I realize I’m seriously late to the MF bandwagaon. I also don’t care. And no, I’m not counting Haley as an adult. (She looks about 12, though I realize Sarah Hyland is in her 20s.)
Poll in a moment or six.
Tricky question. Phil is a good parent in partnership with Claire but on his own he’d be a mess.
I think they’re all good parents. They love their kids, try to do well by them, try to grow (Jay, in particular) and care if they fuck up.
This. All of them seem devoted. I mean, they are flawed human beings, but who isn’t? They are there for their kids.
I voted for all of these.
Jay’s ex, not so much.
They are just interesting because a bunch of perfect people would be boring to watch. For all their “personality” they do right by their kids.
No one is going to look good if cameras are constantly looking to catch them at something.
Yeah, even for accounting for sitcom zaniness she comes off as putting her own interest ahead of everyone else. Not showing up for the wedding, or even wanting to take a few minutes to hear about it on the phone, I don’t know how to put that in a good light.
On the parent scale they’re all pretty good. Now that is. Jay may not have done such a good job during his first marriage, but not that bad that his kids didn’t turn out good enough to be decent parents themselves.
I don’t think we can blame Jay’s ex for not showing up to the wedding. The wedding episode specifically says that she had very recently broken her hip, and we’re clearly meant to think that she couldn’t travel. That’s hardly unreasonable.
As for hearing about it on the phone, we don’t get to see every moment of these characters’ lives.
I think Jay was probably a pretty bad (though not abusively so) parent to Mitchell, but clearly he’s aware of it and works hard to be a good parent to Manny. And Gloria is good too. The specific thing that prompted me to start this thread was the episode (new to me) in which Cam and Mitchell were debating who to name as Lily’s prospective guardians. If not for Rhymer Rule 791-d (Do not talk back to movie screens or TV sets), I’d have been yelling, “How is it not obvious that the correct answer is Gloria’?”
Standard-issue good sitcom parents, I think. Misunderstanding, wackiness, hugging, learning.
Surprising to see Jay in the lead. I think he’s a fine dad now but it doesn’t sound like he was the greatest dad the first time through. Not a bad dad but clearly lagging all the younger generation.
I will say this, I don’t think any of them are GREAT parents. Good parents for sure but there are shortcomings for all of them.
Also, I don’t think I know enough about Mitch as a parent to have a firm grasp on if he’s good or not so if someone who voted for him cares to elaborate - please do.
We can blame her for her behavior at Jay’s wedding. (i.e., “The Incident”)
None of them are great by themselves, but that’s kind of the point. Gloria, Phil and Cam are designed to compensate for Jay, Clare and Mitchell’s shortcomings.
If I had to pick one that was best, I might go for Gloria. Sure, she’s smothering, but she raised Manny by herself for years. I don’t know that any of the other five could do that.
I think that Jay was a good parent during his first marriage. I base this largely on the episode where they go to the amusement park. Everyone makes fun of him at the animatronic president stage show because, when visiting there years ago, he cried when he saw robo-Lincoln. Jay reveals to the camera that the reason he cried was because he realized that he had to stay in an unhappy marriage in order to be with his kids. So he stayed until they were grown.
I still think that Katey Sagal would have been a better actress for his first wife than Shelly long, but that’s a different conversation.
Hardly. Even apart from my hatred of stunt casting, Jay could not be less like Al Bundy.
Jay = Al Bundy
Claire = Kelly
Mitch = Bud (he was overcompensating all those years)
When Al Bundy and Peg finally divorced, Peg moved to Charming, CA and took up with a biker gang rather than return to Wanker County. Al, who always cared more about the family than Peg, moved the family to LA, went from shoes to closets and without Peg holding him back, was insanely successful. Al changed their names to keep the Wanker County crew from showing up at his door; Peg changed hers to evade the law.
That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it!
Mitch & Cam brook a lot more sass from Lily than I would ever allow if I had a daughter, but different strokes and all that.
Phil & Claire allow Alex to put way too much pressure on herself. I’m tempted to say they dropped the ball on Haley, but then again, Haley = Claire at that age. She’s kind of dim, and makes bad choices, but she has a moral compass and she’s plucky.
Easy to vote for Claire, Phill and Jay (though from the way he treated his kids when he was younger, I’d say he’s a better parent 2.0 than he was 1.0).
Gloria was a little harder to vote for, as I don’t like the way she deals with Mannie and I don’t think she’s a great role model in general. But I ended up voting for her anyway.
Cam and Mitch are actively bad parents, but shockingly realistic (in this gay man’s opinion). It’s sad really, but there it is. I’m surprised they have as many votes as they do, but not surprised at all that they are losing to the other 4.
Oh, that’s very true, and Jay knows it. Manny is benefiting from Jay’s bad parenting of Mitchell.
I’m kinda surprised that Phil seems to be winning the poll.
Sounds like you’re giving the only one I’d call a bad parent a free pass. About the only thing in her plus side is going to a poetry reading everyone was trying to get out of.
And if we are judging on things that we haven’t seen then that broken hip excuse came at an awfully convenient time.