Adults Are Useless/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: Adults are no help to the underage protagonists

  • Straight:
    • In the small town of Adamsville, parents have no idea of the life-threatening situtations their kids go through. For example, teenagers Alice, Bob, and Charlie fight off the supernatural on a daily basis, but no one notices provided they get to school on time and are home for supper.
    • Alice and Bob bully up Charlie and other students on a daily basis. Charlie tells adults what's going on, but they refuse to do anything about it.
  • Exaggerated: When Adamsville is attacked by monsters the adults and military are helpless to fight them, while all the kids are superheroes who secretly fly off to save the day. Makes you wonder why the teachers don't notice their classrooms are vacant all of sudden.
  • Up to Eleven: Every single adult is in a vegetative state and thus unable to do anything. Or are incapacitated in other ways.
  • Justified:
    • The kids are good at keeping their parents in the dark.
    • The monsters can only be seen by children.
    • All the adults present on the film suffer from varying degrees of retardation and personality disorders like paedophobia.
    • The adults are Apathetic Citizens. What do you expect?
    • A more horrifying take would be the adults are killed by the monsters. The adults may have been killed to weaken the children.
  • Inverted:
    • The children are useless while the adults battle monsters and mafia.
    • The adults are actually far more competent than the kids are.
    • It looks this way, but when the adults finally step in, really start to get things done.
  • Subverted:
    • Most parents have no idea what their kids are doing, but Kesha, a young adult, notices the children and gives the adults a shot at Character Development
    • The adults secretly know what the kids are doing. They could be intentionally be "Worthless" to teach their kids to fight their own battles, or only step in when it's obvious the kids are over their heads.
  • Double Subverted:
    • Though it turns out she's the only one who cares for the kids, becoming the only useful adult.
    • The adults secretly know what the kids are doing... but don't interfere because it's good training for when they become adults and get to join in the even more awesome superheroics the adults are keeping secret.
    • The adults secretly knew what their kids were doing, and didn't get involved because they're even more secretly the villians.
  • Parodied: When danger comes the adults cry for their kids to save them.
  • Deconstructed:
    • Kesha becomes tired of the other adults' neglect, so she calls social services.
    • The adults are useless but when they see their kids nearly die protecting them, they feel remorse. Bonus points if this happens only after their children are dead.
    • The Adults are useless and just give worthless advice, or refuse to believe what the kids are saying, and refuse to step in, and something bad happens that they could have prevented. (Kids are hurt with varying levels of severity, for example.)
    • Adults encourage the bullying wither directly or with their own inaction.
    • Turns out the adults are the villains, meaning they're far from worthless.
  • Reconstructed:
    • The foster parents are even worse than their real parents.
    • After the adults become responsible and involved in their children's lives, the kids worry that this will mean the end of their adventures. As a result an Idiot Ball is handed to the adults.
    • The adults solve the surface problem, only to lead to Nice Job Breaking It, Hero. Turns out that the Big Bad had a gambit in play just in case the adults tried to butt in.
  • Zig Zagged:
    • The kids are losing and the adults are helpless because they see their children suffering terrible deaths they cannot explain. The concerned adults discover that their children are fighting a war against supernatural creatures the adults cannot see. Character development for adults and children leads to a successful coalition against the invisible supernatural adversaries. With the change in the tide of the war the adults become the new targets, but then even older adults, formerly considered useless by the parents, provide vital skills and discipline in coordinating the joint effort of the children and younger adults.
    • Alice and Bob beat up Charlie regularly. Dan tells a couple adults and they don't help. Dan and Charlie go tell another adult who steps in.
    • Only some adults are useless - some get in the way of the kids and do nothing but this, but others step in when they're informed of the problem
  • Averted:
    • The adults have the proportionate amount of skill and authority the average adult carries in the presence of children.
    • The problem the children deal with is a minor problem compared with the difficulty faced by the adults who would, if they were not engaged against a greater threat, deal with the minor problem themselves.
    • The adults actually do step in because they notice something was wrong. Especially authority figures such as teachers and police.
  • Enforced:
    • The producers are working with a Competence Zone limited to the average age of the target audience, and anyone not aged 7-15 is useless to the plot.
    • The second someone turns 16, they receive an Idiot Ball for their birthday.
  • Lampshaded: "We are the kids here! It's our responsibility, our power! They will probably think we are daydreaming or playing!"
  • Invoked: The kids handle the problem themselves because they know it would waste time attempting to convince any adult of the problem.
  • Defied: "Ms. Apple, if your child is in trouble one more time, I'm calling social services."
  • Discussed:
    • "Do your parents even care that we are missing?" "Sadly, Kesha, no."
    • "Is every adult a moron?!"
  • Conversed: "I don't understand these shows. Adults have the experience and dedication but when they're needed, they're never around! Why's that?"
  • Played For Laughs: The adults are just completely, comically, helplessly stupid, to the point where their children are taking care of them.
  • Played For Drama: The adults are drug addicts or are otherwise incompetent to raise children. Teachers and other reasonable authority figures are either astonished at the depths of the parents' neglect or they are just as bad. Or, they don't believe it or are apathetic.

Hey, Dad, can you help me get back to Adults Are Useless? Well...? I guess I'll just do it myself.

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