Was Bob a decent parent?

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I'd say he tried, but failed. When faced with tardsitting an autistic son, who has several traits in common with his narcissist mother, there's only so much a RL TF2 engineer in the winter of his life can do. But he tried all the same. Perhaps he seemed to us to only make sporadic efforts to stop Chris, but apart from weens phoning him, and his occasional appearances in the bigger moments (the Internet Lumberjack video, Bob Walks In, and the times he discovered Chris's debts and lost his shit), he really didn't have any way of knowing what was happening. If he ever became aware of something before it was over, he'd intervene. And he did. So I think he actually tried, kudos for that, being Chris's parent must be incredibly taxing on one's sanity.

On the other hand, and maybe this is a bit subjective, he failed as a parent in the sense that he gave Chris all of his weird, archaic beliefs that made/make him very unpopular among his more progressive peers, for example influencing his racism and zealous (and arguably ongoing) homophobia.
 
I miss Bob. If Bob were still around, then we probably wouldn't have Chris's tranny BS, the Game Place (or however the fuck it was stylized) incident back in 2011, the Game Stop assault, etc.

Both of them ultimately failed as parents, but Bob at least managed to keep a leash on Chris. Without him around, Chris is free to destroy himself with his retarded antics.
 
He could have been worse. I see him as a man who was considerably out of his depth with an autistic child but who himself grew up in a time when having a child with any kind of mental disability was sort of taboo, you either kept quiet about it and did your best or sneaked them off to an asylum and never spoke of them again. I think he did what he did with Chris because in his day a "special school" for mentally disabled children was effectively a testing ground for all sorts of weird and horrific treatments.
Ultimately I see him as a tragic figure, an elderly man who probably didn't expect to have another child who was suddenly thrust into a situation he didn't understand and was ill equipped both physically and mentally for the rigors of raising an autistic child. Do I think he's a good parent? Not by modern standards, he's denied his son care that could have significantly improved his quality of life BUT, his actions in mainstreaming Chris were, as far as he was concerned, the best possible way for his child to be raised and sometimes that's really what matters. For better or worse Bob loved Chris and tried to do right by him before old age wore him out to the point where he couldn't go on anymore. That's the terrible tragedy of CWC, it's a story of well meaning but misguided fatherly love that produced OPL as he is today.
 
I think as a person Bob was ignorant and a product of the time he grew up in. Entrenched in the beliefs he was raised in and unable or unwilling to look beyond them.
However, I do think he had good intentions but that doesn't translate into being a good parent.

I think he was a parent trying to deal with problems in a way that adhered to his world view. That's pretty standard. I wouldn't really call him a good or bad parent, he was just a 'parent'.

I've always wondered if Bob or Barb might be somewhere on the autism spectrum themselves, Barb in particular.

I think Bob's major flaw was not understanding the nature of autism. He always struck me as the kind of person who would think if he just believed enough Chris could be 'cured' of his autism, rather than teaching Chris proper ways to behave. I feel like yanking Chris out of the special school was his attempt at some sort of exposure therapy, or like splashing cold water on your face to snap you out of a panic attack.

He was a well intentioned, but ignorant and ill equipped. I guess all I can say is he tried to be a good parent with his boxed in view of the world.
 
Another thing, Bob seemed to be the more sensible of the two (someone more sensible than Barb? Perish the thought!). I like to think that if Bob were still around, he'd have the sense to tell Chris "get dat gawddamn thang outta there!" when his idiot son thought it was a good idea to plug a coffee maker in the bathroom. The house fire probably wouldn't have happened with Bob around.

Think about it. 20-odd years with Bob: Chris acts like an ass, but his problems are largely minimal. Two years without him, and Chris narrowly avoids jail time twice, becomes an unstable tranny, infects his taint, and burns down his house. Not saying that everything would be sunshine and rainbows with Bob. It wasn't before. Just saying that things would probably be better if he was still around.
 
I think people tend to look a bit more favorably at Bob because he was less abrasive and was talkative, but he still failed.
He still entertained Chris's delusions, cleaned up after him well into adulthood and didn't make him do anything.
I also don't really buy into the 'Barb sucked the life force' from Bob theory which would give Bob some defense. Bob wasn't being abused by Barb, wasn't bedridden or reliant on her in any way. Sure, the relationship probably cooled immensely over the years (probably at least in part to Chris and his shenanigans) but I don't think he's a victim of Barb. Bob was a bit delusional himself, believing Chris's crap and going with Barb's hoarding. Compared to Barb, yes, he was a better parent, but that's like preferring to drink slightly out of date milk to curdled milk.

It's not really fair to bring up Bob's other kids since we know precisely dick about that situation, but it says something when you're estranged from your kids and at least one didn't show up to your funeral. Leaving the nest and not being around is one thing, but it seemed as if Bob just dropped out from his other kids (and their families) lives. However, just looking at what became of Bob's other kids as a measure of parenting skills, he was probably a decent enough parent in his younger days.

In the grand scheme, Bob was probably a better parent than Barb, but that doesn't mean he necessarily did a great job or anything.
 
I think first of all, we need to remember that Bob's kids cut off contact with him. Now, we know nothing about the circumstances and precious little about the kids themselves, but they don't appear to be fuckups. So that indicates that Bob probably did something very wrong, and that's a point against him from the start.

Secondly, it's a pretty bad idea to be having kids at an age when most parents are thinking in terms of grandkids. You could end up with some sort of retarded manchild who can't care for himself at the age of 33 or something. Maybe there was an element of coercion - Barb deliberately got up the duff and refused to abort and Bob decided to Do the Right Thing - but that's pure speculation. So even before Chris is born, he's got two strikes against him.

Then you've got Barb. Even though Bob was undoubtedly a better parent than Barb, the fact remains that she was the biggest influence over Chris in the long term. Either Bob didn't spot the myriad ways Barb was messing with Chris' development, or he did and did nothing about it.
 
Despite Bob's racism and failure to stand up to Barb among other things, I still sympathise a lot with the man concerning his increasingly wearisome existence at the hands of ChrisXBarb. Call it pity if you want, I don't care. He was at least worried about Chris's behaviour and even tried to stop him once with his lumberjack act, but I'd still say like many others that he was just an ineffectual parent at best.
 
Count me in the "Better than Barb but still shitty parent" camp. Maybe his failings was due to his beliefs, personality, age, or whatever. Point is, he fucked up in a lot of aspects. The lesser of two evils isn't still good, mind you.

With that said, I think everyone who said that he was possibly trying to atone for his actions in the last years of his life are probably right.

Tragi-Chan said:
I think first of all, we need to remember that Bob's kids cut off contact with him. Now, we know nothing about the circumstances and precious little about the kids themselves, but they don't appear to be fuckups. So that indicates that Bob probably did something very wrong, and that's a point against him from the start.

Secondly, it's a pretty bad idea to be having kids at an age when most parents are thinking in terms of grandkids. You could end up with some sort of retarded manchild who can't care for himself at the age of 33 or something. Maybe there was an element of coercion - Barb deliberately got up the duff and refused to abort and Bob decided to Do the Right Thing - but that's pure speculation. So even before Chris is born, he's got two strikes against him.

Then you've got Barb. Even though Bob was undoubtedly a better parent than Barb, the fact remains that she was the biggest influence over Chris in the long term. Either Bob didn't spot the myriad ways Barb was messing with Chris' development, or he did and did nothing about it.
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This. His other kids might of been overall successful, with good jobs and families of their own. And perhaps you could attribute that to Bob. But the fact that they didn't really have a relationship with him as adult says a lot. Plus, didn't the daughter end up not going to his funeral or something?
 
TheMightyMonarch said:
Count me in the "Better than Barb but still shitty parent" camp. Maybe his failings was due to his beliefs, personality, age, or whatever. Point is, he fucked up in a lot of aspects. The lesser of two evils isn't still good, mind you.

With that said, I think everyone who said that he was possibly trying to atone for his actions in the last years of his life are probably right.



This. His other kids might of been overall successful, with good jobs and families of their own. And perhaps you could attribute that to Bob. But the fact that they didn't really have a relationship with him as adult says a lot. Plus, didn't the daughter end up not going to his funeral or something?
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iirc, all the kids who aren't cwc disowned him.
 
Tragi-Chan said:
I think first of all, we need to remember that Bob's kids cut off contact with him. Now, we know nothing about the circumstances and precious little about the kids themselves, but they don't appear to be fuckups. So that indicates that Bob probably did something very wrong, and that's a point against him from the start.

Secondly, it's a pretty bad idea to be having kids at an age when most parents are thinking in terms of grandkids. You could end up with some sort of retarded manchild who can't care for himself at the age of 33 or something. Maybe there was an element of coercion - Barb deliberately got up the duff and refused to abort and Bob decided to Do the Right Thing - but that's pure speculation. So even before Chris is born, he's got two strikes against him.

Then you've got Barb. Even though Bob was undoubtedly a better parent than Barb, the fact remains that she was the biggest influence over Chris in the long term. Either Bob didn't spot the myriad ways Barb was messing with Chris' development, or he did and did nothing about it.
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Agreed, Bob's children probably turned out so well because of their motherly influence. Bob and Barb were perfect for eachother, a match made in hell....Chris is literally a manifestation of who they are and what their relationship was like. If he has been neurotypical, he might have been the antichrist...or a skinhead.
 
I don't think he was.

His heart may have been in the right place and he was clearly a less negative influence than Blarb, but you can't attribute all of Chris' unsavoury behaviours just to his bad personality alone. I have to give him some credit though, if I were in my golden years, I wouldn't want to continue playing life on hard mode either.
 
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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This definitely changes things. I guess Bob was not a good father after all.

Edit: Yeah he was old, but these are some hefty delusions that definitely contributed to cultivating Chris' lolcowness.
 
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Jack Haywood said:
Despite Bob's racism and failure to stand up to Barb among other things, I still sympathise a lot with the man concerning his increasingly wearisome existence at the hands of ChrisXBarb. Call it pity if you want, I don't care. He was at least worried about Chris's behaviour and even tried to stop him once with his lumberjack act, but I'd still say like many others that he was just an ineffectual parent at best.
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I honestly don't believe he was "racist" in today's sense. i find it annoying when kiwiers strawman him into some xenophobic conservative backwoods archetype.

If any of the true and honest souls posting here were brought up in the environment and time Bob was.... Most would be far more "racist" and not raise Chris any better.
 
Compared to Barb, perhaps. But as a whole, he wasn't much better.

Yeah he was level-headed, strict and had the best intentions for Chris. And was in the right in regards to his son's actions in regards to the home tour videos. But you have to remember, he was the first step in spawning the cow we all know and love. Plus he had a similar, if not slightly more subdued, way of treating Chris the way Barb did. That really isn't good parenting when you think about it.
 
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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I vaguely remember the call you're talking about, looked for it but couldn't find it. But here are two that illustrate Bob's utter delusion when it came to things concerning Chris:



Here's a link to a CWCki transcript for the second one:

http://sonichu.com/cwcki/Prank_calls#Liquid_Bob_calls_Bob
 
just some jerk said:
If any of the true and honest souls posting here were brought up in the environment and time Bob was.... Most would be far more "racist" and not raise Chris any better.
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My Korean grandparents are head and shoulders above Bob in terms of being overtly racist. He's just a product of an era where the general opinion towards race would be considered backwards by today's standards, but he didn't come off as the type of guy who enjoyed seeing black folks getting lynched or whatever.
 
I'll echo the sentiment that he wasn't a good parent, but I do think he actually tried, and that he cared about Chris, as opposed to Barb, who doesn't try and doesn't care about Chris beyond using him as an errand-boy.

Bob was just too old and his frame of reference for mental disorders like autism was extremely dated, and his lack of comprehension regarding the internet is not exactly atypical of people in their 70s and 80s. He definitely wasn't a good parent, but I feel some measure of sympathy for him as confused, exhausted old man trying to make sense of a world that he doesn't fully understand and earnestly trying to do what he believed would be best for his son.

I mean, yes, it's delusional to think Chris is a whiz for being good at video games and that his cartoon character is an international success on the internet... but that's exactly the kind of belief I'd expect an octogenarian to have about those kinds of things. As others have stated, I don't think he believed it when he told Chris that Chris would get more money from a tugboat than a job. It was a white lie he told Chris (and possibly himself) to make him feel better about the situation, after watching Chris fuck up even the most menial of jobs.

Overall: No, not a good parent, but one with good intentions who was out of his depth. It'd be interesting to know why his other kids cut off contact with him. Did it have something to do with Barb?
 
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