesternAnimation/MeetTheRobinsons'' -- when former DoorstopBaby [[ChildProdigy Lewis]] is rejected by 100+ adoptive parents, he bitterly complains that even his birth mother didn't want him. [[ParentalSubstitute Mildred]] is quick to point out that that might not be true; she probably did want him but couldn't raise him for some reason. [[GoneHorriblyRight Unfortunately]], this just makes Lewis obsessed with tracking his birth mother down, since he's now convinced that she's the ''only'' one who ever wanted him. [[spoiler:Ultimately, while Louis eventually [[TimeTravel time-travels]] back to see his mother, his experiences have helped him move past his abandonment issues, and he decides he doesn't need to meet her or find out why she left.]]

** Lampshaded in the case of Elan and his father General Tarquin, Tarquin and Elan and Nale's mother divorced when they babies due to irreconcilable personality differences due to thier mother being a chaotic good tavern waitress while their father is a lawful evil warlord. When they meet, both Elan and Tarquin agree that the drama of meeting like this was completely worth the trauma Elan suffered as a child without a father figure in his life.

** Dick Grayson alias ComicBook/{{Nightwing}} [[CallingTheOldManOut called him out on this]] in one issue of ''ComicBook/{{Outsiders|2003}}'' after discovering that Bruce has been secretly funding the team through a subsidiary of Wayne Industries.

* In ''ComicBook/{{PS238}},'' [[spoiler:Atlas]] winds up leaving behind his son so that he can try to fix the dystopian empire that he's [[HiddenBackupPrince suddenly the heir to]].
* In ''ComicBook/SpiderGirl,'' [[ShockAndAwe Electro]] had a daughter who inherited his powers, but through some quirk, the two couldn't touch each other without causing excruciating pain; because of that and his life of crime, the mom asked him not to be involved in her life. Years later she becomes a supervillain herself, and Electro gets Spider-Girl's help to both fix the problem with their powers and [[EvilParentsWantGoodKids stop her from making his mistakes]].

* ''Franchise/{{Batman}}'':

** Dick Grayson alias Comicbook/{{Nightwing}} [[CallingTheOldManOut called him out on this]] in one issue of ''ComicBook/{{Outsiders|2003}}'' after discovering that Bruce has been secretly funding the team through a subsidiary of Wayne Industries.
* ''Franchise/GreenLantern'': Sinestro left his family to spare them from being associated with an intergalactic criminal. His daughter Soranik Natu eventually learns about their relationship and his reasoning, but it does nothing to lessen her hatred for him.

* In ''Comicbook/{{PS238}},'' [[spoiler:Atlas]] winds up leaving behind his son so that he can try to fix the dystopian empire that he's [[HiddenBackupPrince suddenly the heir to]].
* In ''Comicbook/SpiderGirl,'' [[ShockAndAwe Electro]] had a daughter who inherited his powers, but through some quirk, the two couldn't touch each other without causing excruciating pain; because of that and his life of crime, the mom asked him not to be involved in her life. Years later she becomes a supervillain herself, and Electro gets Spider-Girl's help to both fix the problem with their powers and [[EvilParentsWantGoodKids stop her from making his mistakes]].
* ''Franchise/{{Superman}}'': As reasons go, Jor-El and Lara and ComicBook/{{Supergirl}}'s parents Zor-El and Alura had a pretty damn good one: the planet was about to blow up, and the only rocket they had was just large enough to safely carry their infant child to Earth.

* ''ComicBook/UltimateFantasticFour:'' Sue and Johnny's mom disappeared to research Lemuria, insisting this was a perfectly good reason for walking out on her husband and children. Sue doesn't agree.
* ''ComicBook/UltimateSpiderMan:'' [[spoiler:It looks like there's a case of this going on when Richard Parker reappears, claiming he survived the plane crash that rendered Pete an orphan, but was approached by government agents and forced to play dead for the next decade... except he's not really Richard at all, he's a clone with fake memories. Richard Parker is definitely dead, and the clone follows suit soon afterward.]]
* In ''{{ComicBook/Violine}}'', Violine's father left her with Marushka to go search for [[spoiler: her real mother]] in Zongo, so she could be safe.

* In ''ComicBook/{{WITCH}}'', [[spoiler:Taranee]]'s birth parents were financially ruined when [[ItMakesSenseInContext a magical meteor destroyed their house in the process of saving her from evil magical plants]], so they gave her up for adoption as a toddler.
* ''Franchise/XMen'':
** ComicBook/{{Cyclops}}'s father Corsair has a real interesting story. While the Summers family was riding in their private plane, they accidentally came across an alien spaceship belonging to the Shi'ar Empire that was exploring Earth. The aliens fired upon the plane because they didn't want [[LeaveNoWitnesses any witnesses]]. When their plane was set ablaze from the attacks, the parents strapped their only remaining parachute to their kids and pushed them out of the plane to hopefully get to safety, only to see the parachute catch on fire. Corsair and his wife were beamed up by the aliens and taken to the imperial throneworld, the former was imprisoned while the latter was forced into the Emperor's RoyalHarem. Corsair's wife would soon be murdered by the Emperor [[EvilIsPetty to spite Corsair]], and having no idea that his sons were alive, Corsair became a [[ComicBook/{{Starjammers}} space pirate]] to fight against the Shi'ar Empire. Of course, once Corsair ran into Cyclops some fifteen-odd years later, it ''would'' have been better for him to admit his identity instead of getting [[ComicBook/JeanGrey Cyclops' psychic girlfriend]] to cover for him only for Cyclops to find out mere months later.
** Cyclops himself later tells his father during a particularly vicious row that his example is why he was afraid of being a father. He was also eventually forced to abandon his baby son Nathan in a dystopian future in order to save his life, where he grows up to be ComicBook/{{Cable}}. This is a slightly more complicated example than most, since Scott and Jean did manage to raise Cable at least to adolescence as 'Slym' and 'Redd', in clones of their bodies via Mother Askani, a.k.a. a future ComicBook/RachelSummers pulling her classic mental time travel trick.

** Dick Grayson alias Comicbook/{{Nightwing}} [[CallingTheOldManOut called him out on this]] in one issue of ''[[ComicBook/BatmanAndTheOutsiders The Outsiders]]'' after discovering that Bruce has been secretly funding the team through a subsidiary of Wayne Industries.

* In ''VisualNovel/{{Ever17}}'', [[spoiler:Tsugumi]] had a good reason for abandoning her son and daughter: if she didn't, they'd be captured and researched upon in the hopes of finding a way to immortality, or at the very least would never be able to attend school or have friends due to constantly being on the run. It didn't really work out, but they ''did'' get more normal lives out of it. Oddly enough, she's the only one who really has a problem over it. The kids don't care in the slightest.
** Their father also had a good reason, namely [[spoiler:doing a HeroicSacrifice to save their mother and spending several years [[HumanPopsicle in cryostasis]] after that.]]

* Inverted in ''Theatre/{{Annie}}'': [[{{Pollyanna}} optimist heroine]] Annie assumes that her parents abandoned her for a very good reason and they will one day be reunited, even if it has been ten years. [[spoiler:Unfortunately, it turns out her parents did indeed die, and whether they ever intended to come back for her isn't clear]].

ParentalAbandonment, by its nature, usually excludes the parent from having much of a role in a character's story. If the backstory involves a child wallowing in {{angst}} because of having no parents, to bring them back and treat everything as being hunky-dory sort of dilutes the origin story's dramatic impact.

** ComicBook/{{Cyclops}}'s father Corsair has a real interesting story. While the Summers family was riding in their private plane, they accidentally came across an alien spaceship belonging to the Shi'ar Empire that was exploring Earth. The aliens fired upon the plane because they didn't want [[LeaveNoWitnesses any witnesses]]. When their plane was set ablaze from the attacks, the parents strapped their only remaining parachute to their kids and pushed them out of the plane to hopefully get to safety, only to see the parachute catch on fire. Corsair and his wife were beamed up by the aliens and taken to the imperial throneworld, the former was imprisoned while the latter was forced into the Emperor's RoyalHarem. Corsair's wife would soon be murdered by the Emperor [[EvilIsPetty to spite Corsair]], and having no idea that his sons were alive, Corsair became a space pirate to fight against the Shi'ar Empire. Of course, once Corsair ran into Cyclops some fifteen-odd years later, it ''would'' have been better for him to admit his identity instead of getting [[ComicBook/JeanGrey Cyclops' psychic girlfriend]] to cover for him only for Cyclops to find out mere months later.

* Inverted in ''Theatre/{{Annie}}'': [[{{Pollyanna}} optimist heroine]] Annie assumes that her parents abandoned her for a very good reason and they will one day be reunited. [[spoiler:Unfortunately, it turns out she is really an orphan but the woman who runs the orphanage, Miss Hannigan, never told her, which enables the baddies to pull a con job]].
** In the movie version of the musical, her parents did intend to return for her, but [[spoiler:they were killed in a fire before they could, and, again, Miss Hannigan keeps the information from her -- as well as all of her parents' possessions, which should have gone to her]].

Frequently the reason turns out to be Mom never informed Dad of their baby's existence for reasons that can range from not being sure ''which'' partner was the father (a ''Series/MyTwoDads'' scenario), or a desire to raise an infant all by herself, a 'kindness' of the 'a baby will ruin his life' scenario.

* ''Film/SonOfBigfoot'': Dr. Harrison had gone into hiding due to Eastman wanting to experiment on his DNA. That's why he was forced to leave his son.

* In ''Webcomic/{{Drowtales}}'', Ariel comes to see her mother [[TheWomanWearingTheQueenlyMask Quain'tana]] as this. She is quite aloof towards her children, leaving them for months or even years at a time at boarding schools or under the care of a slave or older sibling. Quil'yate explains to Ariel that this is not because the drow are evil, but because the clan believes that it is best for young nobles to learn to prove themselves, so that they can be strong leaders. This however [[UnreliableNarrator should be taken with a grain of salt]], since it also turns out that [[spoiler: Quain isn't really Ariel's mother, but rather her grandmother; Ariel is the daughter of her 'crazy sister' Mel'arnach, and Zhor, an elf magically turned into a spider; Quain forced the unlikely couple to give up Ariel (including an apparent attempt to kill Zhor while they were at it), thinking the two could not provide a proper environment for a future clan matriarch and wanting to take the credit for herself. Quain is also unable to have children, and it's strongly implied that the desire to have a [[HeirClubForMen suitable heir]] is part of her motivation as well.]]

** Obi-Wan's infamous JediTruth, leading to [[LukeIAmYourFather the big reveal]]. But [[DisappearedDad Anakin]] had no choice but to "abandon" [[SeparatedAtBirth Luke and Leia]], because ''[[MuggleFosterParents he didn't even know that they were still alive]]''! As soon as he learned otherwise, [[WeCanRuleTogether he planned a nice family bonding experience so that they could get to know each other]]. And of course, Anakin didn't even know Padmé had twins, so he was surprised to learn that Luke had a twin sister — a sister who was rather acquainted with Vader, and whom Vader even had interrogated with enhanced tactics in Film/ANewHope.

* ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'': The Primarchs all suffered some degree of ParentalAbandonment, leading half of the survivors (two became erased from history before the great betrayal) to become the daemon primarchs. In this instance, the Emperor didn't really have a choice whether or not to abandon them, given that they were scattered across space as infants when the laboratory was breached by the Warp. However, it's later revealed the Emperor never thought of them as his sons in the first place, only as tools to be used in his conquest of the galaxy. Roboute Guilliman suffers a minor HeroicBSOD over this, but comes out resolved to fix the imperium as best he can. It's also questionable as to whether he really only saw them as tools (at least the ones he by all accounts genuinely liked) as
Guilliman only hears the Emperor say this while the latter is suffering ten thousands years and counting of AndIMustScream while on the Golden Throne, so it may just have been what Guilliman needed to hear to get out of his justifiable funk and get to work.

* ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'': The Primarchs all suffered some degree of ParentalAbandonment, leading half of the survivors (two became erased from history before the great betrayal) to become the daemon primarchs. In this instance, the Emperor didn't really have a choice whether or not to abandon them, given that they were scattered across space as infants when the laboratory was breached by the Warp. However, it's later revealed the Emperor never thought of them as his sons in the first place, only as tools to be used in his conquest of the galaxy. Roboute Guilliman suffers a minor HeroicBSOD over this, but comes out resolved to fix the imperium as best he can. It's also questionable as to whether he really only saw them as tools (at least the ones he by all accounts genuinely liked) as the Guilliman only hears the Emperor say this while the latter is suffering ten thousands years and counting of AndIMustScream while on the Golden Throne, so it may just have been when Guilliman needed to hear to get out of his justifiable funk and get to work.

* ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'': The Primarchs all suffered some degree of ParentalAbandonment, leading half of them to become the daemon primarchs. However, it's later revealed the Emperor never thought of them as his sons in the first place, only as tools to be used in his conquest of the galaxy. Roboute Guilliman suffers a minor HeroicBSOD over this, but comes out resolved to fix the imperium as best he can.