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No one ever said being a parent was easy, but these parents aren’t even trying. OK, in some cases, that isn’t fair – circumstances of the day probably dictated the actions of certain parents, like Jack Nicholson’s mom. I’ve got nine bad parents – who do you think the #10 bad mom or dad should be? I almost added Joan Crawford but decided that since she was the bad parent, it didn’t count. Leave your suggestions in the comments!
1. When the movie Anatomy of a Murder came out, Jimmy Stewart’s dad was so upset by the content that he took an ad out in the newspaper imploring people to avoid his son’s filthy movie.
2. Mickey Hart, the drummer for the Grateful Dead, got his dad hired on as the band’s manager when the band was just starting out. The problem? Lenny Hart stole thousands of dollars from the then-struggling group. There was no love lost after he was fired: “He was an absolute rotten human being,” Mickey said when his father died.
3. Stephen King’s dad pulled the cliché “I’m going for cigarettes” move when Stephen was two and never came back.
4. Cary Grant’s dad told him his mother was dead when she really wasn’t. Well, Grant was told that his mother was on a “long holiday” and was never given any other explanation; he assumed she was dead. After their first child died, Elise Leach couldn’t overcome her depression, so her husband had her institutionalized when Cary was nine: she was at home when he went to school and was missing when he came home the same day. It wasn’t until Cary was in his 30s that he discovered that his mother was still around and living in an asylum (“The Country Home for Mental Defectives”).
5. Balzac’s parents really didn’t have much to do with him until he was five. Immediately after he was born, he was sent to live with a wet nurse. His parents were said to have been cold to him in the few years that he spent there and at the age of eight, sent him away to grammar school until he was 15.
6. Clara Bow’s parents didn’t want kids – the first two they had died within days of their births, presumably from neglect, and Clara herself came pretty close. She was born during a heat wave and her mother did nothing to try to help Clara survive the boiling temperature. She didn’t even call a doctor. Clara’s grandma found the baby and assumed it to be dead, but it cried when she picked it up. Thus, Clara was born. Her dad was nowhere to be found for the first few years of her life, and her mom turned to prostitution to make ends meet. When her father finally did show back up, it was apparently just so he could sexually molest her.
7. Louise Brooks grew up in Cherryvale, Kansas, no thanks to her parents. Although her mother was present in her childhood, she barely lifted a finger to raise her children and freely admitted it – she had better things to do and her husband was too busy with his law practice to be involved. When Louise told her mother years later that she had been molested at the age of nine by one of the Brooks’ neighbors, her mother shrugged and said Louise must have led him on.
8. Jack Nicholson was raised thinking his grandparents were actually his parents and that his mother was his older sister. His mother wasn’t married to his father (in fact, he still doesn’t know who his father is, although there are several candidates) and she wanted to pursue a dancing career, so his grandparents raised him as their own. He didn’t know about his sordid family history until 1974, when a Time magazine reporter asked him about it and Jack was rather bewildered. By this time, both his mother and his grandmother were dead.
9. Truman Capote’s mother sent him off to live with relatives in Alabama after she divorced Truman’s dad. That was where he met and became friends with Harper Lee, incidentally. In 1933, he moved to New York to live with his mom and her new hubby, but it turned out that the new husband was actually embezzling money. Truman’s mom couldn’t deal with it and killed herself by overdosing on sleeping pills.
Comments (31)
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What about Micheal and Dina Lohan, Jamie and Lynne Spears, and the Cyruses? Allowing your child(ren) to grow up in that fashion is deplorable, and those parents should be ashamed of themselves for profiting from the misery of their children. No one can tell me those kids are happy. Except maybe Miley, who may be too dumb to realize what’s wrong.
posted by Amdela on 2-18-2009 at 5:33 pm
I immediately thought of Bing Crosby and his abuse of his children. Didn’t two of his sons commit suicide?
Also, Ryan O’Neal. Beating his children was just the tip of the iceberg for that guy.
posted by esoterica on 2-18-2009 at 5:46 pm
I know it happened later in his life, but didn’t Marvin Gaye’s father shoot and kill him? That’s pretty bad parenting to me
posted by Andy on 2-18-2009 at 5:46 pm
Ooh, good call, Andy. I’d say that’s a strong contender for #10.
posted by Stacy Conradt on 2-18-2009 at 5:51 pm
Actually, I’d call Jack Nicholson’s mother a good parent for turning him over to people who could provide him a good home/upbringing (assuming that both were good). It may have caused him some trouble as an adult, but he probably didn’t have the childhood trauma some of these others had.
posted by Lindsey on 2-18-2009 at 5:52 pm
John Lennon’s daddy, Freddie, abandoned him for the seas when John was 3, then the dirtbag suddenly showed up on John’s doorstep at the height of Beatlemania.
Freddie married a young Beatles fan and recorded a record to capatalize on John’s fame.
posted by holly on 2-18-2009 at 6:12 pm
I nominate my son-in-law’s mother as the worst parent. Apparently they moved one day when he was around 13. Only mom didn’t tell Tim. Just abandonded him at the old house.
posted by Vickey on 2-18-2009 at 6:45 pm
what about the dad of the jackson 5? i thought i always heard that he was mean and kept all their money too.
let’s see… what about michael jackson himself? didn’t he almost throw his baby off a balcony, and keeps his kids covered in masks and stuff? and how he claims the blue eyed blonde children are his biological kids?
posted by mrs.mead on 2-18-2009 at 7:01 pm
Come on, no one’s said it? How about the Octomom? (Worst nickname ever, but fitting for the most despicable person ever.)
posted by Anonymous on 2-18-2009 at 7:29 pm
The wonderful thing that should be added to these stories is how all nine offspring contributed so much to the arts, despite their traumas and questionable upbringing.
Not to excuse the bad behavior and irresponsibility but because there’s scant information to what’s given here, you have to wonder if some may have actually acted in the interest of the children, rather than spite them or abuse them as some of the ones here clearly did.
Stephen King, Cary Grant, Jack Nicholson, and Truman Capote really are open questions. Maybe King’s father hanging around would have been far worse than him staying. And Grant and Nicholson probably escaped a lot of the stigmatizing and trauma that would surely have come with knowing the truth than not. As for Capote, I don’t see how his mother actually mistreated him directly. Divorce back in the day didn’t guarantee women any financial security (no real facts here), and maybe finding out how poor a judge of character she was put her over the edge along with the added stress of being fleeced knowing you have a child to support.
If you’re going to go out of your way to find examples of bad parents, you should look at the ones who imprisoned their own daughters to sexually abuse them like the one they found last year or the year before. Or the ones who join weird cults that are just pseudo-religious fronts for pedophiles and sexual abusers.
I wouldn’t wish any of these things to happen to any children but given the results, their success in many ways de-victimized their circumstances. Would any of the nine be who they are without the childhood that befell them?
posted by iRonnie on 2-18-2009 at 7:35 pm
Murry Wilson, the father of Brian, Carl and Dennis, The Beach Boys, was allegedly a complete monster according to Brian. He treated the boys like crap, sold the publishing rights to Brian’s songs against his wishes and for a fraction of their value. Brian eventually fired him from managing the band.
posted by Don on 2-18-2009 at 7:51 pm
Joseph Jackson, the dad of the Jackson 5. When he was their manager he admitted to using physical force and making the kids call him by his first name – never “dad”. Obviously that had some terrible lasting effect. Poor Michael still thinks he’s a kid.
(I was going to say JonBenet’s parents, but I’m not sure if including JonBenet Ramsey in this is fair or not. Regardless of whether her parents killed her… I still don’t feel like children should be paraded around like painted dolls.)
posted by Tabitha on 2-18-2009 at 8:25 pm
I’m not familiar with some of these people but like one other person mentioned, look how far these people came despite their life adversities!
Living in Maine I’m a HUGE fan of Stephen King. At first I thought he was just an awesome writer but he is a wonderful individual too.
posted by Sheila on 2-18-2009 at 9:55 pm
I think the posting about Cary Grant’s situation is a bit unfair. “Understanding” of mental illness is a relatively recent thing, and it wasn’t atypical of the time for families to think that sending the person away, and hiding that fact, was the best option for both the care of the person as well as the overall benefit of others involved (kids, loved ones, etc).
It doesn’t make it “right” in the grand scheme of things, but there is a vast difference between general ignorance on how to deal with something like a mental disease/disability and complete apathy towards caring for your loved ones.
While I consider Grant’s situation sad for a number of reasons, without more context how could any of us villianize his father?
posted by Whatzat? on 2-19-2009 at 12:36 am
How about Maculay Culkin’s dad? Didn’t he steal/embezzle the money his son made as a child star?
posted by Liz on 2-19-2009 at 8:46 am
” the most despicable person ever.) ”
Really Anonymous??? that’s a little harsh, I agree that she’s a nut job and the doctor shouldn’t have implanted all of those babies and such, but did she kill anyone? no. is she an evil dictator that wants to take over the world? no
posted by Emily on 2-19-2009 at 9:43 am
I dont know if i would call the “octomom” a bad parent….yet. But she sure has the potential to become one of the worst. She says she’ll be able to get a good job once she finishes school. i have one question for that “How are you going to find time for school when you are a single mother and have 14 kids to take care of?”
Now i hear that her house might be forclosed on. So what’s the next logical step? Get on reality TV. And if that happens, it will be the start of becoming a horrible parent.
But then again, she could end up being a good parent and raise all those kids to be upstanding citizens. only time will tell…but the cards seem stacked against her
posted by Andy on 2-19-2009 at 9:52 am
I think Jack Nicholson’s situation wasn’t that unique, the same thing happened to Bobby Darin. Given the stigma against unwed mothers and abortion being illegal, it doesn’t seem that unreasonable.
posted by Jim on 2-19-2009 at 10:54 am
One of my best friend’s ex-girlfriend was in the same situation as Jack Nicholson. She grew up thinking that her grandparents were really her parents and that her mom was her sister. I think it wasnt until she was like 16 or so that she found out the truth. I think she took it as well as anyone would take finding out something like that, but at the time, i really didnt care because she was already a royal b***h.
posted by Andy on 2-19-2009 at 11:05 am
my aunt by a marriage was raised by her “sister” who was really her mother. she was told her mother was died when she was born. it broke her heart when she found out. she had a hard time trusting people after that.
posted by Shelly on 2-19-2009 at 12:00 pm
I seem to recall that Richard Pryor’s grandmother ran a brothel where his mother worked. I’d call that “non-stellar” parenting.
posted by barb on 2-19-2009 at 1:17 pm
Tabitha: The Jon Benet Ramsey case was very mistreated by both the police and the media. The only video they had of the little girl was that pageant. What they didn’t tell you is that the video belonged to the pageant directors, not the parents. Jon Benet also played soccer, did ballet, and rock climbed. She was not paraded around and, according to the father, ASKED to do those things so she could be like her mom. They certainly didn’t kill her and they certainly were not bad parents.
posted by Tricia on 2-19-2009 at 1:49 pm
Has anyone read the book, “A Child Called It”? It is a true story about a child who was horrifically tortured by his crazy, alcoholic mom. Apparently she tried to make him eat his younger sibling’s feces, she burned his hand on the kitchen stove, she made him lie for hours in the bathtub with freezing water, she rarely fed him yet made him watch while his siblings ate, and she even “accidentally” stabbed him. That lady should for sure be in the top 10.
posted by KT on 2-19-2009 at 2:38 pm
Elizabeth I of England had a horrible father…Henry VIII. Just knowing that your various stepmothers were beheaded, divorced, vilified, and imprisoned could have turned you into a sick and twisted individual.
How about Sadaam Hussein? He taught his boys Udey and Qusey (sp?) it was okay to rape, murder, torture, steal and lie. That’s some pretty shitty parenting in my book.
posted by Norkio on 2-19-2009 at 2:57 pm
What of the New Jersey couple who named all their kids after Hitler et al?
Even though they are just names, those very names hold a lot of bad memories/ “bad history” for lots of people.
The NJ parents are not as awful as some of those listed above, but I think they should get a piece of the bad parenting cake! (Especially since they were denied getting a cake with “Happy Birthday Adolf Hitler” written on it!)- yes, that was corny…
posted by D on 2-19-2009 at 4:50 pm
How bout the guy in Austria who kidnapped his daugher and hid her in a secret compartment in his basement for 20 or so years? He also raped her and had a few kids with her. that is a scum bag parent if i ever heard of one
posted by Andy on 2-19-2009 at 5:18 pm
I vote for the mother in A Child Called It as well. What a monster! That woman makes me truly greatful of my own parents.
posted by Cait on 2-19-2009 at 6:15 pm
There are 100’s of worse parents out there. The ones who offer their kids to child molesters. The ones who don’t care where their kids are or what they’re doing. The ones who beat, burn and sometimes kill their own children for small infractions like crying too much or wetting their beds.
posted by Lynne on 2-19-2009 at 8:03 pm
I nominate James Garner’s stepmother, Wilma, for dishonorable mention. From Wikipedia:
“She was a damn no-good woman”. Garner admitted that his stepmother punished him by forcing him to wear a dress in public and that he finally engaged in a physical fight with her, knocking her down and choking her to keep her from killing him in retaliation.
posted by Old Tom on 2-21-2009 at 2:42 pm
Re: Clara Bow. Her mother was truly mentally deranged. While a teen, Clara woke up one night to see her mother standing over her bed and coming at her with a butcher knife. Clara avoided being stabbed but a lifelong case of insomnia never left her.
posted by Rob on 2-21-2009 at 9:22 pm
That’s nothing. I found out last year that I am my own father AND sister… and I fell down on some gravel a few weeks ago.
posted by Scott-O on 2-23-2009 at 12:05 pm