History Main / WhenYouComingHomeDad

* Tiger from ''{{Spinnerette}}'' had a case of this in his flash-back; he often had precious little time with his wife and kids because he was working so many hours as a police officer. In truth it was because he was moonlighting as a superhero. When his family catches him, his kids aren't upset any more, in fact they're completely ecstatic! His wife... [[{{Understatement}} Not so much.]]

* One of the HannaBarbera TV-movies had a LonelyRichKid stow away with YogiBear and gang, who end up getting accused of kidnapping (but of course!). The trope is summed up aptly when the dad confronts them:

* ''IndianaJones'': 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.\\

* ''{{Hook}}''. Peter Pan has grown up into a workaholic businessman, who misses a lot of time with his kids, Jack and Maggie. Hook uses this to get Jack to pull a FaceHeelTurn.

Things had settled down in the YoungIndianaJones series when Indy was in High School, but now the physical distance had been replaced with emotional distance after the death of Mrs. Jones

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.

[[folder: Western Animation ]]

* Both ''{{MOTHER}}'' and ''EarthBound'' have your father in such a situation, contactable only by phone; exaggerated in ''EarthBound'', where in the cast roll in the credits your father ''is'' a phone. ''{{MOTHER 3}}'' sort of does it, [[{{Dissimile}} the same way death is sort of sleeping]].

* John Cheese of {{Cracked.com}} wrote an [[http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-reasons-money-can-buy-happiness/ article ]] angrily blasting this trope, referencing this very TVTropes page specifically.

* ''{{Wakfu}}'': Nox, the main villain, 200 years before the actual show took place. His obsession with his work eventually drove his wife and children away from him. [[spoiler: They died when the home they moved to was destroyed in a massive flood, and only then did Nox realize that his obsession had cost him the best part of his life. The revelation drove him insane, leading him on a 200 year quest to travel back in time to fix his mistakes, over the course of which he annihilated several countries, killed a dragon, and wiped out an entire species.]]

* This is the tragic backstory of [[spoiler:[[BigBad Precia Testarossa]]]] in ''MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaTheMovieFirst''. The sad part is, she did know that this was a problem and tried her best to make time for her daughter, but unlike the other GoodParents in the series who managed to balance their work and family life, she got smacked with the double whammy of a demanding job ''and'' unreasonable higher-ups. [[spoiler:Unsurprisingly, when her daughter died [[FondMemoriesThatCouldHaveBeen before she could make up for lost time]] because [[TheJorEl said higher-ups ignored her expert warnings about her project]], [[LoveMakesYouEvil her mind broke]]]].

* This is the tragic backstory of [[spoiler:[[BigBad Precia Testarossa]]]] in ''MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaTheMovieFirst''. The sad part is, she did know that this was a problem and tried her best to make time for her daughter, but unlike the other GoodParents in the series who managed to balance their work and family life, she got smacked with the double whammy of a demanding job ''and'' unreasonable higher-ups. [[spoiler:Unsurprisingly, when her daughter died before they could make up for lost time because [[TheJorEl said higher-ups ignored her expert warnings about her project]], [[LoveMakesYouEvil her mind broke]]]].

* This is the tragic backstory of [[spoiler:[[BigBad Precia Testarossa]]]] in ''MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaTheMovieFirst''. The sad part is, she did know that this was a problem and tried her best to make time for her daughter, but unlike the other GoodParents in the series who managed to balance their work and family life, she got smacked with the double whammy of a demanding job ''and'' unreasonable higher-ups. [[spoiler:Unsurprisingly, when her daughter died because [[TheJorEl said higher-ups ignored her expert warnings about her project]], [[LoveMakesYouEvil her mind broke]]]].

* This is the tragic backstory of [[spoiler:[[BigBad Precia Testarossa]] in ''MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaTheMovieFirst''. The sad part is, she did know that this was a problem and tried her best to make time for her daughter, but unlike the other GoodParents in the series who managed to balance their work and family life, she got smacked with the double whammy of a demanding job ''and'' unreasonable higher-ups. [[spoiler:Unsurprisingly, when her daughter died because [[TheJorEl said higher-ups ignored her expert warnings about her project]], [[LoveMakeYouEvil her mind broke]]]].

* Pretty much all the [[EarthBound Earthbound/Mother]] games where your father is constantly at the other end of the phone.

* Happens in ''{{Inception}}'', where 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: he was framed for the murder of his wife.]]