Was Bob a decent parent?

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Bob tried bravely, but failed.

There is no shame in that, as not even Michelangelo could have made the statue of David out of shit.
 
Not really. We all know he was guilty of the same crime that Barbara was - spoiling him. While he was in in his 50's when his son was born, he should've taught his son how to be a man and make it in the real world.

For example, when his son threw a tantrum over his high school graduation over losing an art award, he was really embarrassed while Barbara comforted Chris, and the uncut version of "THAT IS MY HOUSE" shows that he could easily assert authority over his son. He should've put his foot down whenever Chris acted up like a brat over the years and made an effort to really explain to his son how the world works, and he should've swallowed his pride when Chris was given the option to be sent to an institutional school.
 
I think Bob was pretty mixed as a parent.
While he did want to expose Chris to other cultures and didn't put up with his bullshit, he held some very bigoted views and still failed in how Chris ended up.
At any rate, he was miles better than Barb.
 
Bob probably was a cantankerous old bastard but I do think he was a good parent to Chris given the circumstances. Bob always tried to act with Chris' best interests in mind even if it was sometimes misguided.

Bob didn't want Chris placed in a special school because he thought it would lead towards Chris being isolated from most of society and at worse Chris being institutionalised. Bob's fears about asylums for the disabled weren't unfounded. Keep in mind, the infamous Willowbrook State School was only closed in 1987. He encouraged Chris to go to college and he tried to teach Chris to be more self reliant in terms of finances. He knew it was unlikely that Chris could hold down a job so he arranged for Chris to have an income of sorts with the tug boat. He also let Chris be himself (within reason) and was proud of Chris' limited accomplishments. Considering how old fashioned and conservative Bob was it is commendable that he not only tolerated Chris' childish interests/obsessions but that at times he would feign an interest. Of course, he had made mistakes and he passed on his bad traits to Chris but overall he didn't do anything that particularly fucked Chris up. There are certain things I'd blame Blarb for but even the best, most well adjusted parents couldn't have made Chris that much better.
 
It's difficult for me to say - I think both sides of the argument for this have good points. I think ultimately Bob was just too old when Chris was born. It's hard enough raising an autistic child when you're a young parent, let alone when you've already had two children and are staring down retirement. Bob was a relic from an earlier era who simply didn't have the mindset to do what was required to raise Chris properly.

Although Bob didn't do nearly as much as he could have and we can partially blame him for how Chris is today, I have a lot of sympathy for him. He sounded like he'd lived a pretty full life and deserved to live out his final years in piece and quiet before passing away. As is, his legacy is a living failure who's inspired an entire wiki documenting his life and this very forum.
 
Kumquat said:
In most cases, I'm against parents being overbearing on their children and 'forcing' them to do things, but in Chris' case - being well into his 20's with no job, wasting hundreds of dollars on video games and toys and generally being a leech on society - I think Bob should have taken charge. Take away his credit cards, get him off disability, make him get a real job, and teach him how to function in the real world.
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If he'd done that, Chris would probably be homeless now and just as unable to hold a job.
 
Eh. He's generally (and rightfully imo) seen as the better, more sympathetic parent because he had some form of genuine concern for Chris' well-being and future, and that in and of itself was probably responsible for the very few productive things that Chris has done with his life.

But I think that's where the good things about bob's parenting end. People often say he tried to discipline Chris and hold him accountable when he fucked up, but he only ever did this when he had (or thought he had) some sort of immediate personal stake in it (the house tour videos, his credit card debt, etc)

In any other case where Chris' shitty behavior caused a problem that didn't directly involve him, bob showed no parity, no interest in knowing anymore about it than what Chris told him, and no willingness to blame anyone but the people that Chris had bothered. He spurred Chris' persecution complex and his ridiculous sense of entitlement and appeared to have done nothing but indulge these things when they consequently got Chris into trouble with the law or a retailer, or both. It was happening as early on as the green county incident and was going just as strong by the time the game place drama was happening.

I don't necessarily think bob was a bad guy, but I really don't think he was a decent or even mediocre parent. I do think he cared about Chris, but i feel like it manifested itself in ways there were mostly harmful and counter-intuitive to raising an autistic child.
 
As much as I love the good ol' lumberjack, I have to admit that I don't think he was really that good of a parent, but FAAAAAAR better than Barbara the Hutt. Did he love Chris and try to help him though? Well, yeah. He actually did. He was disappointed when Chris wasn't interested in foreign countries (Or anything outside of television for that matter), even criticized him for some of the shit he did, and kept him on a strict allowance. Granted, it wasn't great, but he tried given his age. It honestly seems like the older Bob got, the shittier he got. He was old enough to be a grandparent when he had Chris, and likely didn't have the energy he did when he was younger.

TL;DR: Bob gave it a shot, but failed. Sometimes I like to think that on his death bed, right before he died, Bob had a moment of extreme clarity and realized the error of his ways, his last sight being his morbidly obese wife with a cat crawling on her and his failure of a son, twirling his greasy tranny locks thinking he was a beautiful woman as he gazed at himself in a mirror.
 
Bob was and old man who lived through multiple wars worked hard all his life and had the misfortune to be blessed with a retarded son. Bob's heart was probably in the right place but he wasn't physically or mentally able to handle the extent of Chris's behavioral and emotional problems.
 
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I don't think that Bob was a bad parent but certainly one that wasn't ready to take care of someone like Chris, probably because he was naïve about certain subjects (e.g. Chris would recieve more money from welfare than working a full-time job) and certainly old-fashioned on his world views (e.g. his racism and his homophobia, from when talking about THe GAMe PLACe) but that didn't affected his other children (I mean, David got married and became a doctor and Carol got a Ph.D.) but yeah like I said before on this post, he wasn't ready to take someone like Chris that was someone special.
(Sorry if there is any grammar or misspelling errors, English is not my first language.)
 
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Better than Barb is a pretty low standard.

I mean I feel sorry for Bob in quite few ways, but I still say he made his own bed.
 
Bob was not a great parent, but he was not an awful one either. Certainly was a far better parent than Barb ever was. At least Bob attempted to put some useful knowledge into Chris' head, even though he failed to penetrate that fog of Pokemon/Sonic trivia that Chris surrounds himself with.
 
What is all this? Bob was a GREAT parent. Why, just look at all the wonderful things he did for his poor-autistic-special-snowflake:

~Bob taught his child that autism is a special gift that makes other people afraid and jealous of him.

~Bob bravely stood up to the Greene County homosexual conspiracy against Chris by yanking him out of school, moving to another county and then bravely taking the conspirators to court.

~Bob instilled in his son a prudent wariness of neighbors, gays, blacks, poisonous Korean food, German Warfare girls and other nefarious strangers.

~Bob cleverly uncovered the dastardly homosexual conspiracy against Chris at the Game Place.

And there are just so many more examples. It's no wonder Bob's other kids despised him. They were obviously jealous of the way Bob cultivated Chris's specialness.
 
Mashed Potato Grenade said:
There's this taped phone call (which for some reason is not in the CWCki) where Bob expresses the following:
1. He considers his son a genius because he's is able to play videogames.
2. He considers himself a great dad because "doctors said that Chris may not be able to write his own name. I dismissed them and today Chris can write his own name."
3. For some reason he believes that Chris has 2 profesional degrees.
4. He firmly believes that his son's cartoon character is an international success.
5. Chris is not guilty (and has never been guilty) of anything imputed on him. It's all a matter of prejudice against autistic persons.
6. Autism only makes you a bit shy, but it gives you otherwise amazing mental powers like photographic memory and math brilliance.
7. The only reason why Chris doesn't have a job is because "the game is rigged against autistic people" and there's some sort of conspiracy to avoid hiring them.

If you ask me if Bob was a decent father, I have to say: no. He never made an effort to understand what it meant to have an autistic son and just created all these complicated conspiracies to justify Chris' behavior.
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Well you can't really fault a guy for loving his son, it's certainly a lot more than half the kiwis ever got. And to my knowledge, neither he nor Barb ever hit Chris, which should at least be a plus considering how most parents at the time handled kids when they're being stupid. So I'll at least give them points for that.

And like everyone else said, too old and tired to do shit.
 
He allowed himself to be emotionally cuckolded by his waterhead son. He let barb manipulate chris into the biggest lolcow in the history of the internet. He punted economic responsibility over chris to the federal government. Bob is a sympathetic character but he is not a good parent.
 
Bob couldn't even get Chris to stop pooping himself. If you can't even toilet train your kids properly, you fail as a parent, end of story.
 
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