Give Him a Normal Life

So your hero has just become a mommy or a daddy -- wow! Either he wasn't planning on it, and has managed to admirably rise to the challenge of parenthood, or this is something he's always wanted, and having a baby is making many of his dreams come true. (Sometimes, it can be a mixture of both)

But it doesn't take long before there are problems. Having a child may have changed the hero, but it hasn't changed his life any. He still has to go out and save the world, fighting criminals or slaying monsters wherever they may roam. This kind of thing really cuts into spending quality time with the kid he wanted so much a few episodes ago, and can make him question how selfish he might be being.

There's also the inherent issue of him being a complete and total danger magnet. All those psychotic bad guys who, by virtue of existing and hating the hero, nearly destroyed the hero's love life (and perhaps continue causing dangerous hiccups in the hero's attempts at normalcy) are still out there, and couldn't care less that there's a baby in the picture now. In fact, how lucky this is for the villain that likes to attack the hero by kidnapping/torturing/killing his nearest and dearest! The hero now has someone else to lose.

Last, but never least, if the hero is supernatural or paranormal in some way, there's a good chance the baby will be just like him, with powers of his own that make him a target even without Mom or Dad's help.

Well, the hero loves his precious offspring more than anything else in the world, and couldn't bear it if anything happened to the kid, or if the kid had to live with all the stuff the hero has to every day.

"I just want to give him a normal life."

Being just that noble, the hero will then give his child up, to live in blissful normalcy with ordinary parents that will presumably provide the child with a life that doesn't have any supervillains.

It should be noted that despite the hero's best intentions (and presumably those of the adoptive parents), it's not unsual for the child's life to be anything but normal, especially if Superpowerful Genetics comes into play as mentioned above. (Or if the child is to grow up to be the protagonist of their own series.)

If the other parent enforces it, it's Turn Out Like His Father.

Compare It's Not You, It's My Enemies, where a hero goes through a similar process (with a similar result) with a love interest instead of a child. Related to Deliver Us From Evil for villains--many a bad gal has done a Heel Face Turn because the kind of life she leads is one she doesn't want for the kid in question. Also related to Muggle Foster Parents when the story goes back to follow the kid. Don't Tell Mama is an inversion of sorts where a character (usually a bad guy, but sometimes a good one) keeps an uncomfortable or disturbing truth about himself or his profession from his mother, family, or True Companions so that they can live a normal life in blissful ignorance.

Anime

 * Hinako Aikawa, the lead female from Bitter Virgin, was sexually abused by her stepfather and got pregnant twice. She had a miscarriage and lost her first baby, then when she gave birth to the second one, she preferred to give the baby boy up for adoption, so the kid would have a chance for a normal life.
 * It's strongly hinted that Ryuuken Ishida and his son Uryu are distanced because father didn't want son becoming a Quincy and facing the dangers of such a life. It may also be a reason why Ryuuken hardly ever uses his abilities in front of his son.
 * In One Piece, Luffy's Disappeared Dad was unknown to him until revealed to him by his grandfather. That's probably because his father is  When that relation is ultimately revealed, Luffy has already become a world-famous pirate and his father remarks simply that he's not a child anymore.
 * And it turns out Garp did the exact same thing for
 * In the beginning of the final arc of the Sailor Moon anime series, Sailor Stars, Setsuna (Sailor Pluto) takes baby Hotaru (Sailor Saturn) away from her father to live with her, as well as Haruka (Sailor Uranus) and Michiru (Sailor Neptune), who are concerned at the amount of knowledge that Hotaru takes in. Michiru laments that she wanted Hotaru to grow up like a normal girl.
 * OTOH, in the manga Professer Tomoe is killed by Sailor Moon and they raise her through the end of the 3rd arc until the end of the 4th, as a more or less normal girl. She gets her powers back at this point.
 * In Lucky Star, Soujirou remembers that his late wife Kanata asked this for Konata. Kanata was hoping their daughter wouldn't inherit her height and Sou's Otaku tendencies, but it turns out to be exactly that when she grew up.
 * Mahou Sensei Negima: Turns out that this is part of the reason that Negi ended up living with his cousin. As a war hero, his father made enemies that still hold a grudge on him for foiling their plans.  Just look at his hometown when they found where he lives...
 * Also what Ala Rubra did with
 * A fan-proposed reason in Naruto for why . Also one of the reasons Minato instituted his secrecy law about the Kyuubi. Their attempts were not entirely successful..
 * Fate of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha initially opposed her adopted children Erio and Caro joining the Time-Space Administration Bureau despite their abilities (Caro can summon dragons, and Erio made it to B rank at the age of 10), and notes to herself that she had hoped they would take a more peaceful path in life. Over time, she becomes more at ease about allowing them to serve.
 * In Code Geass Nightmare of Nunnally, Marianne expresses the desire that Lelouch and Nunnally can live as humans..
 * Used in the Zeta Gundam movies, when  Years later,
 * Whilst Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ is in a different (and more canonical) continuity than the Zeta movies, it shows that the same thing happened there as well.
 * Also in Gundam Seed's backstory, when
 * Used in Karin, after

Comic Books

 * This is most of the reason why Catwoman/Selina Kyle gave up her daughter Helena for adoption.
 * Cynical readers believe the writers got rid of Helena upon realizing that a baby would be inconvenient for a Chaotic Neutral thief, and that Selina would have most likely gotten an abortion in the first place.
 * Inversion: In one Astro City story arc, Jack-In-The-Box, after visits from evil future versions of his unborn son (they turned evil because he died and wasn't available as a father), semi-retires from super-heroics to raise the child. He recruits a replacement and relegates himself as Mission Control support.
 * In the Batman comics,  gave up her baby at birth because of her own heroic activities and her father's villainous ones; she refuses even to let   tell her whether the baby was a boy or a girl.
 * An inversion occurs in Fantastic Four where Reed and Sue Richards do not want to give their children up to Child Protective Services. They realize how dangerous their lives are, but they also believe they are the only ones capable of protecting the children. They make a deal with the CPS agent to announce on TV that they had given up the children, but the safehouse location was secret. In less than a few hours, the undisclosed safehouse was destroyed by rockets; the children had never been moved and were allowed to stay with their parents.
 * Oh, and it turns out.
 * In Usagi Yojimbo,
 * This is also kind of the reason Usagi

Film

 * In a flashback in the movie Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, her mother is shown dropping the infant Elvira off at a convent to protect her from the convoluted magical politics in their family.
 * Possibly Alessa's intention with, Sharon, in the Silent Hill movie, but if it was,.
 * In Wanted, this is the reason that Wesley's father left the family when Wes was a week old. He was trying to save the kid from growing up to be a Crazy Awesome assassin. Unfortunately for him, Wesley later Jumped At the Call.

Literature

 * Subversion: Parent figure Dumbledore leaves infant Harry to the Muggle world so that he has a chance of growing up relatively normal and level-headed.  It's a miracle it works, as the foster parents he had could have made him a new Voldemort. He does acknowledge his error at the end of Book 5, though.
 * Likewise,  Lupin actually says this to Harry:


 * The other wizard Harry gives up his daughter so that she can have a normal life - or a life at all - in Changes.
 * In the book Ruby Red, Gwen's mother lies about her birth date so that no-one will suspect that she inherited the family time-traveling gene; she hopes that Gwen won't inherit it after all and can live as a normal kid. For sixteen years, Gwen's cousin Charlotte (who has the same birthday) is believed to be the heir of the gene, and she was groomed to survive in the past. But then Gwen starts time-traveling.

Live Action TV

 * On The X-Files, Scully gives her infant son up for adoption to protect him from the villains hunting him down.
 * In the third and final season of Roswell, Max gives his son, Zan, up for adoption to protect the boy from the life of secrecy and persecution Max has had to live with for the entire series.
 * Angel had the extremely rare usage of this trope when the child in question wasn't a baby. Angel sold himself to Wolfram and Hart so that his teenaged son Connor could be placed with a new family and new memories, to be safe and happy. It doesn't quite last - the kid's memories are restored a few months later - but while he gets the memories back, he keeps his new, much more stable, personality, so it's still an improvement.
 * In a flashback, Xena is shown doing this with her son Solan. She places the boy with a centaur foster father so that he can grow up in peace and safety (and away from his mother's violent influence).
 * Richard Sharpe gives up his baby daughter to her uncle after her mother dies so she'll have a proper family.
 * On Charmed, this is the explanation for why the Halliwell Sisters grew up not being able to use their powers or knowing about them: Their mother and grandmother "bound their powers" in order to let them live a safe and normal life. This was never quite as much of an option with baby Wyatt, who is an even greater Chosen One than the Charmed Sisters themselves, but the Halliwell Sisters stil had a tendency to wish that they could give Wyatt a normal life.
 * This pretty much sums up why Papa Bartowski left his children on Chuck - another rare case of this trope happening when the children in question weren't infants.
 * Occurs in an unusual way on Lost:.
 * In one episode of Monk this sort of occurs; Monk bonds with an orphan who found a severed finger while investigating the case, and starts to want to adopt him. Eventually, Monk delivers The Summation in the form of telling a story to the boy about the boy being a prince with all the standard fairy tale trappings, and at the end delivers the very poignant line . When a family arrives to adopt the kid, Monk tells them "let him get dirty. Kids should get dirty", indicating that he doesn't want Tommy developing all the phobias he has.
 * In the second Kamen Rider Den-O movie, the heroes work with a police investigator who's trying to live up to the image of his father, a great cop who was killed in the line of duty. At the end of the movie, as a "thank you" for his help, the team takes him back to 1986 so he can see his father at least once. At one point the father's partner asks if he wants his son to become a cop too, to which he responds, "No, I don't want him having to do this for a living."

Theater

 * Next to Normal quotes this almost verbatim in one song. However, it's in reference to Diana staying and trying to be a responsible mother even though she's struggling with severe bipolar disorder.

Video Games

 * Fallout 3 has the main character's Father, a scientist who wants you to stay in the Vault, while he goes out and about in the Capital Wasteland.
 * It backfires. Horribly.
 * tried to do this with  in Ever 17 to  )
 * In Mass Effect 2, Miranda Lawson is the genetically-engineered offpring of a powerful business tycoon who wanted her to be his "heir." To do this, he was extremely obsessively controlling of her life, to the point that when she decided that she wanted to live her own life, the resulting argument turned into a running gun battle. As a result, when Miranda learned of her, she swore to herself that  . Completing this mission forms the basis of Miranda's personal mission in the game.
 * John Marston in Red Dead Redemption wanted his family to have a normal life, particularly his son Jack who wanted to be like his Father. Thus, he . However, this would only backfire and make Jack follow in his father's footsteps.
 * John Marston in Red Dead Redemption wanted his family to have a normal life, particularly his son Jack who wanted to be like his Father. Thus, he . However, this would only backfire and make Jack follow in his father's footsteps.

Web Comics

 * In WTF Comics,.
 * In Order of the Stick, Vaarsuvius chooses not to contest his/her mate's divorce so that their children can have "the normal life of a baker's family." This was shortly after an Ancient Black Dragon tried to kill them and ensnare their souls for eternity.
 * Batman and Sons plays with this--Terry's mother,, leaves him with Batman because he'll be safer that way, but of course there's no illusion that he'll have a normal life.

Mythology

 * Inspiring the Xena reference above, Zeus' mother Rhea lovingly palmed her youngest son off on a centaur to raise on a beautiful island. (So her husband wouldn't swallow him like the rest.) This was somewhat more of a 'keep him alive' stratagem than a 'normal life' one--there hadn't even really been enough people in the history of the world at this point for 'normal to have many benchmarks.
 * However, since Zeus' older siblings came out of Kronos' stomach fully grown and ready for war, having presumably matured in there, there is a normal life element. Since a major factor in both wars was the question of whether Gaia's ugly children would be immured forever underground where the current lord of the universe didn't have to look at them, growing up in your father's stomach counts as 'abnormal' even then.
 * Oddly, Zeus doesn't seem to be any better adjusted than any of his sisters and brothers. Trauma may work differently for gods.
 * And his children aren't any better adjusted, either.
 * Mainly because he either ate them like Athena, who came out fully grown. (Do these people learn nothing of their parents?) or completely neglected by their father and tormented by their evil stepmother.

Western Animation

 * Happens in Futurama. For a few seasons, Leela, who grew up in an orphanage with no knowledge of her origins, always believed herself to be an alien. It turns out that her parents.
 * In the Christmas Episode of Hey Arnold!, Mr. Hyunh reveals that a couple of decades back during the Vietnam War, his village was attacked, but some soldiers were evacuating civilians. However, they only had room on the helicopter for one, so Mr. Hyunh gave up his then two-year-old daughter Mai to the soldiers, so she could have a better life.