History Main / WhenYouComingHomeDad

* ''VideoGame/RiseOfTheThirdPower'': Rashim is often out of his house because of his military duties. His husband, Maliq, and their kids are understandably upset that he doesn't spend enough time with them. though he promises to retire soon.

* In ''Anime/SonicX'' both of Chris Thorndyke's parents have this problem, leaving him to depend on the company of an eccentric grandfather, and later a blue hedgehog and his friends. Subverted somewhat in that they both obviously care deeply about him, as shown by his father immediately calling him in concern after hearing from his mother that he went near the [[AdultFear pool at night.]]

* Both ''VideoGame/{{MOTHER|1}}'' and ''VideoGame/EarthBound'' have the protagonist's father in such a situation, contactable only by phone; exaggerated in ''VideoGame/EarthBound'', where in the cast roll in the credits your father ''is'' a phone. ''VideoGame/{{MOTHER 3}}'' also does it, in a different way: for much of the game, Lucas' father spends most of his time up in the mountains searching for his other son that had gone missing, leaving Lucas home alone.

Subtrope of ParentalNeglect. While not quite AlwaysMale, has a strong tendency to be about Dad rather than Mom. Not really ParentalAbandonment because the parents are there, and not HandsOffParenting either because they usually aren't hippies. This trope is the most usual portrait of ParentsAsPeople, and usually part of the backstory of a LonelyRichKid. Overlaps with PulledFromYourDayOff if they try to make time but work interferes anyway and DisneylandDad if they try to make up for being absent by buying expensive gifts and paying for expensive outings.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheAdventuresOfJimmyNeutronBoyGenius'': Jimmy Neutron once travels back in time and persuads his father to invest in the show's [=McDonald's=] {{Expy}}. When he gets back to his own time, his parents are millionaires, but they can't even bother to give him the time of day, so he goes back to the past to change things back to normal.

** Sakura's father Fujitaka is a milder example, as he's an archeologist and uni professor with a very heavy schedule.

* ''Series/TheFreshPrinceOfBelAir'': in "[[Recap/TheFreshPrinceOfBelAirS4E24PapasGotABrandNewExcuse Papa's Goit A Brand New Excuse]]", it is revealed that Will always asked his mother when his deadbet father, Lou, would come home during the most important moments in his life, and his mother always told him he would never come back. At the end of the episode, Will finally realizes why: He's just a cowardly piece of shit who would rather run away than being his father. So, in Will's eyes, his real father is his Uncle Phil.

* ''ComicBook/ScoobyDooTeamUp'': [[spoiler: In "Future Shocked", [[WesternAnimation/TheJetsons Elroy Jetson]] is revealed to be the one behind the Space Age Specter. He did it because Mr. Spacely kept Elroy's Dad busy with Project X]].
* In the ''ComicBook/SpiderMan'' comic that first revealed that ComicBook/NormanOsborn was the Green Goblin, we see Norman being this to his son Harry in a flashback. We even see him bringing Harry an expensive present and trying to tell himself that this surely makes up for never having time for him. No Norman, it doesn't.

** In ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'', you get the opportunity to prevent this trope from happening to Liara [[spoiler:by convincing her to talk to her "dad" - the bartender Aethyta.]]

* In ''WesternAnimation/YoungJustice Outsiders'', Victor Stone's father, Silas, spends all his time working in his lab for the Justice League, missing pretty much everything in Victor's life. After Silas misses yet another football game Victor was playing in, Victor storms into his father's lab and accidentally triggers an explosion due to [[NoOSHACompliance the carelessly laid power cables]]. The resulting blast [[BodyHorror horrifically injures]] Victor and Silas makes the reckless decision to use a Fatherbox on his son in order to save his life. Dealing with this UnwillingRoboticisation and the ensuing attempts by Fatherbox to [[CyberneticsEatYourSoul turn him into nothing more than a vicious killing machine]] forms most of his arc for the season.

* ''Fanfic/AbraxasHrodvitnon'': Although the [[Characters/Abraxashrodvitnon AbraxasVerse version of Ren Serizawa]] hasn't taken it [[FreudianExcuse nearly as badly]] as the ''Godzilla vs. Kong'' incarnation of the character, it's still implied that he received this treatment from Dr. Serizawa when the latter was alive, as he made time to visit Ren rarely.

* Very common question in ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'' flashbacks, as John would leave his young sons by themselves in seedy hotels for weeks on end while he hunted monsters. Also very popular in fan fiction, as canon establishes that Sam doesn't find out the truth about what John does until he's ten and thought his father was a traveling salesman.

* An underlying theme early in ''Film/The6thDay'' is that if you work late with the excuse of getting your daughter an expensive doll to make up for it, [[SpaceWhaleAesop a clone will go home on time and steal your life]].
* Creator/MichellePfeiffer's character in ''Film/IAmSam''. She and her husband are overworked and share little time with their son who has become estranged.

* The Taiwanese war movie ''Film/AHomeTooFar'' portrays this trope in a depressing way. The protagonist, Sergeant Deng Ke-pao, is constantly away from his wife and children due to the war, and both his kids would express how much they missed him through letters for their father. Sergeant Deng does eventually come back... to find out the news of his son's death, from falling and breaking his neck after climbing to the top of a tree hoping to catch an early glimpse of the father's return.

* In ''Film/ADivasChristmasCarol'', Bob Crachit is the manager for famed singer Ebony Scrooge. On Christmas Eve, he's working for Ebony in New York, while his wife and ill son Tim are waiting for him in Cincinnati. Tim is understanding, but Bob's wife, Kelly, is pissed off. She all but says that she's poised to divorce him. [[spoiler: After Ebony is redeemed, she helps to set things right.]]

* In ''Film/HellraiserInferno'', Detective Joseph Thorne does seem to love his daughter if not his wife anymore, but he ignores both of them by claiming he's working a case when in fact he's visiting hookers. At one point his daughter cries out that she just wants him to come home as he leaves to hunt the killer. [[spoiler:It's Joseph's absence that leads the Engineer to murder his wife and child with no one there to protect them.]]
* ''Film/TheHuggaBunch'' has Bridget, whose only source of affection is her grandma, with her brother and parents not paying her any attention or love.
* ''Franchise/IndianaJones''
** ''Film/IndianaJonesAndTheLastCrusade''. A major source of friction between the Joneses Sr. and Jr. is that Sr. wasn't around much when Indy was a kid. The young Indy was frequently neglected as a child because his father was always off hunting relics. This also let a bad guy get away with a valuable relic that he was going to sell on the black market because [[NotNowKiddo he was too busy translating something to look at him]]. Bright side is that he reclaimed it years later.\\\
Things had settled down in the ''Series/TheYoungIndianaJonesChronicles'' series when Indy was in High School, but now the physical distance had been replaced with emotional distance after the death of Mrs. Jones.
* This is one of the primary themes in ''Film/{{Ink}}''.
* Both parents from ''Film/MaryPoppins'' are period-piece examples of this trope, although in the mother's case it's her political crusades, not a job, that take up too much of her time (she's a suffragette). Moreover, in both cases, it seems as if it's not that their jobs are particularly time-consuming so much as they're mildly disinterested in the children and willing to palm their parental responsibilities off on someone else. Then again, this was completely normal for a well-off family in the Edwardian Era.
** The kids get an aesop on the subject as well; just because their parents aren't around as much as they'd like doesn't mean they don't love them. They also learn that being a grown-up and providing for a family is very hard, and you shouldn't be too hard in judging them.
* Happens in ''Film/{{Inception}}'', where Dominic Cobb's young son asks his father when he would be coming home. Cobb audibly sighs and later the audience finds out that he can't return to America because [[spoiler:his wife set up her suicide to look like he murdered her. (She believed that she was in a dream world, and wanted Cobb to "die" with her to "wake up."]]
* Johnny in ''Film/LittleGiants'' wants nothing more than to spend time with his father, who is always away on business. When the father makes it to the football game, Johnny plows through the opposing team and scores a touchdown as a mere side benefit of getting to his dad.
* In ''Film/{{Mental}}'', the girls and Shirley wish that Barry were home more often, as he often stays away for days [[spoiler:with his mistresses]].
* In ''Film/{{Parenthood}}'', Gil struggles to balance his home life and career to be able to spend time with his kids and still keep a roof over their heads.
* This is something Creator/TomHanks' character does in ''Film/RoadToPerdition''. It turns out that his reasoning for keeping distant is because he doesn't want his sons (especially Michael Jr.) to follow the same road as him and become a hitman for the mob.

* ''Series/TheFreshPrinceOfBel-Air'': in "[[Recap/TheFreshPrinceOfBelAirS4E24PapasGotABrandNewExcuse Papa's Goit A Brand New Excuse]]", it is revealed that Will always asked his mother when his deadbet father, Lou, would come home during the most important moments in his life, and his mother always told him he would never come back. At the end of the episode, Will finally realizes why: He's just a cowardly piece of shit who would rather run away than being his father. So, in Will's eyes, his real father is his Uncle Phil.

* In the TV-movie ''The Christmas Shoes'', Rob Lowe plays a lawyer who spends too much time away from his family, but learns his lesson because of the aforementioned shoes (it makes more sense if you know the song on which the TV-movie is based).

* In the 2016 Starlight event in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'', a young and sick boy wants only one gift and that is to see his father. Because the boy's father is a merchant, he spends a lot of time away from the city and has little to no time to rest. Seeing that his father will never show up, the boy's illness grows worse because he gave up hope. You then confront the boy's father before he sets sail to another land and it turns out that he was away for so long in order to find a cure for his son and he just found it, but it requires him to go overseas in order to negotiate a deal for the medicine. In the end, the father can't return home, but the boy bounces back with confidence once he hears the truth and vows to stay strong until his father returns.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyLegendII'' opens with a scene where your father is last seen leaving through your bedroom window. Throughout the game, the two of you bond through brief encounters as you try to convince him to stop working so damn hard.

* Naruto in ''Demon in the Hyuga Clan'' goes through this for years (turning him into a rather soft-spoken, stoic yet well-adjusted kid) but due to being a master of AngstWhatAngst his parents (Minato and Kushina are alive and well) don't realise he's miserable. Hinata calls them out on it (Naruto confides in her) saying they're making him feel unwanted. When they answer that he (Naruto) would've told them she basically asks: [[ArmorPiercingQuestion "How can he when YOU'RE NEVER HOME?"]] Cue StunnedSilence.

* ''FanFic/PerfectCompanions'': Applejack's parents had to travel to help the other Apple Families get their farms started up, and as a result weren't there that often, even missing her birthday several times. They finally made it to give her Winona to help keep her company while they were gone. [[spoiler: Sadly they died in an accident shortly thereafter.]]

* Played with in ''WesternAnimation/{{Coraline}}''. Upset with lack of attention from her workaholic parents, Coraline is ensnared into the seductive world of the Other Mother where Coraline gets everything she wants and her parents exist only to please her. [[spoiler: It's later revealed to be a {{honey trap}}, as the Other Mother is actually a creature that feeds on children's souls.]] It is implied, however, that her parents at the start of the movie are close to an important deadline and are not workaholics. They've also just moved into a new house, which partly explains Coraline's resentment; she's also upset that her parents had her leave behind her old friends and home.

* The song "Wasted" by Cartel has a variety of fairly depressing moments in it throughout the course of a person's life, including this one.
-->He's seven years old, got his bat in his hand
-->He's looking for his father and he doesn't understand
-->'Cause Dad's too busy, got some deals on the way