Basic Trope: A character who practices a certain profession fails to notice that their family members need assistance in that field.
- Straight: Bob is a therapist specializing in child psychology, but his relationship with his own children is distant and dysfunctional.
- Exaggerated:
- Bob is a doctor, yet does nothing when his own children get fatally ill.
- The White Mage can't heal himself.
- Downplayed: While Bob is shown to struggle when dealing with family problems, he still has a good relationship with all of them.
- Justified:
- Bob is able to recognize and diagnose his patients because he is unrelated to them. It's not so easy with his kids.
- Bob is a veterinarian, and therefore doesn't understand human diseases.
- Bob's children developed issues from Bob treating them like patients instead of his children.
- Bob is a workaholic who spends all his time dealing with everyone else's problems, leaving him with no time to deal with things at home.
- Inverted: Bob is excellent at diagnosing and helping his children - not so much with his patients.
- Subverted: It seems like Bob is going to be set up as an ineffectual father to his children, but that turns out to be a Red Herring of sorts - he's a good, attentive father.
- Double Subverted: ...to one child, at least. The others get a mix of emotionlessness and apathy from him.
- Parodied:
- Bob is a mechanic, yet refuses to fix his own car when it breaks down.
- Bob is literally a cobbler, but everyone else in his family Prefers Going Barefoot, and they all refuse to wear them despite his insistence.
- Zig Zagged: He's a good father some days. Others, he's just not very good at all.
- Averted: He's competent as both a father and therapist.
- Enforced: "Those blue-collar idiots watching at home won't sympathize with this highly-paid therapist unless his home life is in shambles."
- Lampshaded: "My son's in trouble at school? Why didn't I see this coming?"
- Invoked: "Can't talk to you now, son, daddy has to go to work."
- Exploited: School bullies bully the child, knowing that the father won't help.
- Defied: "Huh, you know, if I remember my schooling, some of that could probably be applied to my home life."
- Discussed: "It sickens me that there are people who say they are better psychologists than me, but can't see what's right in front of them."
- Conversed: "Is he blind!? Look at his kids!"
- Deconstructed: Bob's troubling home life takes a huge toll on his ability to relate to others. As a result, he fails as both a therapist and a father.
- Reconstructed: Working with his patients, Bob eventually sees a parallel between them and his troubled family, realizing his children are important too. This prompts him to take them to a family councilor who can help them and himself work through their collective issues.
- Played For Laughs: Bob's a great therapist, but when he applies his skills to his dysfunctional family, Hilarity Ensues (as well as screwball hijinks and wacky antics).
- Played For Drama: Bob Wangsts about how he can help everybody except the people he loves.
- Played For Horror: Bob is unable to help his child even as they start showing obviously problematic behavior, which costs him his life when they grow up into a murderous, resentful adult.
- Implied: Bob's family is not shown, but when he is treating a kid with dysfunctional parents, he makes a weary comment suggesting he might also be a bad dad.
Please go back to The Cobbler's Children Have No Shoes and edit it - my father, despite being a Troper, refuses to do so himself.
