Basic Trope: A mother has no idea how to take care of her baby or child.
- Straight: Alice has just had a baby. She is constantly asking her mother how to take care of it.
- Exaggerated: When she gets home from the hospital, the baby is crying. She tries to appease it with a whole cheeseburger instead of milk.
- Downplayed: Alice is Egg Sitting, and ends up painting the egg she was given.
- Justified:
- Alice was never taught to care for a baby and has no experience with babies or small children.
- Alice is lacking in emotional maturity and/or common sense.
- The child(ren) Alice is dealing with have some issues (certain life stages that are tough to deal with, special needs, colic, coming from a Dysfunction Junction if they're adopted or foster kids, etc.)
- Parenting is very much a learn-as-you-go endeavor.
- Alice's family follows non-traditional gender roles; Alice has always been a Workaholic while her husband is a House Husband.
- Inverted:
- The baby is frustrated because Alice hasn't learned the different types of cries for different needs yet, and the baby can't just tell her "I need food," or "I'm tired" or "I'm bored," or "I'm annoyed" "I need a fresh diaper."
- Alice "just knows" everything there is to know about childcare.
- Gender Inverted:
- Subverted:
- Alice seems to be OK with basic childcare.
- Alice is babysitting, or just starting a career that involves working with kids.
- Double Subverted:
- But then when faced with a more advanced issue (colic, taking care of a special-needs child, the Terrible Twos, the awkward teen years, complaints from teachers about acting out in school, what have you), she is absolutely clueless.
- She's still having trouble; the only difference is that she has an escape hatch.
- Parodied: Alice is Driven to Madness by her baby's crying.
- Zig Zagged: ???
- Averted: Alice doesn't have or take care of any babies, children, or teenagers.
- Enforced:
- Lampshaded: ???
- Invoked: Alice has her first child.
- Exploited: Alice's teacher gives her class an Egg Sitting project to Scare 'Em Straight about the possible consequences of sex.
- Defied: Alice takes parenting classes, and talks to actual parents.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: "Notice how Alice is demonised for every little mistake, while a man would be expected to act like that? And forgiven, no less?"
- Deconstructed:
- Alice's children are taken away, and moved to a foster home.
- Even though it's normal for new parents to be confused, and Alice's mistakes are minor, she beats herself up over each and every one because of the societal pressure to be a perfect mother, and fears for her children's wellbeing. She can't ask for help because she'd get nothing but judgement for not magically knowing everything about motherhood, which stops her from growing as a parent.
- Reconstructed:
- Alice comes to agree with the idea of her children moving to a foster home. She really was a poor parent, and even though it hurts, she chooses to express her love for her children by giving them a chance at a better life.
- Alice reminds herself that her mistakes are minor and that she's learning from them. She takes parenting classes, reads books on raising children, and asks for advice from people who know better than to judge.
- Played For Drama:
- Alice grew up with Abusive Parents and/or Parental Neglect and doesn't want to repeat the cycle with her own children. Unfortunately this leaves her with no idea how to raise her own kids, since she can't use her own parents as an example.
- Alice left almost all parenting duties to her House Husband, who later died suddenly. Not only does she have little experience at being a parent, becoming a Struggling Single Mother constantly on the verge of burnout combined with her fear of also losing her child results in a very uneven parenting style where she's either distant or overbearing depending on her mood, with little predictability. This causes the child to develop all kinds of issues later in life.
Back to Maternally Challenged.
