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[selenak]

Mother's Day, which means I'm with my Aged Parents and have very little online time. I also feel very mushy about all things motherly right now. However, because I'm perverse like that, I'll give you my current Favourite Ruthless Mothers Moments. Because I love that, too, and I don't mean "ruthless" in the sense of Ripley's "get away from her,

Comments

[lizbee]

I love characters who are ... not necessarily bad parents, but who seem far more detached than our culture really allows.

I'm currently being KILLED DEAD by the Predator Cities quartet by Philip Reeve -- it starts with Mortal Engines. The first two novels feature the main characters as teenagers, and Hester is basically a sixteen-year-old Mad Eye Moody -- paranoid, violent and horrifically scarred. The next two books are set about eighteen years later, and follow the adventures of their sixteen-year-old daughter. And Hester is a terrible mum -- in one scene she tells her daughter that she wishes Wren had never been born. And she means it.

I love Hester so much.

[selenak]

Mad Eye Moody would be a horror as a parent, male or female. This sounds great; I'll look out for this quartet.

Hey, what are the chances the Doctor when young (err, in Gallifreyan terms) and producing whoever was Susan's parent was an, err, less than stellar parent himself?

[lizbee]

Chances are pretty strong, I'd say. Maybe taking Susan with him was his way of making up for it? Before he dumped her on a Dalek-ravaged Earth?

[selenak]

*nods*

And it's "always the mothers" because mother-of-his-child slapped him A LOT for lousy fatherhood. Deservedly! And it's also why he avoids making any comment on Ace's mother, and keeps doing that confronting-Ace-with-her-past thing. Subconsciously, he identifies!

[shezan]

Aaaahhh, Livia, or the Unsentimental view of the Roman matron. Love her to bits.

And all sorts of greetings to your parents. When oh WHEN are you taking them to Paris to stay?

[selenak]

Today, the Aged Pater was heared muttering "you know, it's been a while since we were in Paris..." and I pounced at once. We'll see whether it has results!

[vilakins]

Livia Soprano (whose name can't be a coincidence) was also a mother from hell, though I don't think she actually killed anyone. "The woman was a saint."