Elena: What is his teacher's name?
Alejandro: That's an easy one. Mister... Brother... Father Kin... Jin... Hoofer? [Beat] So I have a bad memory! What does that prove?
Elena: That you do not know your own son. And even worse, he does not know you.
Alejandro: That's an easy one. Mister... Brother... Father Kin... Jin... Hoofer? [Beat] So I have a bad memory! What does that prove?
Elena: That you do not know your own son. And even worse, he does not know you.
Parents often claim they know everything about their child, and they will do what they believe their child would like. However, there are moments when what they do for their child is not something their child is really into.
The child will quiz them on themselves and reveal that their parent doesn't know them as well as they claim. Finding this out will greatly offend the child knowing that their own parents don't know them despite having raised them.
When this happens, the parent will likely be in the dilemma of having to spend some time with their kid in order to actually know them. This can prove difficult if the child doesn't want anything to do with their parent anymore. If successful, the parent and child will develop a true bond and agree to spend more time together.
In the worst-case scenario, though, the parent will just shrug the fact off and continue to treat their child the same way they always do while never bothering to learn anything about them.
In some cases, the details that the parents believe were actually relevant to the child in question. However, the child has grown out of those bits, which requires the parents into having to get to know their child all over again just to find out their new interests.
Likely to be a result of Parental Neglect or being Maternally Challenged. May overlap with Amazingly Embarrassing Parents. Supertrope to Father, I Don't Want to Fight and Always a Child to Parent. Compare The Un-Favorite, which may cause this. Contrast Parents Know Their Children. Not to be confused with Luke, You Are My Father, where parents meet somebody whom they find out is their child. Related to "Gender-Normative Parent" Plot, where the parent may know what their child is into while refusing to accept it and demanding that the child be how they prefer. See also Doesn't Know Their Lover.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Boruto: Sasuke Uchiha has been away on a mission most of Sarada's life, so he doesn't know much about her. They're both awkward around each other, which isn't made better by Sasuke's general lack of social skills. The Parent and Child Day filler episode revolved around their tense relationship. One mistake Sasuke makes is trying to treat Sarada like she's seven when she's almost a teenager.
- Dragon Ball: During the Cell arc, Son Goku doesn't realize until it is too late that his son Gohan is a reluctant fighter who doesn't enjoy fighting as he does. Since then, Goku never expected him to be a fighter anymore, especially when he grew up to be a scholar like Chi-Chi intended him to be.
- Is It My Fault That I Got Bullied? has Kyoko Nagumo, an anti-bullying advocate who tours Japan giving lectures criticizing educators for not doing more to combat the problem... and whose own daughter is the incredibly vicious leader of a Gang of Bullies. Kyoko has no idea what Ai is like; even when confronted with evidence of her daughter's crimes, she staunchly insists that Mama Didn't Raise No Criminal and believes Ai's claims that their teacher is responsible for everything.
- In Sailor Moon, it's Played for Laughs when Usagi's father sees "the Princess of Ivanova" all dolled up in formal wear and wonders if his daughter will look like that when she is older. He didn't realize that it is Usagi who was using her Disguise Pen to sneak into the ball.
Comic Books
- Knights of the Old Republic: Played for Drama; Krynda Draay has a vision in which the First Watch Circle execute their Padawans. She suffers a stroke, rendering her unable to move. Subsequently, Haazen imprisons her in a crystal oubliette to keep her alive in stasis, where she experiences the Padawan massacre repeatedly. Krynda barely endures the torment because of her desperate hope that her son Lucien Draay will never commit murder. When she is removed from the stasis pod and Lucien tells her the truth, that he did not kill any Padawans, he ordered their murders. Outraged and horrified, she tells him no mission is worth the lives of younglings and asked Lucien who had led him to believe that murdering the Padawans was the right thing to do. She is horrified when Lucien says she had, and that he had done it to carry out her mission—by any means necessary. Realizing that her teachings had led her son to murder his students, Krynda claimed that she had been wrong the entire time. In her last moments, she told Lucien to accept his mistakes and face the future with humility.
- The Long Halloween: Alberto Falcone claims that this trope is why they assumed the mantle of the Holiday Killer — his father Carmine knows nothing about him and always considered him "weak," so Alberto decided to prove his strength by wiping out Carmine's enemies. Alberto chose the holiday gimmick because he himself was born on Valentine's Day. When Alberto is arrested, Carmine tries to bail him out, only for his son to ask him about that birthday. When Carmine can't answer, Alberto snaps that he'd rather stay in Arkham among the "other freaks" than have to spend one more minute with his father.
- PS238 has a particularly extreme example with Tyler's parents. They're two of the world's strongest superheroes, and at first remained convinced that their son couldn't possibly be a Muggle Born of Mages. Eventually they got Toby, Tyler's clone "brother", who is a Reality Warper; since then, they sometimes seem to forget that Tyler even exists. And it's implied that the only thing keeping them at that level instead of disowning Tyler outright is the fact that Toby used his powers on them.
- Robin (1993): Tim's father Jack does not know his son's hobbies or interests and often just assumes Tim likes the things Jack's ideal son would like. For example, his father thinks Tim likes playing American Football when Tim doesn't even like watching the game and prefers baseball, basketball, and skateboarding as sports.
- RWBY (2019): Weiss' Alcoholic Parent Willow doesn't even remember her age.
Fan Works
- Ace In The Hole (Persona 5): After Ren is arrested to testify against Shido, his parents confess to Anne that they believed he was so independent he didn't need them... which effectively ruined their relationship when he was falsely accused of assault. Between their failure to immediately believe in his innocence and failing to contact him for months after he was sentenced to probation, Ren naturally believed they'd completely abandoned him.
- In Amazing Fantasy, Mitsuki Bakugou is so busy at work that she thinks she knows more about her son's social life than she actually does. Despite being aware of Katsuki's growing ego, she still believes that he and Izuku are close when their relationship soured a decade ago. She discovers how wrong she is when Katsuki throws a fit while they're both riding in her car and has to ask Izuku if Katsuki has any real friends. After learning that he doesn't, she pleads with Izuku not to give up on him and admonishes herself for not being there for them.
- Black or White (torinokomachi): As Yuu's guardian, Crowley incorrectly assumes that Yuu wants to return home, unaware that she's concluded that there's No Place For Her There. Nor does he make much effort to get to know her as a person or address her growing mistrust. These failures eventually come home to roost when she rejects his efforts to finally step up and act as a proper guardian, as it comes right after her true identity and connection as the granddaughter of a former Master to one of the local variant of The Four Gods is revealed, convincing her that he's just trying to curry favor too little, too late.
- Craving the Sky: On Weiss' 18th birthday, Willow calls her daughter and tells her that, despite how she's fallen out with her father, she can still arrange the surgery to have her wings amputated. However, Weiss is no longer ashamed of her wings, and doesn't want them removed. Justified in that the two have had almost no contact with each other while Weiss was going through the Character Development that led to her changing her mind.
- Played for Drama in The Eliza Trilogy: According to Snape, the only way he could tell Eliza and Diawna apart as babies was through their nail polish. As a result, he fails to realize that the Eliza in Book Two is actually his other daughter, Diawna.
- Fantastic Foxes of Zootopia: Different revolves around how Ash's parents had no idea just how much he was suffering from their blatant Parental Favoritism. After this drives their neglected son to attempt suicide, Mr. Fox initially comes up with the wrong conclusions about why, enraging Ash even further.
- Feralnette AU: Speak of the Devil sees Sabine and Tom being confronted with just how little they know about their daughter's life. When asked if she knew how Lila was targeting Marinette, Sabine admits that Marinette stopped confiding in them after they mishandled the expulsion scare. Then they learn that she's been taking commissions from Jagged Stone, and about an incident where Chloé shredded one of Marinette's sketchbooks — and when Sabine declares that Marinette should have told them about how Chloé's bullying had esclated, Marinette just gives her a flat look, then sighs as she looks away.
- Gabriel's Lament: Despite being a massive Control Freak whose micromanagement of Adrien's life got even worse in the new reality created by his Wish, Gabriel doesn't know that his son is/was a fan of Doctor Who. When Plagg attempts to explain how things could have played out similarly in some ways and dramatically different in others by calling it "Wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey," the reference flies right over Gabriel's head, much to Plagg's ire.
- In Infinity Train: Blossoming Trail, Professor Cerise is completely out of touch with his daughter. She's not interested in Pokémon, and he only shows interest in her whenever Pokémon are involved, reinforcing her resentment of them. Later chapters reveal that he doesn't even know his son either, whether it be that his son likes girly shows — My Little Ponyta and Sofia the First — or how both children were afraid of their father's anger if he ever learned about Chloe's love of the macabre and her knack of writing horror stories.
- The Lost King: while Garon is a much better parent than most of his concubines, he still has to have a journal to keep track of his numerous children's personal info, such as likes and dislikes.
- Origin of a Non-Hero: Izuku knows practically nothing about his son Shikinori. When Shiki is having difficulty finding a job, Izuku invites him to work at his Hero Agency, joking about how he could become a receptionist if he doesn't want to crunch numbers. Mathematics is Shikinori's favorite subject, and he was searching for a job as a math teacher.
- RWBY: Scars: Willow spent so much of her children's childhoods ignoring them that she can't remember what their favorite foods are. When she tries to make Weiss Comfort Food after Weiss nearly kills herself, she opts to make schnitzel because that is something Atleseans generally like.
- Shining and Sweet: Little Mac's parents know him so little, they've even forgotten his middle name (his mother claims it to be William when it's actually Hiroki) and lost track of how old he is (they think he's 15, he's actually 18).
- In Something New, Sophia's parents pay so little attention to their daughter that they don't notice her obvious pregnancy until she points it out to them during dinner.
- In The Stalking Zuko Series, Hakoda has spent a long time either fighting the Fire Nation or being imprisoned by them at the Boiling Rock. As such, he doesn't fully realize how much his children Katara and Sokka have changed in his absence. To his credit, he does try to make up for it by being a "cool dad," even if his efforts are rather awkward.
- The Sun Will Come Up, and the Seasons Will Change: One of Dana's major problems is that she doesn’t really know who Mary is as a person and treats Mary based on a meltdown she had when she was a toddler and her own assumptions. She was also encouraged not to try by Dr. Goldman and refuses to listen to the people in Mary’s life who try to explain that Mary is a bright, sweet, and creative girl, not a tantrum-throwing brat or manipulative jerk.
- The Weight On Your Shoulders: In Will You Still Love Me?, Sunny's mother accuses him of being ungrateful for the fresh start she's offered by moving away from Faraway Town. Sunny calls her out on being a Helicopter Parent who never bothered to ask what he thought or wanted, having constantly left him alone at home rotting in his depression.
Films — Live-Action
- In Becket, King Henry II asks one of his sons "Which one are you?"
- In '80s slasher Cemetery of Terror, Adam Ancira, the captain of police in town, despite being a doting enough dad, it's shown later in the movie that he's so busy at work that not only does he not know the parents and older sister (said sister being the sole guardian of one of the boys) of his children's friends, but he doesn't even know his children's friends themselves.
- David's Mother: When Sally hears that Susan is pregnant, she says, "She's only eighteen!" Bea says, "She's nineteen."
- One of the main sources of drama (and humor) in Freaky Friday (2003) is that Tess Coleman doesn't know her teenage daughter Anna nearly as well as she thinks. When they swap bodies, Tess subsequently finds out a lot more about Anna and comes to understand her better. One example is that Tess can't understand why Anna no longer wants to hang around with her Childhood Friend Stacy, not believing Anna when she claims she's now an Alpha Bitch who bullies her. Tess-in-Anna's-body subsequently finds out the hard way why Stacy and Anna aren't friends anymore when Stacy frames her for cheating on her exam after she'd attempted to make peace with her. The film also features an inversion of this trope, as Anna doesn't know her mother all that well either and thus also gains a better insight into her life.
- Played for Drama in the final scene of Gone Baby Gone. When Helene's four-year-old daughter Amanda is abducted, she makes a televised plea for her to be returned, mentioning that she was taken along with her favourite doll Mirabelle. It's eventually revealed that Amanda's kidnapping and supposed death was actually a conspiracy between the police investigators and the girl's aunt, one of whom adopted Amanda, as they believed that Amanda would be better off with them due to Helene being a neglectful drug addict. Private investigator Patrick turns them in despite this and Amanda is returned to her mother; however, when Patrick visits the family and asks Amanda about Mirabelle, she says the doll's name is actually Annabelle, revealing Helene didn't even know the name of her daughter's toy and causing Patrick to wonder if he made the right decision after all.
- In Home Alone 1, when Kate laments that she's a bad mother to the leader of the polka band, he answers that she's surrounded by bad fathers, citing that one of them forgets the names of his children half the time.
- Irreconcilable Differences: While trying to persuade Casey not to file for emancipation, Lucy says, "You're only eight years old!" Casey answers, "I'm nine."
- In The Legend of Zorro, Elena quizzes Alejandro on details of their son Joaquin's life, in order to make the point that he's so busy being Zorro that he's being a poor father.
- Matilda: Matilda has very neglectful parents. In the movie adaptation, they both think she's only four, and she answers, "I'm six and a half. I was six in August!" In a later scene, her father even calls her "Melinda".
- This is implied in the 1968 film version of Romeo and Juliet, where, after she sends the Nurse out so she can talk to Juliet about an arranged marriage, Lady Capulet realizes that she doesn't really know how to talk to her and calls the Nurse back.
- Searching utilizes this for drama- a father realizes that he doesn't know anything about his daughter after she goes missing.
- The Sound of Music: After Capt. Von Trapp gets into an argument with Maria that ended with him firing her, he immediately apologizes after he witnesses how she helped the children captivate his potential fiancée Baroness Schräder, admitting he'd fallen victim to this trope.
Capt. Von Trapp: Fräulein, I... behaved badly. I apologize.Maria: I'm far too outspoken. It's one of my worst faults.Von Trapp: You were right. I don't know my children.Maria: There's still time, Captain. They want so much to be close to you.
Literature
- Nearly all the kids' parents in Animorphs. Justified since the Animorphs are upholding The Masquerade, but none of them have any idea that something is wrong until the last few books, when Marco reveals the truth to his father (his mother knew about the Yeerks already, being Visser One's host, and had figured out the truth about the Animorphs already) and then the rest of the Animorphs evacuate (or fail to rescue) their families a few books later. Rachel's mom probably has the hardest time coming to terms with her daughter's secret life and Blood Knight tendencies. And of course, Loren has amnesia, so she wouldn't know Tobias anyway. Tom, despite being Jake's brother and living with him for the entire war, took 3 years to figure out Jake was an Animorph. He didn't even realize the "Jake" in #6 was actually Ax in Jake morph, despite his weird behavior.
- Discworld: Moist von Lipwig is so forgettable that his mother often came back from school with the wrong child, which greatly helps him as a professional conman.
- Comes up in a couple of instances in Heralds of Valdemar, through a combination of Parents as People and Royals Who Actually Do Something.
- In the Last Herald-Mage Trilogy, Lord Withen Wanted a Gender-Conforming Child and harshly tried to "fix" his son Vanyel in the first book. In the second book, twelve years later, he's undergone some Character Development and Took a Level in Kindness but their relationship is still rocky. Withen isn't as awful to his son and they can sometimes even hold a civil conversation, but Vanyel finds him infuriatingly unable or unwilling to comprehend crucial topics like "Companions aren't horses" and "I like men but I would never sleep with a child and it makes me sick that you think I would", let alone smaller things like his interests and what he does for a living.
- In the "Arrows" trilogy, Queen Selenay has no real mother-daughter connection with Princess Elspeth, the child of her disastrous early marriage. Elspeth becomes a Royal Brat under the tutelage of a governess with an agenda, and Herald Talia has to step in as a maternal substitute for the girl despite being not that much older. After some years and a lot of Character Development, they finally learn to relate to each other as adult women and fellow Heralds.
- My Teacher Is an Alien: After Peter leaves Earth, his distraught father begins to ask Duncan about where he might have disappeared to since he's the only one of Peter's friends that he knows. The thing is, Peter really had no friends and Duncan was his school bully — it's just that Peter let him stay over one night after Duncan had run away from home.
- Pale: Anthem Tedd is driven by his deep trauma over the death of his wife from a terminal illness, and after her death focuses on opening up as many opportunities as possible for his daughters Liberty and America, forcing a change in his family's inheritance to allow equal inheritance for daughters and building political alliances using his immense power as a war sorcerer to secure their futures. In the process, however, he neglects them emotionally as he is not capable of stopping to breathe and take a moment to truly process his grief, and so for a decade, as his daughters grow up, he does not truly know them. This comes to a head when Liberty allies herself with her friends and crush in the Kennet witches against him and her sister, leading him to threaten her with disownment. Ultimately, Anthem is defeated by Liberty's friend Lucy Ellingson and imprisoned in Kennet Found, where he has no choice but to pause, to process all that has happened, and to spend time with his daughters.
- A Song of Ice and Fire Tywin Lannister may be great at understanding, predicting, and manipulating strangers, but when it comes to his own family, his Workaholic nature and stubborn prejudice means that he has an incredibly twisted picture of his kids' characters; he focuses on Jaime as his heir when Jaime clearly has neither aptitude nor interest in politics and would much rather remain a Kingsguard, disdains Tyrion and thinks of him as no more than a lecherous wastrel when Tyrion is actually the best administrator of his kids (and most of his lecherous behavior was due to Tywin convincing him that no one would ever love him and prostitutes were the only way he would ever experience intimacy), and utterly disregards Cersei despite her being just as important to the Lannisters' future as the boys (since she's the mother of his only grandchildren and the one teaching them life skills; it's partially his bad parenting to blame for her being really bad at this).
- This is how The Story Of A Disfigured Princess ends. After Kamilah cuts up her face, runs away, and rechristens herself "Barabel", her family seeks her out, but they (and their servants) don't recognize her through her scars as, because they were so overprotective and controlling, they didn't get to know her as a person.
- Paul Fisher to his father in Tangerine (1997). Paul's dad sees him cutting out a newspaper article about the all-county soccer team and asks if he made the team. This annoys Paul, who quizzes his father about what position he played on his soccer team. Paul's dad angrily asks "How am I supposed to know that?" So Paul asks him how many field goals his brother kicked that season — Erik's football career being their dad's absolute favorite thing to talk about, ever. Paul's dad acknowledges the unfairness of this but also tries to claim that this season was really important for his brother.
- Darya from There's More Than One Way Home is so uninterested in her kids that she can't remember whether her son Kennedy is two or three.
- Under Suspicion Series:
- All Dressed in White: Downplayed with Sandra Pierce in regard to her missing daughter Amanda. While Sandra isn't a neglectful parent (especially compared to her ex-husband Walter) and dearly loves Amanda, it becomes evident she has an overly idealised view of her youngest child. Laurie notes that Amanda's sister and friends talk about Amanda in "a darker way" compared to her mother; Sandra didn't appear to realise Amanda felt trapped by her family's expectations and was having doubts about her upcoming marriage. On the other hand, Sandra does turn out to be right that Amanda would never have run away and left her loved ones worrying over her for years.
- In Piece of My Heart, Michelle Carpenter's best friend Lindsay says that Sandra "didn't know anything" about her daughter by the end of her life; Sandra says Michelle distanced herself from her after she adopted out her newborn son and only contacted her on birthdays and at Christmas. Notably, Sandra either had no idea or didn't believe that Michelle had finally gotten off drugs - to the point of being clean for almost two years - was living in a nice apartment and was finding success with a jewellery-making business. Lindsay says that as far as Sandra was concerned, her daughter was still a hopeless druggie living in squalor and she was all too ready to believe she'd died of an overdose. Crucially, Michelle had confided in Lindsay about the true circumstances of her pregnancy, while her mother still believed the one-night stand story she'd told her.
- Whateley Universe: Referenced in Silent Nacht (Chapter 5)
, with Mr. Magic:
"Really... you never bothered to find out what SEX your child really is?" Macabre sneered. "Such a negligent parent hardly has any room for such righteous indignation."
Live-Action TV
- Blackadder: King Richard IV never, ever gets his son Edmund's name right and makes no attempt to find out if his wishes for his son (marriage, Archbishopric) are in line with Edmund's.
- In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Willow's mom doesn't notice that her daughter got a haircut for months.
- Zig-zagged with Joyce, and partially justified as Buffy has actively been hiding the Slayer part of her life from her mother. But when it finally comes out, Buffy points out that there were several obvious red flags that Joyce should have but did not pick up on, including the numerous times she cleaned blood from Buffy's clothes without question. However, Joyce is dismayed to find out how much has been hidden from her (including that Buffy died briefly, calling another Slayer) and works to come to terms with this new part of her daughter's life very quickly.
- One episode of Clarissa Explains It All has her mother convinced of this trope, and becoming annoyingly clingy as a result.
- In the episode "Seven Seconds" in Criminal Minds, the team was able to figure out Richard Jacobs was molesting his niece, who has gone missing, due to the fact that he could easily recall all of her likes and interests, but couldn't recall anything about his own son. They state that it's common for a pedophile to focus entirely on their target to the point they lack any interest in their own kids.
- In The Love Boat episode "Aunt Hilly," Vicki's titular rich aunt insists that she loves her son and sent him to boarding school for his own good, not to get rid of him. But when asked when he was born, she can't come up with anything more specific than "April or May," which she only remembers because his birth interrupted a social function.
- An episode of MacGyver (1985) has the title character judging a contest at a college where one of the participants is the son of a professor. The professor is very hard on his son, who later loses the contest (because a competitor cheated). Both of these drive the son to build a bomb. During the stand-off, the son accuses his father of not really knowing him and even asks him several questions about himself. The father gets all of them wrong, including the son's birthday.
- Al and Peg Bundy on Married... with Children sometimes don't remember their kids' birthdays or even their names.
- One Day at a Time (2017): Penelope's husband Victor appears in season 2 after having been in Afghanistan for all of season 1. While he is happy to finally get to see his kids again, it quickly becomes clear that he is completely out of touch with who they are as people, his daughter Elena most especially, as she is now too old for the doll he brought her as a gift. This gets even worse when she comes out to him and he refuses to take her seriously.
- The Pretender: In the episode "Bank", Parker's emotionally distant father comes to visit her and tries to do the affectionate father thing, complimenting her on a painting she has hanging in her house and reminiscing about when she was little and took piano lessons. When she points out that the painting was a graduation present from him, and that he's wrong about what her favorite piano piece was, he shrugs it off.
- One episode of Roseanne combines this with Jacob and Esau: Roseanne accuses Dan of not knowing enough about Becky, Dan accuses her of not knowing enough about Darlene, and they "switch" for a while.
- Moira on Schitt's Creek doesn't know Alexis's middle name, and David once reminds her that she took the wrong child home from pre-school. Moira responds that Alexis looked Chinese as a baby. Moira does eventually make an effort to get to know Alexis.
- In Stranger Things, Will and Jonathan's Disappeared Dad shows up after Will's apparent death, though it becomes clear that he's more interested in the possibility that they could sue someone over it. When he mentions that they could use this money to send Jonathan to "any" college he wants, Joyce screams that Jonathan's wanted to go to New York University since he was six.
Video Games
- Another Code: Due to being away for long periods of time, Richard suffers a bad case of this in regard to his daughter Ashley. Case in point, Journey into Lost Memories opens with Ashley being ticked off that the trip to Lake Juliet is the same weekend she and her band were supposed to practice for an upcoming competition, and that her songbook was among the items stolen when she got off the bus. Not only did he not know Ashley was in the band, but he was unaware that she even wanted to be a musician for a career.
- God of War (PS4): This is the case with Kratos and Atreus, following years of Kratos being an incredibly distant parent. On several occasions, the two express a lack of knowledge about the other - which Kratos admits is his own fault.
Visual Novels
- In Mother of the Year, this becomes one of the decisive factors in the climactic Custody Battle between the titular mother Tara and her Jerkass ex Guy over their ten-year-old daughter Zoey. Tara's attorney Thomas asks Guy "What does Zoey want to be when she grows up?", and Guy is unable to answer, even though Zoey tells everyone who would listen that she wants to become an astronaut. Even Guy's attorney (and Tara's personal enemy) Vanessa is flabbergasted at his ignorance. Soon afterwards, Tara is awarded primary custody of Zoey.
- In Our Life: Beginnings & Always, Cliff likes to surprise his son Cove with spontaneous events and trips. Cove has then-undiagnosed autism and clearly doesn't appreciate these surprises as much as Cliff intends, leading to a somewhat-strained relationship between the two until Cove hits adulthood and they're able to talk it out.
Web Animation
- Helluva Boss:
- To show off how much of a Royally Bad Parent he is from the get-go, Paimon is introduced showing that he doesn't bother remembering his kids due to having so many of them that he asks an imp employee for Stolas's name instead.
- Stolas himself is a much more sympathetic version of this, as he definitely cares a great deal for his daughter Octavia, but their relationship became strained as she grew older, to the point where he has no clue about her current interests and his idea of cheering her up is to take her someplace she liked as a small child.
Web Original
- There is a story on Techtales about a doctor's office complaining that a computer program refuses to input a birth date as given by the patient's father... 2/29/1982.
Western Animation
- Aaahh!!! Real Monsters has Slickis genuinely unable to remember what activities his son Ickis likes.
- One episode of As Told by Ginger sees the title character calling Macie's parents, who are both brilliant psychiatrists completely wrapped up in their work, out for this. When they realize that they know absolutely nothing about their daughter, they try to make up for it; unfortunately, they do so by treating her like a five-year-old, doing things like buying her a child's playset and hosting her birthday party at a petting zoo. Macie likes the attention and goes along with the activities for a while, but ultimately decides that she'd rather try developing a proper relationship with her parents instead.
- In Avatar: The Last Airbender, Toph's parents are completely in the dark that their daughter is one of the greatest earthbenders in the world and a Little Miss Snarker, and instead see her as a meek, delicate flower in need of constant protection. When Toph personally proves her father wrong on this assumption, her parents just double down on the idea that Toph needs constant protection, leading her to run away for good. In Avatar: The Last Airbender - The Rift, Toph and her father have an unintentional reunion, and though her father continues to be stubborn in the first two volumes, when Toph saves him during a cave-in he realizes how ridiculous he's been and slowly begins to start appreciating Toph's abilities instead of stifling them.
- Fire Lord Azulon is definitely this regarding Ozai, completely oblivious to the fact that Azula is his son’s favorite child despite being second-born. The fact that she was named after him along with Ozai praising her firebending skills would be a dead giveaway, but his father is so apathetic to him that these clues just fly over his head. This makes him the least sympathetic of the Fire Lords before Zuko gained the throne, as Sozin was remorseful about what he started before his death, and Ozai had a good reason to believe that his own children are nothing more than tools for him to use.
- Family Guy: Often Played for Laughs regarding Meg Griffin, who is sometimes portrayed as so neglected that her parents have no idea who she is.
- In "The Kiss Seen 'Round the World," embarrassing footage of Meg kissing the super-annoying Neil Goldman airs on national TV. When she sees it, she flies into a panic:
Meg: [to Lois and Peter] I'M GONNA KILL MYSELF! I'm going upstairs and eating a whole bowl of peanuts!
[Lois and Peter stare at her, uncomprehending]
Meg: I'M ALLERGIC TO PEANUTS! YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT ME!
[Meg runs upstairs sobbing]
Peter: ..who was that guy? - In "Brian Wallows and Peter's Swallows", Peter ends up with baby swallows nesting in his newly-grown beard. When Lois points out that there are three of them, just like their own children, Peter imagines the kids' heads on the birds. He gets Stewie and Chris right, but can't picture Meg, and ends up picturing Boba Fett's helmet instead ("Sweeeet!").
- One first-season episode plays this trope for drama regarding Chris, who is a member of the Boy Scouts, but secretly hates it and prefers drawing instead. Peter is completely oblivious to this and keeps trying to force Chris to participate in scouting activities. After Chris finally confesses the truth, Peter is upset but tries to be supportive anyway.
- In "Dammit Janet", when Lois tries to bring a problem to his attention regarding Stewie, Peter cheerfully responds with a non-sequitur about how all their kid needs in life is a knapsack on his back, a can of beans, and a pocketful of dreams. When Lois asks if he even knows which of their kids she's talking about, Peter tentatively replies "G-Gordon?"
- In "Peter's Two Dads", Peter and Lois have no idea how old Meg is turning (17) and try to steer the conversation so she'll tell them.
Lois: So, Meg, your birthday's coming up, huh? You excited about turning...?
Peter: Uh, Meg, I got 16 candles for your birthday cake. How does that sound?
Meg: That's not right
Peter: So... less...? More...? Too many...?
Meg: You stupid son of a bitch! You didn't even know how old I am!
Lois: Meg, that kind of language is not appropriate for a girl your age... or is it? - In "German Guy", Chris is offended that an elderly man he only recently met knows his birthday, while Peter doesn't.
Chris: Well, learn my birthday, asshole!
- In "Dear Francis", Peter doesn't know any of his kids' names. He suggests they wear name tags as a joke, but later tells Lois he was being serious about it.
- In "The Kiss Seen 'Round the World," embarrassing footage of Meg kissing the super-annoying Neil Goldman airs on national TV. When she sees it, she flies into a panic:
- Gargoyles had an interesting twist. Hudson and Broadway know each other quite well, but according to Word of God, neither is aware they are father and son, respectively. note
- Played for Drama in Hey Arnold! regarding Helga and her parents. Both Big Bob and Miriam heap praise and attention on their firstborn daughter Olga, to Helga's detriment — Miriam doesn't know how old she is, and Bob tends to call her "Olga" despite her repeatedly telling him who she really is. Each gets an episode where they're forced to confront their total lack of understanding about Helga.
- In Invader Zim, Professor Membrane's neglect is a Running Gag. In one episode, Dib is trying to get his attention, and Membrane is so distracted that he mistakes him for a fan wanting an autograph.
- The Legend of Korra: An implied version; Aang showed definite favoritism towards his airbending son Tenzin, taking him to visit Air Nomad temples and holy sites. Somewhat understandable in that Aang was the Last of His Kind and thus desperate to pass on his culture to the only other person who could understand it, but it couldn't have made his kids' lives easy. Tenzin himself wasn't really aware of it until he and his siblings were in their fifties.
- Chloe's mom in Miraculous Ladybug never gets her name right on the first try.
- The Owl House: Played with regarding the Blight parents. Amity at one point blows up at her father, Alador, for not spending time with his children, pointing out that he didn't even know she was dating Luz (which surprises him, since his knowledge of Luz is mainly that she's the adopted-in-all-but-name daughter of his old classmate who is now the most wanted criminal in the Boiling Isles), and he resolves to do better going forwards. By contrast, it's ambiguous how well Odalia knows her kids, since she's horrifically abusive and probably would be regardless of how well she knew them. In fact, her overworking Alador is a large part of the reason he's not in his children's lives much anymore.
- The Simpsons: Homer Simpson isn't precisely the best father, so is not rare that he doesn't know his kids very well.
- From “Mother Simpson”:
Homer: [reading] Wife: Marjorie. Children: Bartholomew, Lisa - aha! See? This thing is all screwed up! Who the heck is Margaret Simpson?
Bureaucrat: Uh, your youngest daughter.- In "Saturdays of Thunder", Homer (besides not trying to stop Bart from the dangerous things he is doing), couldn't answer a single question regarding his son like just a hobby or the name of one of his friends.
- In the appropriately titled episode "The Dad Who Knew Too Little," Homer hired a private detective to learn more about Lisa after he gave her a "personalized" video and all the information he provided for it was completely wrong (for starters, he said her favorite food was McNuggets, despite the fact that she's a vegetarian).
- Then again, look at Homer's own father. In "D'oh-in' In The Wind", Homer realizes that he doesn't know what his middle initial ("J.") stands for, and neither does Abe, who notes that "it was your mother's job to name you and love you and such."
- Downplayed in The Spectacular Spider-Man: Flash's mother invites Peter to his birthday party, noting that they're "best friends."
Flash: That was in nursery school!
- Steven Universe:
- Sadie has some issues with her mom not quite having caught up to the fact that Sadie is an adult now.
- Connie's mother Priyanka doesn't even notice that Connie no longer has lenses in her glasses until it's pointed out by Connie sticking her fingers through the frames. Priyanka realizes her folly and takes more of an interest in who her daughter actually is and the events of her life.
- The Great Diamond Authority never realize that the youngest of them, Pink Diamond, is actually the one who instigated the rebellion for Earth as Rose Quartz because they tend to dismiss and ignore her in favor of their tyranny, even thousands of years after her demisenote .
- Young Justice:
- Sportsmaster, Artemis' abusive father, can't recognize his own daughter even when they're psychically linked. It takes her doing a move he taught her to believe that "Tigress" is really her, while her sister Jade is able to recognize her instantly.
Jade: She's your daughter. Can't you feel her presence here?
Sportsmaster: I don't even "feel" your presence here! - Dr. Silas Stone is a workaholic who loves his son Victor but has unintentionally fallen out of touch with his life. When Victor, upset about his father's absence at his recent football game despite having promised to attend, confronts him about his negligence, Silas argues that Victor should be focusing on bringing up his grades rather than banking on a football scholarship, upon which Victor angrily points out that he has a 4.0 GPA, which Silas would know if he were actually involved in his life.
- Sportsmaster, Artemis' abusive father, can't recognize his own daughter even when they're psychically linked. It takes her doing a move he taught her to believe that "Tigress" is really her, while her sister Jade is able to recognize her instantly.
Real Life
- Alec Baldwin, in the infamous voicemail message he left for his daughter Ireland in 2007, says at one point, "I don't give a damn that you're 12 years old or 11 years old..." (She was 11 at the time.)
- Sara Hammon, raised in a Fundamentalist Mormon and polygamist community, told about how her father had to continually ask "What is your name and who is your mother?" to each of his children.
- Unfortunately common with divorced parents, especially if the child was young when the divorce occurred. Even with regular visitations, the non-custodial parent will miss out on all the changes and developments their child is going through, resulting in progressively smaller frames of references as to what their child likes or does.