Follow TV Tropes

Following

Children Raise You

Go To

"If you're a man, you may feel unready or unwilling to have a baby, in which case you're just a party pooper. You should rise to the occasion and improve yourself if necessary."

All the fun of unplanned parenthood, with none of the bother of unprotected premarital sex!

So, you're a single thirtysomething with a few issues. You're a workaholic, or you're immature, irresponsible, or something like that. And suddenly, you're forced to raise a kid. Maybe they're the recently orphaned child of your older, more responsible sibling who passed away tragically. Maybe they're a young cousin sent to live with you while their parents are away for a while. Maybe they're actually a child you had in your young dumb phase that you didn't even know you had. Whatever the reason, they're here and you have to raise them.

Sucks, doesn't it? You have no experience with kids, and between that and whatever your other problems are, you're really not cut out to be a parent at all. So this is absolutely the last thing you need.

Or at least, that's how you feel at first. But actually, the parenthood that has been suddenly thrust upon you is a good thing. Apparently, having a kid to take care of is like therapy and a dating service rolled into one — by the end of the movie (or series, or arc, or what have you), not only will you have learned how to be a good parent (with some hilarious mishaps along the way, most likely) and gotten over all of your issues, you'll have found a love interest too. Now the three of you can be a happy family unit together. Aww.

Frequently used in works starring aging or maturing performers who are seeking to soften their image, to play off of comedic dissonance, or simply because the performer involved wants to do something that is family oriented for a change.

Note: This can, but does not specifically, occur in Soviet Russia.

Promotion to Parent also forces maturity but often with the added toughness of the new "parent" being not much older than the kids and often the "kid" is their younger sibling. Numerous Child Care and Babysitting Stories rely on and invoke this trope, as the most irresponsible and unfit guardian figure can mature and undergo development due to the experience of raising a child.

A common result of Sink or Swim Fatherhood. Compare Babies Make Everything Better. See also Resentful Guardian.


Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Anime and Manga 
  • This is the central premise of Aishiteruze Baby, where Kippei, a lazy high-school playboy is forced to take care of his five-year-old cousin after her mother/his aunt, Miyako, is widowed and almost crosses the Despair Event Horizon, thus leaving Yuzuyu in his care in a moment of mental/emotional stability. The gusto in which he devotes himself to being a good "mother" to Yuzuyu and the speed in which he matures is amazing, as well as quite heartwarming.
  • In Bunny Drop, 30-year-old bachelor Daikichi Kawachi takes in six-year-old Rin (who happens to be his orphaned aunt, but never mind). From time to time as he learns about the mechanics of parenthood, he wonders just who is raising who.
  • In Case Closed, The Alcoholic Private Defective Kogoro Mouri is clearly being looked after by his 17-year-old daughter Ran. However, since he tends to suffer from Aesop Amnesia, his Character Development is inconsistent and he's still rather inebriated, irresponsible, and incompetent.
  • In Dragon Ball Z, Piccolo becomes something more than the reincarnation of his sire's hatred while training Gohan.
    • Also from Z, you could argue that Goku undergoes a significant maturation from the end of Dragonball to the beginning of Z due to the birth of Gohan. We also see him change and grow over time training with his son, most notably in the Cell Saga where he has gone from martial artist to Master in his own right.
  • Downplayed in Happy Yarou Wedding. Taking care of the 5 year old Shouta definitely spurs on Yuuhi's emotional growth, but Todou's influence, both as a lover and a quasi-father figure, plays an equal role.
  • In Frieren: Beyond Journey's End, the titular character is an elf with Immortal Immaturity who's entrusted with her (now literal) old friend's adopted daughter Fern, and goes on a quest with her to learn what it means to be human. As Fern ages over the course of their adventure, they develop a Wacky Parent, Serious Child dynamic with Fern acting as Cloudcuckoolander's Minder to Frieren.
  • Half of the plot of I Want Your Mother To Be With Me!, the other half being Romancing the Widow. Ryo's brother and his wife go overseas for work, leaving their preschool-age daughter Haruka in the care of her grandparents and uncle. Ryo's Character Development is spurred by him becoming a Parental Substitute to Haruka and to Yuzuki's son Asahi, as Yuzuki slowly falls in love with the person he's become.
  • In Little House with an Orange Roof, Shoutarou is given sole custody of his sons when his wife divorces him. He quickly learns how unprepared he is to be a real parent, though he gets better over time.
  • In Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS second sound stage, Fate worries that her adoptive children, Erio and Caro, by insisting that they are fine at the moment, are hiding any true problems that they may have (while they don't want to worry her and wish to become a bit more independent). By the end, when they come to an understanding, Fate reflects on Lindy's advice to let your adoptive children raise you, and thinks that was the case when she was being raised by her and Precia (before the latter went insane).
  • Musuko ga Kawaikute Shikataganai Mazoku no Hahaoya: Taking care of her younger sister Merii and later her infant son Gospel make Lorem a more responsible and caring person after a life spent fighting for territory and supplies. She's still flighty and impulsive, but cares enough about her loved ones to take her mistakes as learning opportunities and appreciate the help she receives.
  • In the Sahara Mizu manga My Girl, when the protagonist's high school girlfriend dies suddenly, he learns that the real reason she cut off contact with him years ago was to hide the fact that she was pregnant with his child. Said child is now five years old and, of course, has to come live with her father — who is a shy pushover with no idea how to be a parent.
  • In Naruto after Tsunade's boyfriend dies, she takes in his niece, Shizune. However, since she spends all her time drinking and gambling, Shizune spends more time looking after her.
    • Naruto in general seems to like this trope. The Third Hokage invokes it by assigning Kakashi three students of his own to teach, in the hopes that becoming a teacher might soften him up a bit and help him re-connect with others. Sadly none work (because he keeps failing them) until he is assigned the titular Naruto, along with Sakura and Sasuke, who are the only Genin to pass his "impossible" test. They pass by demonstrating teamwork, something which none of the other Genin truly did before. The explicit goal of the test is to snatch one of the bells hanging around Kakashi's waist, but in reality it's a test to see if they are capable of working together. Kakashi himself borrowed the test from his late mentor, Minato.
  • Rather the point of Otaku no Musume-san. Kouta is a rather immature otaku until his daughter, of whom he had no prior knowledge, drops into his life. Not only taking care of her, but also trying to earn her love and respect forces him to grow the hell up.
  • Phantom Quest Corp.: Parodied. While Ayaka is Phantom Quest's president, it doesn't take long to see that it's Mamoru's management skills that actually keeps the company afloat. At only 12, he handles all of the administrative duties. Plus, he has to wake Ayaka up each morning, because she keeps getting plastered and oversleeping.
  • In Sakende Yaruze!, Shino goes through this process when the 17 year old son he didn't know he had shows up on his doorstep. He moves past his first love (his son's now-deceased mother), gains some emotional maturity, and ends up with a Love Interest as well. However, unlike the happy family unit scenario mentioned above, his new relationship is what causes his son to then leave him and go back to living with his strict grandmother instead.
  • In SPY×FAMILY, Loid Forger aka Twilight is an emotionless super spy assigned to an infiltration mission where he must adopt a child to get close to his main target. Intially baffled at the thought of raising Anya, he became less cold and has unknowingly developed fondness and concern for her, even being reminded of the reason he became a spy in the first place.
  • The premise of the anime UFO Baby is two teenagers who barely know each other, who have to take care of a small baby they find. Of course, the baby is also an alien, but still...
  • Played with in Witchblade anime: for extra twist, everyone thought that Masane is really Rihoko's mother (even herself, because of Laser-Guided Amnesia). And it's not always clear who's whose custodian. It helps that Rihoko is wise beyond her years and steals the spotlight without even trying.

    Comic Books 
  • In Marvel Comics' Crisis Crossover Inferno (1988), a homeless drifter finds a baby that has been orphaned by the demonic invasion. Despite himself, he begins shedding his drunken bum self-image in an effort to protect the child. By the end of the comic, he's all but unofficially adopted the kid.
  • The furry comic Circles has a case of this, where the son was raised until his mid-teens by his mother, then his aunt and uncles when she was killed in a car wreck. The reason the father didn't get custody earlier was because he's gay. Oh, and living with five other gay men, only one of which he's in a relationship with. So far, the kid's doing all right, as are his "new" parents.
  • Northstar, in one issue of Alpha Flight, 'adopted' a foundling. It died of AIDS by the end of the issue.
  • Huey, Louie and Dewey were supposed to stay with their uncle, Donald Duck, only until their dad returned from the hospital (the triplets themselves are responsible for that, by the way). Neither father nor mother are ever referenced again, though, and they have lived with their Unca Donald since then. Good for him, as they save Don from life-threatening situations in a current basis, showing a superior intelligence and maturity level over him. That's not to say Donald hasn't gained any growth from entering paternity; as hilariously dysfunctional as their relationship may be, he effectively serves as the boys' daddy, raising them with his very low income and sincerely wanting the kids to have the best future possible.
  • Some interpretations of Batman have the point where he takes in Dick Grayson, the first Robin, be a major point of growth and maturation for the Dark Knight.

    Fan Works 
  • If Thems The Rules, Harry learns how to be a father figure and parent to a young Tom Riddle
  • A Different Medius Downplayed with Azurai, who does turn out to be a surprisingly good parent to Buwaro, but is still evil.
  • Played quite realistically in The Second Try, after Asuka and Shinji find out her birth control has failed. Neither of them take it well at first, but once the shock wears off it makes their relationship even stronger, and they go on to be very Good Parents to little Aki.
  • Played with in AfO's Guide To A Peaceful Retirement: a significant portion of professional villain All For One's development into civilian Hisashi Midoriya occurs prior to Izuku's birth, but it's his promise to look after Izuku after Inko's death, and his choice to prioritize Izuku over all other matters in his life, that solidifies Hisashi's decision to end his villainous career. As Izuku grows, caring for Izuku's needs forces Hisashi to socially re-engage with the world outside of villain circles, leading to the development of his Found Family and the broadening of his life experience.
  • The Child of Love: Shinji and Asuka were a pair of introvert, mentally damaged teenagers. They were almost incapable of opening up to each other and getting along well. When Shinji got Asuka pregnant their relationship got worse initially, but since neither of them wanted to screw their daughter in the way their parents screwed them, they forced themselves to get their act together and mature.
  • Child of the Storm has this happen several times, on a more subdued level.
    • Thor becoming a father again/regaining his memories of his life as James Potter forces him to grow up rather rapidly, to the point where he is (for the most part) significantly more mature than the MCU Thor he was derived from, becoming effectively the senior member of the Avengers in more than just chronological age. He is also usually seriously stressed, because Harry has an impossible knack for finding the shortest road between his nose and the worst trouble imaginable.
    • Tony becomes a father at the start of the second book, and is noted to have toned down some - though not by any means all - of his Cloudcuckoolander antics for the sake of looking after his newborn daughter. Even before she is born, he's encouraging the last person on the list to get involved...
    • ... Steve Rogers, who finds out at the end of the first book that he happens to be a father, grandfather, and great-grandfather. He is both astonished and profoundly uncomfortable; firstly, he feels that he left Peggy in the lurch (despite the fact that it was so early that only Doctor Strange could possibly know that Peggy was pregnant and "it takes two to tango"), and secondly, in physical and mental terms, he's not even 30 yet. As a result, he has an initially difficult relationship with Carol, his teenage great-granddaughter, before coming around early in the second book and eventually becoming a full-fledged Parental Substitute.
  • The Confectionary Chronicles sees Gabriel/Loki deal with a variation of this when Hermione Granger swears her servitude to Loki in exchange for justice for her older sister’s suicide. Gabriel soon comes to see Hermione as a kind of daughter, but considering his distant relationship with his own biological children, he ends up asking some of his other children, such as Fenris or Váli, for advice on how to interact with Hermione as they have a better idea of how to talk with children than he does.
  • Ghosts of Evangelion: When Asuka gets pregnant, Shinji and she are very, very frightened because they didn’t want to have children and they did not think they would be good parents due to their crappy childhoods and lingering psychological issues. Still they try to be good parents, and with a bit of help of Misato and Kaji, Ryuko develops into a happy, mentally healthy girl.
  • The Bridge a sentient baby dinosaur that grows up to be third Godzilla, "Junior", imprinted on a young biologist named Azusa Gojo when he hatched. Azusa before becoming a "mother" was a skittish lab assistant. Azusa afterwards? Much more confident and affirm in caring for others, even being brave enough to distract an attacking kaiju herself.
  • Son of the Sannin has this as its main premise, with Jiraiya and Tsunade raising Naruto after Minato and Kushina's death. A couple years of raising the kid and living under the same roof ends up bringing out the best of them, to the point they end up getting married and having children of their own.
  • In Amazing Fantasy, it's implied that Peter's maturity when compared to his similarly downtrodden Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse counterpart is because of his desire to be a good role model to his daughter Mayday and now to his wide-eyed and expectant protégé Izuku.

    Films — Animated 
  • Despicable Me: Gru initially adopts Margo, Edith and Agnes as merely a part of his Evil Plan and intends to abandon them afterwards, but he ultimately bonds with them and pulls a Heel–Face Turn.
  • Ice Age: Manny, Diego, and Sid become a closely-knit group after taking in Roshan, though they don't keep the kid.
  • Brother Bear: Looking after little Koda teaches Kenai an important lesson in responsibility and shows him the true meaning of his totem (love).
  • Storks: Even though it's not their child, Junior and Tulip both benefit from taking care of the baby as they try delivering it. Both of them are finally able to experience being a part of a family, and after they deliver the baby to her family, both are able to find a new purpose in life.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • Angels in the Outfield: Duffy, the irascible manager of a baseball team, learns a lot from Bridget, a girl from the local Catholic orphanage (although the help of some angels, who the little girl can see, was also a factor) and becomes more of a Reasonable Authority Figure as he begins to ease into a fatherly role, eventually marrying and adopting the little girl.
    • Knox in the 1994 remake (who's basically the same as Duffy, also a baseball manager), becomes a better person by surrogate-parenting Roger and JP, two kids in foster care who prayed that the California Angels (Knox's team) will win the pennant, and who keeps Roger around as a good luck charm/consultant for the team.
  • In Baby Boom (1987), the baby was left behind by a very distant, European relative that the protagonist, J.C., hardly even remembered. J.C., a yuppie, initially is focused only on her careers and has no interest in having children, but eventually grows attached to Elizabeth, the baby, forcing her to re-evaluate her priorities, so she decides to become a working parent and to raise Elizabeth herself.
  • Bedknobs and Broomsticks: Three orphaned siblings are reluctantly taken care off by Miss Eglantine Price during the London Blitz, and the kids eventually help her with her witchcraft lessons (it's that kind of movie) and lead her to Mr. Browne, and they are a family by the end of the movie.
  • Big Daddy with Adam Sandler, has Sandler's character saddled with a kid that is literally left at his door; he at first wants nothing to do with the kid, but he and the kid strike up a friendship that eventually becomes so strong that Sonny decides to adopt the boy permanently. This one has a bit of a twist in the way the adult grows up though: Sonny at the start is a lazy, Jerkass unemployed man; Sonny at the end is a mature (if still goofy) lawyer. (He was a Syracuse law graduate who has no plan whatsoever of taking his bar exam, instead living off a fat settlement from getting his foot run over years ago.)
  • Breakfast with Scot: Eric and Sam are already reasonably competent adults (Sam more so than Eric, who admits that Sam has always looked after him), but when they are charged with taking care of Scot, Scot teaches them to be more accepting of themselves.
  • A major theme in i am sam is how Lucy at the age of 7 is starting to outsmart her mentally challenged single father, which may or may not be obstructive to her mental development.
  • Instructions Not Included: The mother leaves her baby with the father and doesn't come back. The man goes to the U.S. to find her but is unsuccessful, but in the process he learns to raise the daughter by himself.
  • Jack & Sarah: Grant gets stuck with his newborn baby alone after his wife suffers Death by Childbirth has to improve himself to take care of her. It also contains possibly one of the cutest things ever committed to film, in which he carries the baby in a jiffy envelope with a sock on her head as a hat...
  • Jumanji: Despite Alan and Sarah having some very understandable emotional scars and stunting from the game, having Judy and Peter around help them to put aside their fears and issues to complete the game, and to protect them from whatever dangers it throws at them.
  • Kolya tells the story of Louka, an ageing confirmed bachelor agreeing to a sham marriage to grant Czech citizenship to a Russian woman and allow her more freedom from Soviet Russia... which she promptly uses to escape to Germany, leaving behind her 5-year old son Kolya. Naturally Louka ends up saddled with him, and must rise to the occasion to take care of him, while Louka improves himself in the process.
  • Life as We Know It: After a disastrous blind date, Eric and Holly would be glad to never see each other again. But their friends — the ones who had set them up — die in a car crash, and had given them joint custody of their toddler, forcing them to put aside their differences and rise to the occasion, improving themselves (and their relationship) in the process.
  • Old Dogs: Dan discovers that his short marriage resulted in twins when his ex-wife dumps them on his doorstep and asks to take care of them while she faces jail time for an environmental protest, and he eventually rises to the occasion and improves yourself in the process.
  • Real Steel: Charlie initially has no interest in Max other than using him to blackmail his sister-in-law's husband out of some quick(though badly-needed) cash. Over the course of the movie he discovers that he actually likes the kid. And when his own screwups come back to haunt both of them, he sends Max back to Debra and Marvin and rejects the second payment out of disgust at his own actions. But after some snuggle time with his girlfriend and a pep talk, he confesses everything to Max and asks him to stand with him in the bout with Zeus. In the end, spending just three months taking care of his son has improved every aspect of him, not only as a fighter but as a human being.
  • Rob-B-Hood: Thongs and Octopus not only have been criminals all their lives, the former is a compulsive gambler with a huge debt while the latter is neglectful towards his pregnant wife. Following a heist in which the ended up taking care the baby of a billionaire tycoon, the two started to see the error of their ways.
  • In A Thousand Clowns, Murray has been raising his nephew for some time, but the arrival of a pair of social workers spurs him to responsibility.

    Literature 
  • About a Boy, both the book and the film (though they do lack the "death" aspect of this trope, the rest fits.)
  • In the last Anne of Green Gables book, Rilla Of Ingleside, Rilla is transformed from a flighty teenager into a responsible, hard-working and inspiring woman as a result of raising a motherless child whose father is off fighting World War I.
  • In Discworld, this seems to have happened to Death, who adopted his daughter, Ysabell, after reaping the souls of her deceased parents. This first-hand interaction with a mortal child (and later Ysabell's daughter, Susan) is presumably a part of why he's developed such a fondness (and attempt to imitate) humanity.
  • In the Circle of Magic novels, Lark and Rosethorn run 'Discipline cottage', named for how its meant to teach children with difficult ambient magic how to discipline their powers. Rosethorn is a Jerk with a Heart of Gold with quite a temper, and seems endlessly frustrated with the hijinks of the kids in her care. Nonetheless, she grows to care for them- especially Briar, who shares her magic with plants note . Later she develops a similar relationship with Briar's apprentice, Evy.
  • Discussed in The Dresden Files; when Harry ends up taking Molly Carpenter as his apprentice in order to save her life, Michael says it will be good for both of them, because being responsible for someone forces you to become a stronger, more patient, more caring person. Unusually for this trope, however, Harry was by no means an irresponsible person before, (being one of the best examples of Chronic Hero Syndrome you could hope for,) he just becomes even stronger with Molly as a Morality Chain of sorts to help him deal with the stresses of his terrible life without snapping.
  • Jessica Darling's sister Bethany starts out as a shallow, self-absorbed, moronic Jerkass. Then she has a baby, and soon develops into... well, still a shallow, self-absorbed, moronic Jerkass, frankly, but noticeably less of one, with frequent signs of at least trying to think about things and care about other people.
  • In Listen to me, girls. I am your father!, the 19-year-old Yuuta ends up raising his three nieces when his sister and her husband disappear while on a trip. His dedicates his life to taking care of the three girls and matures considerably as a person. This specific trope is dropped at least once a volume in the novels.
  • The Novelization of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith expounds on a teacher-student variant.
    "It is a truism of the Jedi Order that a Jedi Knight's education truly begins only when he becomes a Master: that everything important about being a Master is learned from one's student.[...] And Obi-Wan Kenobi knows, too, that to have lived his life without being Master to Anakin Skywalker would have left him a different man. A lesser man."

    Live-Action TV 
  • Kevin Hill - A short-lived series about a swinging bachelor and top notch lawyer, suddenly forced to care for his dead cousin's ten month old daughter, Sarah. The show's core centered around Kevin dealing with being a new parent and lawyer at a new smaller firm. The series had a definite Downer Ending when the show canceled in just one season with Kevin losing the baby to her remarried biological mother in court. The series would have continued after that point but did not gain sufficient ratings to be renewed.
  • Ingrained in the premise of My Two Dads. Thirteen years before the series starts, Joey and Michael had competed for Marcy's affections, ruining their friendship in the process. Upon Marcy's death, there is no way to know which is the father of Nicole -in 1987, DNA paternity tests didn't exist, and blood tests could only tell the court who the father wasn't. The judge solves the problem by awarding Joey and Michael joint custody, with the stipulation the two live together to raise Nicole.
  • Happens to Shane in season 4 of The L Word. Her deadbeat father's run off with another woman, and her junkie stepmother blames Shane and ditches Shane's baby brother on Shane's doorstep. Shane reluctantly takes responsibility, and having to be a stable parent for him is doing her a power of good and forcing her to give up her bad habits, and they're really bonding and becoming close — and then her father shows up and takes him back. * sniff*
  • Also part of the premise of The Bernie Mac Show.
  • Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: "The Begotten", where Odo takes care of an infant changeling. It dies, but in its short time restores his shapeshifting abilities and reconciles him with his father figure.
  • On Gilmore Girls, this is Lorelai's backstory. First she has her daughter, Rory, at the age of sixteen. As she puts it to her mother, "I stopped being a child the minute the strip turned pink." When she decides she doesn't want to raise Rory in her parents' aristocratic world, she gets a job as a maid at an inn and works her way up to manager of the inn while raising her daughter.
  • Daniel seems to be going this way in Doctors
  • The premise of Raising Hope. As an added bonus, not only does the main character grow as a result as having to look after the titular Hope, but his parents do too.
  • In Coupling with Steve, though it's his kid. He's spent the entire series as a card-carrying Manchild, but his newborn son opens his eyes and stares in Steve's, "and I became a completely different person." And then the series instantly ends.
  • In Stranger Things, Hopper underwent a serious change in character after caring for Eleven for a year and eventually becoming her legal adoptive father.
  • The Flash (2014): Cicada/Orlin Dwyer, the Big Bad of season 5, has this as part of his origin. He used to be a obnoxious, short-tempered alcoholic discontent with his life and work. Then his sister and her husband were killed by a metahuman, and he became the legal guardian of their daughter Grace. After a rocky start, and a good Calling the Old Man Out by Grace, Orlin warmed up to her, got his act together, and tried everything he could to be a good parent for her. Then she got hit by falling debris of Devoe's satellite and ended up in a coma from which she might never wake up, prompting Orlin to start his crusade against Metahumans.
  • Discussed in the Friends episode "The One With Rachel's Other Sister." Rachel's ditzy, Spoiled Brat of a sister Amy fantasizes about Ross and Rachel dying so she could get their daughter Emma and live this plot. Needless to say, Ross and Rachel never had any intention of letting Amy raise their daughter, and her joy at imagining their deaths does nothing to change their minds.

    Video Games 
  • An interesting take on the trope is important to the backstory of a major character in Tales of the Abyss. Guy Cecil originally was a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing with Revenge Before Reason for the Fabre family as he's the sole survivor of his family who was slaughtered by Duke Fabre fifteen years ago. But then Luke fon Fabre was kidnapped and, unknown to anyone there, replaced with a replica (they thought he had Identity Amnesia). Guy was assigned to be the main servant to care for Luke and make him "remember" and "recover" from his amnesia. As a replica, this Luke was a baby in a ten year old body. Guy caring for him made him give up on his Revenge by Proxy scheme and his friendship with Luke is now genuine.

    Visual Novels 
  • A heartbreaking example in AIR, where the Hard-Drinking Party Girl mother (actually an aunt) purposely acts irresponsibly and unparentlike because the kid is cursed to become physically ill whenever she loves and is loved in return, whether it be familial, friendship or romantic love, and also because she didn't want to get too attached to her out of fear that her father would one day come to take her away. Haruko only realizes that she was wrong and begins to act like a mother when Misuzu gets sick anyway, from befriending and falling in love with Yukito.

    Webcomics 

    Western Animation 
  • Subverted in Transformers: Animated, where the Autobots don't think twice about taking Sari in. This is probably before they realize that eight-year-olds aren't user friendly.
  • In Time Squad, Larry and Tuddrussel have enough problems working with each other and doing their job, due to a complete lack of knowledge about history... Until they meet Otto Osworth, an orphaned 8-year-old history buff, who they illegally take into the squad (not without hesitation at first). Otto gains a better life, while Larry and Tuddrussel now have someone to keep them from killing each other; their Like an Old Married Couple dynamic also quickly makes them become like a mother and father to Otto, respectively.
  • Jackie Chan Adventures lampshaded this when it had Jackie admit this when Jade's parents complement him on taking care of Jade.
  • Sylvester the Cat in a couple of classic Warner Bros. cartoons would would tell his son it was time to discuss the facts of life, to which Sylvester Jr. would reply "Sure thing, pop. What do you want to know?"
  • Xanatos in Gargoyles is a much more sympathetic character after the birth of his son in "The Gathering" (and the resulting confrontation with Oberon) revealed how much of a Papa Wolf he really was.
  • DuckTales (1987):
    • The original series has a recursive example. Huey, Dewey, and Louie were already transferred to the care of their Uncle Donald before the series started (see above under Comic Books). The series begins with Donald heading off to join the Navy and leaving the boys in the care of his miserly, curmudgeonly Uncle Scrooge. The boys melt the heart of the bitter old duck, and inspire him to be a much kinder and all-around better person for it.
    • In the 2017 reboot, the above example remains, but the triplets weren't the first kids to warm Scrooge's cold heart. Years ago, Scrooge had long since isolated himself from his family between traveling the globe and running his company, then his sister and brother-in-law died and their children, Donald and Della, were placed in his care. Scrooge grew to love the twins as his own, and they eventually became an adventuring trio. Unfortunately, the loss of Della and Donald cutting ties with his uncle because of it broke Scrooge so badly he became a recluse. It took reuniting with Donald and meeting Huey, Dewey and Louie for the old duck to find the drive to adventure and enjoy life again.
  • TaleSpin: Baloo winds up having this happen with both Kit Cloudkicker and Molly Cunningham.
  • The Owl House: Despite her status as the most powerful witch on the Boiling Isles, Eda's personal life was a complete mess at the beginning of the series. She was estranged from her entire family, her love life is implied to have been nothing but a long string of short-lived messy relationships for the past several decades, and she was forced to scrape by selling human garbage. Taking care of Luz gave her the stability that she needed to start getting her life back on track, with her even admitting in the penultimate episode of season 1 how she had been wasting her potential beforehand.

    Real Life 
  • This happens a lot with rock stars and their children. One notable example would be Marlon Richards, son of Keith Richards.


Top