[ SECRET POST #2212 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2212 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 063 secrets from Secret Submission Post #316.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

11. http://i.imgur.com/JZtIN.png

[xenomantid]

At least one person sympathizes with you. I feel the same way about that stupid scenario.

[eaten_by_bears]

I am so, so sick of that plotline. And I think it does real world damage. Fiction is so powerful in teaching people how relationships should go. We do need more stories about people getting out of their shitty families of origin and going on to have good lives without welcoming back their abusers, for the sake of the kids that get away and for their friends who think they're helping by telling them to accept their family into their lives again.

[omaera]

I completely agree, OP.

[(Anonymous)]

Totally agree too OP! Sometimes I think you can reconcile, but sometimes - even with parents - you need to cut them out of your life because its for the better. It always pisses me off when this trope comes up, because I do think you need to learn to let go and care for your own mental health sometimes.

[(Anonymous)]

this ridiculous trope is part of why Matilda is one of my fave stories of all time... her family and parents are shitheads, she gets away from them, and is never expected to forgive them or stay with them just "because they're blood". Blood means jack shit. Family is earned, as is forgiveness.

[sootyowl]

I hate that plotline as well OP. Some parents are just shitty parents. I want to see a plotline where someone kicks their shitty parent to the curb, while forgiving them for themselves, so they can heal as a person, but knowing they're better off without them in the long run. /run on sentence done!

[(Anonymous)]

Anything that goes on about how family's the most important thing no matter what and you should forgive them makes me SO fucking angry.

Maybe because I have a shitty family and we all practically hate each other and make each other miserable but I still fucking love them and can't make myself stop. And I know if they weren't my family I'd never want to speak to them but I literally can't stay away. It's like I've been brainwashed or something.

[tabaqui]

YES! For fuck's sake. Sometimes, people don't deserve 'forgiveness', and i don't have a problem with that, at all. It'd be nice to see the reunion *not* work and the kid walk away feeling better and happy they decided to cut them out of their lives.

[(Anonymous)]

Oh god, I'm so with you, op. I just started watching warehouse 13 on netflix recently and I was like 'noooo, not again!' When the parent just magically comes around from one incident and are like 'oh! I've been a dick your entire life, but now I see that light!' and their kid is just 'okay!'

I just... sometimes relationships with parents suck. That's just the way it is. It's unfortunate, but it's real. And even if those one that do eventually get better, it's always over time with an insane amount of fucking work, not just one aha! moment.

I think I hate it most because it seems to promote that idea that you have to forgive/love/etc. your family no matter what because they're your family.

Anyways, glad I'm not the only one who feels this way, OP!

[(Anonymous)]

A long time ago, I really liked this trope because yay, second chances and forgiveness.

Then I grew up and realized that not everyone gets to grow up in a happy little sheltered bubble and that this trope just ignores the truely horrible stuff that goes down in some families. So no. Trope can go die in a corner.

[(Anonymous)]

As a person completely estranged from one parent, who has tried to patch things up several times only to have the exact same abuse shit start again, and have to cut off all communication, I loaaaathe this trope.

[(Anonymous)]

For my part, this trope is one I can understand. My mother had to leave my alcoholic father and that led to some hard times for her, for my brother and for me. We ended up living with my grandparents, and in the last years of his life, my grandfather heaped huge amounts of emotional abuse on my grandmother and mother. That he died before I could talk to him about this and get out my anger, and work it through with him, will always be an enormous regret to me, a hurt that can't be assuaged - and that was more than 40 years ago.

My mother, on the other hand, refused to allow my brother and I to hate my father. She was brutally honest about his failure as a husband and a father; she also was unbelievably understanding about the man she had once loved. That enabled me to reconcile with him before he died, and I am so glad that happened.

I think this trope does, cause real pain and frustration for the people who have had family experiences so bad and so alienating that I cannot begin to understand them. I am so very sorry that this is the case. And for the OP and others to hate to see this trope come up repeatedly is understandable.

Forgiveness and reconciliation, however, are such strong themes in human stories - whether it's within families or between friends, or between communities - that it isn't surprising when writers feel the story can be told and retold.

What I would like to see are more stories where the journey is started, but is a) as difficult as it can be in real life; b) doesn't always work; c) isn't always the right thing to do; and d) is never, EVER, easy.

[katiemariie]

Ugh, same. There's an episode of DS9 where a character forgives his abusive father figure for torturing him in the name of science--after that character realizes torture in the name of science is the only way to raise an alien like him. Like, the character and the father figure bond over electrocuting a baby alien. I could not with that episode.

[(Anonymous)]

Oddly enough, just a couple hours ago I was re-reading one of the subplots in a comic (called Box Office Poison, by Alex Robinson) that does not take the easy route about how two sons each deal with a terrible, incredibly emotionally manipulative parent -- in this case, their father, who pretty much left the family in their early teens. One son, now 23, sees him again for the first time in years and agrees to get a drink with him. Flashbacks over their conversation reveal the last time they saw each other was when the other son cut ties entirely with their dad (interrupting the dad's introduction of his new fiancee and his hopes that they all can "start the healing process" with "Uh... dad? I never want to see you again until your funeral"). The current-day conversation eventually ends with the son drunkly calling out his dad's recurring bullshit and his dad walking out, and the story later mentions that they never see each other again.

The whole subplot of just how messed up the father-sons relationship is also adds another layer to why the son who gets a drink with him is staying in a potentially unhealthy relationship himself. This chapter really stuck with me simply because it wasn't afraid of the un-neatly-tied-up ending or its potential repercussions. Or of how difficult it is to neatly compartmentalize the guy who can be genuinely happy for someone else, genuinely in love, and tell charming stories one moment, and the next indirectly pull for sympathy on how his older sister (who ended up taking care of his kids after he walked away from his terminally-ill wife) treated him poorly all his life, and all the other choices of his that have hurt people.

At any rate, I feel like the trope is watchable enough in a more light or comedic work, but sticks out like a sore thumb in any work that is mainly dramatic.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't know that Warren, from what we've seen in Warehouse 13, would qualify as shitty - to me, at least. Hard time getting emotions across, overly judgmental, sure. But I don't think he's *that* bad - and keep in mind that even in the alternate timeline where they never reconciled, Myka was still hurting because he'd died and willing to break up her entire life to save him.

As to the main point of your secret - it's equally possible the writer is the *child* of a shitty parent, and knows how hard it is, even though you're intellectually aware that this person is an emotional terrorist and a toxic force in your life, to say 'You know what? No. I don't forgive you, and I never want to see you again.'

Personally? No one in my life has ever come close to causing me as much pain as my mother does, on a regular basis. There is no one else for whom I feel more genuine hate.

And I still love her. She's my mom.

[(Anonymous)]

OH MY GOD

Yes this!

I absolutely cannot fucking stand the 'if a parent didn't starve or beat their child/ren to death, then obviously anything they did wasn't really abusive and if the kid doesn't love them, obviously they're a selfish ungrateful brat.'

The last thing I remember pissing me off like that was an episode of Perception, where a gay teenager ran away from home because his father was a homophobic piece of shit and they ended up reconciling at the end, without the father actually changing even the slightest bit. Complete fucking bullshit. Watching the main characters stand around smiling as the son is dragged back into a probably abusive home just made me want to throw up. Worst part is, the writers probably thought they were sending a great message.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm going to offer a slightly dissenting opinion (though I haven't seen this series specifically, but your statement is general, so....).

I think it's such a common trope is because, even in relatively shitty families, there is actually still love, and a lot of ties that bind.

I think the reconciliation between parents and kids is one of those fantasies we like to believe in, like "the one" or "love conquers all".

I also think, that as we grow older, we also realize that our parents a not superhumans and they make very human mistakes. And that doesn't make them bad people, but it makes them flawed. And when you learn to appreciate them as people, not parents, you often see them in a different light.

For example, a lot of my dad's stand-offishness has to do with the fact that he was abandoned by his own parents.

Of course some things (like actual abuse) shouldn't necessarily been forgiven, but I think some things can be. Just because people suddenly became parents, doesn't mean they actually know what the hell they're doing.

[(Anonymous)]

I think it's fascinating how Western/(standard theory of) modern all the responses have been.
Frankly, this trope is probably a holdover from the days before the disintegration of the family unit that we see in the West today.

[feotakahari]

I remember when I researched child abuse for a story. I read an account of how one now-adult patient insisted on meeting his father again--not in the neutral space of a therapist's office, but at a cafe. They talked a long time, first at the cafe, then in a car together, and the patient offered his father his forgiveness.

Then the father tried to grab the patient's crotch, and the patient leapt out of the still-moving car to get away.

[(Anonymous)]

The media does a completely, utterly irresponsible job with this trope, OP, and I'm with you on why, as well. TV and film are notorious for being industries that thrive on a sick sort of insecurity - no one is ever cool enough, everyone is always scrambling, it's jealous and backstabbing and there are hordes of people dying to get a crack at a creative job, so everyone feels replaceable when you get right down to it. And taking time off from your career is considered so very stupid. So even the ones who don't have serious, endemic "this person would not make a good parent" issues are often stressed way past endurance. I can definitely see writers clinging to the idea that hey, absent / jerkass parents were doing the best they could.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if it's a trope pushed by executive meddling, too.

[(Anonymous)]

This is why I love the Sarah Jane Adventures episode 'Mark of the Beserker.' Because even though Clyde made peace with his dad issues, he didn't reconcile and get all happy families with his dad. He basically told him, "Look, you screwed up. You were gone when I needed you. And now I don't need you anymore. Now go home to your new son and try not to screw up with him."

[(Anonymous)]

You sound like a shitty son/daughter who is projecting.

[(Anonymous)]

I agree that the scenario is very overused, and frankly, unrealistic. Not a huge fan of it, personally. But to assume that authors who use this scenario are shitty parents (or even parents at all)? That I don't agree with. When are people going to understand that not all authors project thinly-veiled versions of their own personal life/issues into their writing? There is more to writing fiction than personal experience. It's called an imagination. Some of us have it.