Friend to All Children

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
Let the children come to me, do not prevent them, for the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these.

"♪KRAAAAAAAGERRRRAAA!!!♪ Friend to All Children, here to help!"

—Kragera, friend to all children, The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy

Just describing a character as being fond of (or at least having a soft spot for) children is an automatic Pet the Dog since Children Are Innocent with bonus points if the kids like the character back. Characters who don't like kids are usually villains or, at most, anti-heroic. Note that this trope doesn't apply if it is a disguise put on to avoid suspicion for something else entirely...

This is mainly a trait of the Gentle Giant, the Emotional Bruiser, The Messiah, a requirement for Purity Personified[1] unless Pure Is Not Good is in play, and a redeeming trait for many antiheroes. Overlaps with Wouldn't Hurt a Child, as characters who fit this trope not only are reluctant to injure children, but would go out of their way to protect children if it was necessary.

And God help you if you're dumb enough to harm a child in the presence of someone with this character trait. They do not like that at all.

This is Older Than Feudalism. Compare Friend to All Living Things and Big Brother Instinct, and contrast Child-Hater.

Examples of Friend to All Children include:

Anime and Manga

  • Berserk, of all series plays with this concerning Guts of all people. Even though he's regularly a dick to anyone and everyone (including kids), it's usually for their own protection (and because he does not want to see them hurt). Despite the emotional scars of his own horrific childhood (or perhaps because of them) and his gruff nature, children seem to just love him. Unfortunately, considering the nature of the series, Wouldn'tHurtAChild is subverted horribly in the most graphic and heartbreaking way possible.
  • In Black Lagoon, one of Rock's few real Berserk Buttons is someone abusing or harming a child. Even when Garcia Lovelace throws food at him or "Gretel" openly propositions him he'll do all he can to help them.
  • A defining trait of any of the heroes in Fist of the North Star. Kenshiro himself is one of the most famous Papa Wolves in anime and manga, but the biggest examples are Fudoh and Shu.
  • Frowski the Crimson Bullet, from Beet the Vandel Buster, loves kids and animals...but only at a certain level of cuteness. After that, they're dead meat.
  • Ash from MAR, despite being a member of the evil chess group, only sides with them because he believes their actions will lead to a peaceful world for kids. He even plays with children when he isn't fighting.
    • He even tries to convince Ginta to give up during their battle because he doesn't want to hurt him. And this is one of the top grade fighters.
  • Oddly enough, Seto Kaiba from Yu-Gi-Oh. Especially orphans, which makes sense, seeing as he was one. It's a package deal with his Hidden Heart of Gold.
  • Believe it or not, Death Note's L of all people is presented in the spin-off L: Change the World as being very good with kids. Despite the fact he has No Social Skills, he's shown as being very protective of the Whammy Orphans, acts a little nicer around them, and is seen talking to a group of kids and answering whatever questions they might have. In the canon continuity, Mello and Near both look up to him as a Big Brother Mentor so it's implied he might have been this to them, at least, in the anime and manga.
  • Spike Spiegel from Cowboy Bebop says that he hates "kids, animals, and women with attitudes." Guess who's on the ship with him...
  • Nicholas D. Wolfwood from Trigun runs his own orphanage because he doesn't want kids to grow up the way he did.
    • Vash also spends a lot of time caring for / playing with children. He's really good with them. There's also the manga-only character Auntie Melanie, the orphanage lady who brought Wolfwood up. Millie is really good with children, too, being very sweet and having so many nieces and nephews, although she doesn't seek them out the way the guys do, because she's not so needy.
  • Alexander Anderson, from Hellsing, operates an orphanage where he actually raised some of Iscariot's members including Enrico Maxwell, Heinkel Wolfe, and Yumie Takagi. In fact when we first see him in the OVA, he is breaking up a fight between two children, telling them that "Violence is never the right answer, except when used against heathens and monsters."
  • In Fullmetal Alchemist, Al and Ed's interactions with the innocent little girl Nina fall into this category.
    • Except that's only one kid...of course, Al is thirteen at this point, despite his looks.
    • Riza Hawkeye is a straighter example of the trope, being in her late twenties. She develops an immediate affinity for Winry and the Elric brothers; we're not shown her interacting with Winry later, as their paths don't cross, but Ed and Al remain very fond of her and vice versa.
  • Yoko, as well as Kittan, from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.
    • The man himself, the mighty Kamina, is this as well- while he doesn't get a whole lot of screentime with kids he does explain at one point he keeps fighting so that the children of the future can live under the open sky, as opposed to underground.
  • All Princess Marina Ismail has done since the beginning of the second season of Mobile Suit Gundam 00 was comforting and taking care of the (orphaned) children at the La Résistance base. Makes more or less sense, considering that these kids are from her kingdom. Which was swiftly destroyed by the local Complete Monster, Ali Al Saachez.
  • Fate Testarossa-Harlaown of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, who has a habit of saving, adopting, and befriending (not in that way) orphaned children.
    • Zafira turned out to be one too. Sound Stage M4 revealed that he plays and teaches kids on his spare time, and used to give Hayate and Nanoha giant doggy rides when they were kids. Hayate was the envy of all the neighborhood kids due to that.
  • Chachamaru in Mahou Sensei Negima. When Negi and Asuna followed her in an early chapter, they found her surrounded by a lot of children who're playing with her while she goes around doing good deeds, like handing a balloon stuck in a tree back to the little girl who lost it and saving kittens from drowning. Unsurprisingly, they quickly lost the motivation to beat up Chachamaru since she turned out to be a genuinely good person even though she's a minion of the then Big Bad Eva. Then again, Eva didn't turn out to be as bad as she liked to paint herself either, so it sort of makes sense, all told.
  • Deathsaurus, the Big Bad of Transformers Victory, has a soft spot for human children and even "adopts" an injured infant who parents were killed in one of his attacks on Earth and turns him into a cyborg.
  • Tsuna from Katekyo Hitman Reborn. Pretty much every child he meets gets really attached to him. Particularly of the deadly, assassin kind. It's even lampshaded that he constantly finds himself babysitting them (which he laments about). However, even though he complains and finds it an inconvenience, he sincerely does like them. In fact, one chapter was dedicated to showing that, out of all the characters, Tsuna was the one that was most fit to raise Lambo. So far, he's been raising Lambo and I-Pin, and Futa was shown to get very attached to him.
    • Subverted with Gokudera. In one chapter, Futa ranked Gokudera as the most fit to become a kindergarten school teacher (out of 82,203 people), claiming that Gokudera is ranked number 2 out of 82,203 people that like kids. Everyone is shocked, and Gokudera himself starts wondering if maybe he unconsciously liked them after all. Of course, it turns out that it was because Futa's ranking system went wonky because of the rainy weather...
    • And then there's Lanchia, who despite having the Face of a Thug, is very nice to children and has Fuuta, I-Pin and Lambo literally crawling over him when he visits Tsuna's house.
  • In the Full Metal Panic!: Overload! manga, Sousuke is shown to be a huge child magnet. He doesn't particularly like children (and, being the paranoid Crazy Survivalist he is, always suspects them to be spies of the enemy), but they love him. All of them love his over-the-top way of doing things, and think his Drill Sergeant Nasty attitude is awesome. His ward Kaname, on the other hand, likes children. However, none of them seem to like her.
    • And in Fumoffu, there was that gang leader's younger brother (who was in elementary school), who seemed to really like Sousuke, calling him an "interesting guy." Of course, Sousuke did bribe him for his cooperation, but... the kid really liked him even without all that.
  • Subverted (like all opportunities to Pet the Dog) by Johan Liebert of Monster. It looks like Johan has a soft spot for children—he's been shown watching over some on occasion and, when posing as a college grad student, majors in law focusing on children's rights—until we actually meet one of these kids he's been "caring" for and learn about this fun little game he's been encouraging them to play...
  • Apachai Hopachai, one of the teachers of Kenichi the Mightiest Disciple, is often playing with children and is able to be gentle with them despite having been trained to go all out whenever he fights. Because Apachai also goes all out when training Kenichi (nearly killing him more than once), he learns to relate training Kenichi with playing with those children in order to temper that tendency.
  • For a 20-year-old young man that was practically raised by wolves and is horrible at socializing with other adults (in a way that doesn't involve punching something), Mobile Fighter G Gundam's Domon Kasshu is surprisingly good with kids ("Domon, since when have you started babysitting?"). Then again, given that he more or less has the social skills of a ten-year-old, maybe it does make some sense.
    • He even gets a Papa Wolf moment in the first episode, though of course he denies caring later. When one of the local thugs tries to mistreat a kid in front of him, the next scene is of that guy flying backwards out of the door at high speed.
  • Mifune from Soul Eater loves children, and serves people he actively hates simply because it's what he believes is the best way to protect his ward. He also has difficulty fighting BlackStar until the latter proves to him that, as a ninja, he's considered an adult warrior. And he blushes when offered the chance to work as a teacher of children.
  • One Piece's Zoro tends to be this, whether he likes it or not. When we first meet him, he had killed a dog for attacking a little girl, which got him arrested. And later on, whenever Chopper's in danger, Zoro is usually the one to get him out of it and can get very protective of him. He also 'gently' KOed a 'nun' and a little kid in the Baroque Works village, rather than slashing them (as he does the adult males who attack him). He also takes on Miss Monday barehanded, although this may be out of a need for speed (or to prove a point) rather than gentlemanliness.
    • Another example is Captain, later Commodore, Smoker. When this muscular, cigar-chomping Marine is suddenly bumped into by a little girl who spills ice cream on his pants, the kid's father is worried to panicking- but Smoker gets down on eye level with the kid, apologizes for his "mean pants" eating up her ice cream, and gives her what's basically 50 bucks so she can go buy a new cone. This is his introductory scene to the series, and serves to show that he's not corrupt, unlike many of the other Marine officers before and after.
  • Bean Bandit from Gunsmith Cats, it gets pointed out to him rather abruptly in Riding Bean when the villain turns her own accomplice into a hostage.

"You have a serious character flaw. What matters to you is not whether it's friend or foe, but whether or not it's a kid."

  • Gintoki from Gintama definitely qualifies. He busted up the illegal gladiator ring in order to avenge the fallen gladiator, who took in many orphans and was trying to run away from the gladiator ring with those children, and fought against the entire underground city and its boss (who is from one of the strongest races in the universe) so one child could reunite with his mother.
  • When Terry Bogard first sees Lily Maguire after many years, she introduces herself as a playful and sexy vamp who offers to stay all night long with the man who catches her favorite red rose. However, he soon sees that she's got Hidden Depths - by catching her interacting with a bunch of Street Urchins to whom she gives food, money and kind words.
  • Curiously, Haruhi Suzumiya seems to get along very well with children. She adores Kyon's little sister and is also seen playing joyfully with children in the pool during the Endless Eight arc.
    • Maybe because they're just as... energetic as she is?
  • Hayate the Combat Butler's Hayate finds comfort in the fact that kids like him, even to the point of suggesting off-handedly of becoming a kindergarden teacher after Isumi states she likes him, despite the fact that the 'kids' are only three years younger than him. This is on top of his Unwanted Harem, since it also includes Wataru. Hayate isn't a Gentle Giant though Papa Wolf tendencies may play a part.
  • Okita Souji from Peacemaker Kurogane is often seen playing with children outside the Shinsengumi compound, and gets along very well with Tetsu
  • In Durarara!! it turns out that, against all odds, Shinra Kishitani is actually very good with small children. Of course, since Shinra has a well-earned reputation of being a kinky pervert, even his friends assume the worst.
  • Dr. Hiroshi Agasa of Detective Conan, the adult that the Detective Junior League get along the best with.
  • Irako Seigen from Shigurui is an unusual example. A ruthless killer and manipulator, but when ever he has to deal with children he goes out his way to be nice to them. Notable with the starving street urchin. No one else would touch the kid, but he washed her, gave her food and even a place to stay.
  • Despite being a Bastard Boyfriend, Kyo from Black Bird gets along very well with children. Taro adores him, to start.
  • Bleach has Ukitake, who certainly seems to think he's good with kids but finds himself with stubborn and bad-tempered ones who are Really Seven Hundred Years Old - see Lilynette in canon and the long-suffering Hitsugaya in omakes. And in the case of the Token Loli Arrancar, actually want to kill him.
  • Fairy Tail has Erza as a fine example. When the titular Fairy Tail forms an alliance with some other guilds to take down a powerful enemy, one of the guilds only send a young girl, Wendy, to help. Most of the alliance members are protesting to have a child help them, however Erza is the only one to say to Wendy that she is glad to have her on their team and excuse for the other's reactions. Later, when Wendy breaks down crying when realizing that her guild companions are nothing but an illusion, it's Erza who comforts Wendy and invites her to Fairy Tail. And yeah, Erza is the resident harsh, stoic Badass of Fairy Tail.
  • Yusuke Urameshi of Yu Yu Hakusho notes that while he has trouble with just about everyone else due to his bad reputation, he at least can still make children happy. And of course, the whole story begins with him diving in front of a car to save a child.
  • Whether it's because he's a father or because he's prone to acting like one himself, Tiger and Bunny's Kotetsu T. Kaburagi is rather fond of children. Of course, whether children are actually fond of him is a different matter.
  • Mentioned in Please, Jeeves. Bertie comments in the narration, "It's one of my personal virtues that children attach themselves to me. It's inevitable." (The scene in question involved a little girl grabbing his hand in the middle of a crowded fair and sticking by his side, telling him about her new doll. Other than this, it's an Informed Attribute, since other kids in both the manga and the original stories almost universally hate him, and the original story even mentioned that the girl only attached herself to Bertie because she figured he'd be as good as anyone.)
  • Galatea from Claymore is another orphanage operator. After abandoning the organization and blinding herself as to make sure that they wouldn't pick up her yoki and find her, she hid in the holy city of Rabona and became a nun in the church. There, she started to take care of the orphans that were under the church's care. After a massive confrontation that revealed her identity as a claymore, who are forbidden from entering the holy city, the priests implored Galatea to stay, since the children loved her so much.


Comic Books

  • Hellboy loves babies and kittens.
    • This is exaggerated ridiculously in the movies, but he's basically just a squishy nice guy. Who doesn't see many children and is adorably awkward when he does interact with them; usually in the order of 'hey, kid, don't do that. You'll die.'
  • Rorschach, from Watchmen, is a clear-cut Anti-Hero and also one of the main prototypes of the Nineties Anti-Hero. Nevertheless, he's got a soft spot for kids. For example, he'll call his former landlady a whore to her face... but not in front of her children. (Though that's tied up with his own childhood trauma and the assholes who called him 'whoreson'--and the fact that he hadn't realized until that moment that, unlike his mother, she actually cared about them.) Indeed his Start of Darkness was basically a Freudian Excuse combined with what he did when he realized just what one perp had done to the kidnapped little girl he was trying to rescue.
  • Batman. He's not the touchy-feely sort that usually dominates this trope, but he definitely seems to have shades of it - possibly because his own childhood was cut off in such a nightmarish manner.
    • And of course, there's Robin, who Bats apparently adopted solely because he needed it.
    • He shows similar tendencies in the graphic novel The Dark Knight Returns and several other sources; most likely due to his orphaning at such a young age. He does NOT like people to mess with kids.
    • Subverted for most of All-Star Batman and Robin The Boy Wonder, but then he got better.
    • In the No Man's Land novel, he tells Gordon that he won't interfere if he kills Joker. Joker just shot Sarah, Gordon's wife. However, he also just kidnapped and violently endangered 30-something babies.
    • In that same arc, Poison Ivy also fulfills this trope. She takes over the Gotham City Park, but winds up making it a refuge for all the children orphaned in the earthquake. When the police try to force her out, she eventually turns herself in so that one of the children can get urgently needed medical attention.
    • Young Justice actually makes a plot point out of the fact that Batman is, in fact, better than Superman when it comes to working with kids.
    • Seriously, Batman practically runs an orphanage with the way he keeps taking on kids under his wing. The list includes: Dick/Robin/Nightwing, Barbara/Batgirl/Oracle, Jason/Robin II, Tim/Robin III/Red Robin, Damian/Robin IV, Cassandra/Batgirl II, and Stephanie/Spoiler/Robin IV/Batgirl III. Even in the world of The Dark Knight Returns, where It Got Worse with Dick, Batman still has Carrie Kelly as Robin "DKR."
      • Cynics might point out that all of the aforementioned kids Batman takes in become Robin or/and Batgirl at some point, but Batman has fostered kids temporarily and returned them to normal life. Possibly the best known example of this is in the "You Should've Seen Him" story (Batman #423). Batman finds a brother and sister orphan pair literally dumpster diving to survive, and works as Bruce to reunite them with a surviving relative.
      • One of the most recurring things about Batman is the fact that he's never scary to children, despite being downright blood-chilling to a lot of criminals. "The Batman Nobody Knows" (Batman #250) takes this to its logical conclusion. Bruce takes some inner-city kids camping. Naturally they swap scary stories around a campfire, and this being Gotham, all the kids talk about Batman. Their exaggeration makes Bats seem like part demon, part giant, and also "Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown, Shaft, and Superfly all rolled into one!" Finally, having slipped away during the last story, THE Batman leaps into the firelight. Not only are the kids not scared, they recognize him as Bruce!
  • In The Authority, Midnighter has a surprising knack with children, and kids in return think he's pretty cool. Not bad for a Sociopathic Hero.
  • Johnny the Homicidal Maniac makes a point of not murdering kids, and has "Little Chubby Babies" listed under things he likes (in the Directors Cut). If someone tries to harm a child in his presence he gets angry. With knives. That said, kids tend to be terrified of him. This is not unjustified.
  • The Sin City short story, Silent Night, definitely showcases Marv's soft spot for kids. This soft spot also seems to override his chivalry toward women as shown when he executes a female slave trader in order to save a little girl from sexual slavery.
  • Spider Jerusalem from Transmetropolitan seems to hate children slightly less than he does the rest of humanity. At one of his more annoyed moments, he ends up accosted by a noisy (and overly cheerful) street musician and his son—Spider performs a Groin Attack on the musician and does some rather unpleasant things to his instrument, and then tips the kid with hundred dollars before storming off.
    • And another time, a little girl has to pawn her teddy bear to pay for her medicine. Spider goes in the shop, buys the bear back, and gives it to her. D'aaaaaawww.
  • Pol Pitron from Yoko Tsuno makes an excellent babysitter. Just ask Poky, to start.
  • Brutally subverted by a one off villain from Ghost Rider. She had a good reputation with children and many of them came over to her house to play. How she kept this reputation when kids kept disappearing isn't explained. After being crippled she sells her soul to a demon that she uses to hunt down more children.
  • Kid heroes, like all three Robins, think Superman is extremely cool because he never talks down to them the way many heroes do to their grown-up pals' "sidekicks".
  • Wolverine in the X-Men comics has a tendency to take on a mentor/big-brother role to the younger members of the team. Starting with Kitty Pryde, then Jubilee, and currently X-23 and Armour, as well as a Team up with the Power Pack and 5 year old Katie Power. All his mentoring storylines were combined into Rogue for X-Men 1.
    • Case in point, when his rivalry with Cyclops boiled over in Schism and they came to blows, it was over the issue of getting the younger X-Men involved in combat; with Cyclops willing to allow it but Wolverine dead-set against it. In the wake of the event, Wolverine took his half of the X-Men and re-established the school for young mutants that the group originally had been.
  • The Asguardian Volstagg (a supporting character in The Mighty Thor) loves children; he and his wife have seven of their own, including two orphaned mortal children he adopted who mistook him for Santa Claus. This is played tragically in one story where he tries to protect several Light Elf children from a Muspelhelm bombing raid, but he cannot, as he is far more durable than they are. This leads to him picking up the Ultimate Thor's hammer and becoming a literal embodiment of divine retribution, fueled by the pain and rage of all of Surtur's victims.

Film

  • Gamera is the Trope Namer.
  • In one scene of Hard Boiled, the main character holds a baby in one arm and sings a lullaby to him while gunning down incoming Mooks with his other arm.
  • Smith from Shoot Em Up seems to have a soft spot for infants. Why else would he go through all that trouble for one baby?
  • In Tropic Thunder, one of the film's fake trailers is a sci-fi action film titled Scorcher VI with Ben Stiller. In one scene of the "trailer," he is seen holding a baby in one arm and a BFG in the other. In another scene, he is holding a pair of BFGs and has a pair of babies strapped to his chest.
  • Timon and Pumbaa from The Lion King, but especially the latter.
  • Although one couldn't exactly call him a "friend" to children, Don Rafael Montero from The Mask of Zorro demands that all the children be removed from the courtyard where he's ordered several executions to take place.
  • In at least one of the lucha films starring El Santo, he's given this title. It's also shown in movies that don't drag out the phrase, for instance in La Venganza De La Momia ("The Vengeance of the Mummy"), where Santo adopts a boy who has just lost his last relative to the mummy.
  • Interestingly from The Dark Knight Saga, it's usually the kids who aren't afraid of Batman, as most of them admire him and see him as a hero figure, unlike most of the adults. And Batman doesn't seem to mind them, since in the first movie, he gave one of his gadgets to a kid and in the second one, he apologetically bowed his head in grief towards Gordon's son when Gordon was supposedly killed.
  • Referred to in Tongan Ninja

Action Fighter: I once knew a man who was good with children. They called him... Children Man! Do you know him?
Gun Man: Yes, I kneecapped him and killed him
Action Fighter: Nice


Literature

  • Hagrid of Harry Potter, of course. Sure, the fact that he's a Nightmare Fetishist Fluffy Tamer tends to creep people out, but he is rather fond of children.
    • Put another way: you know Hagrid would never try to hurt your kid. But you can't exactly blame people for wondering if he's really the best person to be teaching a class on magical zoology.
  • In The Painted Veil, it is revealed that Walter is fond of babies, which makes him more sympathetic in Kitty's eyes and causes her to realize that maybe she has misunderstood him.
  • The Stormwings, from Tamora Pierce's Tortall Universe series, are monstrous immortals that look like harpies with steel wings. Their entire raison d'etre is to defile the bodies of those killed in battle so that no-one can pretend war is glorious. They stink to high heaven, they have an aura of fear, they feed off of the fear they cause in others. Oh, and they have a real soft spot towards children, of any species.
    • Heck, they even take ten-year old Maura for a joy-ride by hanging onto the ropes of a swing that she's sitting on.
      • One of them mentions that this is because childbearing is very difficult for stormwings.
    • In a later book, they perch around a square where a mob is rioting in order to feed off the fear...and then swoop down to save children who were about to be trampled.
  • The hero of Richard Adams' novel Shardik is nicknamed "Plays With the Children" by the other members of his tribe.
  • Discworld's Nanny Ogg loves children and they (for the most part) love her, without much effort or forethought on her part. Much to the consternation of Magrat, who puts in effort (and research) to be a Friend to All Children, but sucked at it. (At least until she had one of her own.)
    • However, disturbingly subverted by another Discworld character: the last King of Ankh-Morpork. After a description of how Samuel Vimes' ancestor killed him, it is mentioned that "he was very fond of children."
  • Alan Grant, the hero of Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park, is fond of children, pointing out that you couldn't find another group more enthusiastic about dinosaurs.
    • In The Movie, this is inverted, and Grant is specifically not fond of children, so as to give him a character arc as he bonds with Lex and Tim.
  • Jane from Pride and Prejudice. It comes with being The Ingenue.
  • When Mat from The Wheel of Time is infected by a Hate Plague Rand notices that the only people that Mat was not suspicious of were children. Later on after he gets cured, Mat saves Olver from getting beaten and tries to hire a local innkeeper to take care of him. Mat ends up all but adopting Olver after he follows him.
    • Takes a dark turn in the character of Mesaana. While the other Forsaken were out leading armies against the forces of the Light during the Age of Legends, Mesaana spent her time setting up schools for children in conquered territories. However, it was there that she taught them the values of the Shadow and encouraged them to turn on their own families. Three thousand years later, people still cringe in horror at tales of "Mesaana's Children".
  • Tarma, from the Vows and Honor series by Mercedes Lackey. According to Kethry, children have run up to Tarma for protection while their merc unit is storming a town ... and gotten it.
    • Keep in mind that Tarma is probably one of the top three non-magical badasses in the series and has a voice like a chain smoker, a face like an angry hawk, and a bond with her goddess that renders her effectively asexual. She rides a really scary looking horse, and is always accompanied by a sentient being who looks like a giant wolf. And she still has an instant rapport with children, whether for playing, protection, or nurturing. Fortunately, Kethry produces plenty of kids for her to help raise during their teaching careers.
  • Fitz Kreiner, from the Doctor Who Expanded Universe Eighth Doctor Adventures: Deadpan Snarker, chain-smokes, has Perma-Stubble, is a Lovable Sex Maniac or at best a Chivalrous Pervert... you know the type. Also, in one story, happily gets a job working at a home for kids who mostly have special needs (or are at least about as screwed-up as he is), and in another puts up with a very Creepy Child Waif Prophet type following him around and talking endlessly. He's far more avuncular than paternal, though, and is horrified when a Delivery Stork nearly brings him a baby... but it's just carrying a bomb. Whew. Crisis averted.
  • In Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows, Badger is this. We see him giving shelter to two schoolchildren caught in a story when he first appears, and at the end, his Shrouded in Myth reputation that lets mothers threaten their children with him is unjust.
  • "Gentleman" Johnny Marcone of The Dresden Files is a ruthless and highly ambitious mafia boss, who is usually all about business and profit. Harm a child on his turf, however, and he will spare no expense in tracking you down and murdering you until you die. And you should count yourself lucky if he stops there.
    • Harry Dresden could also qualify. He actually considers becoming a vampire of the Red Court to stop the war between them and the White Council of Wizards, but the vampire who offered fed on children (since said vampire was planning to betray him anyway, this is something of a moot point and soon the vampire was squashed by a falling satellite). Also, he named Ivy.
    • Harry's response to his daughter being kidnapped. The epitome of Papa Wolf. Really, the example should be preserved for posterity.

Wizards are subtle and quick to anger. Fuck subtle *blows open door*

    • Michael also. The closest he has ever come to killing someone in cold blood was someone who kidnapped his daughter. Harry has to step in.
  • Prince Lev Nikolayevich Myshkin, the protagonist of Fyodor Dostoevsky's book The Idiot, has this trait.
  • A subversion occurs in Otherland. The Other, the apparently rogue AI operating system of the titular network, has a remarkable affinity for children and seeks them out wherever its sphere of influence touches on the wider 'Net. Unfortunately, its idea of "playing with" these children has the nasty, inadvertent consequence of Mind Raping them into comas.
  • Esther Summerson from Bleak House has this trait. She is characteristically "fond of being confided in by children". (Her own childhood was emotionally abusive.)
  • Chase from Sword of Truth is portrayed as one.
  • Blaggut from The Bellmaker adores the Abbey's children and is loved by them in return, though the adults start out not trusting him.
  • Lieutenant Panga in Someone Elses War.


Live Action TV

  • Mister Rogers Neighborhood has to be the Most Triumphant Example. The world will always remember him as the kindest person who ever lived.
  • In Mexico it's the tag line of the Sunday morning show En Familia con Chabelo "...Soy Chabelo amigo de todos los niños..." in Spanish.
  • Dexter likes children, which means that he is particularly wrathful against criminals that harm children.
    • The above is something of what we like to call Understatement. Having a compulsive serial killer with a strict "only-hunt-monsters" policy and a soft spot for children due to his own Start of Darkness makes for a reaction to children in danger that goes far beyond Papa Wolf territory into something frightening.
      • Or awesome, as the case may be.
  • Dean Winchester from Supernatural seems to like children, at least young boys (and no, not like that).
    • When they have to work with a kid, Dean seems to do a lot of the talking, but Sam seems to like them, too.
    • Ironically, in the third episode, Dean uses the "I think kids are great" as a cheesy chat-up line to a MILF, and Sam calls him out on it, pointing out "name three kids you even know." However, for the rest of the series, including that episode, Dean does indeed get on well with children.
    • He also gets along really well with his ex-girlfriend Lisa Braden's son, Ben. And was somewhat disappointed when he found out that he wasn't Ben's father.
  • B.A. Baracus from The A-Team. In the army he earned his nickname of "Bad Attitude" by striking officers, he's punched his own teammates in the mouth, he's an all around grumpy badass...and he's great with kids.
  • In The Twilight Zone episode "One For The Angels", pitchman Lew Bookman is well loved by children and a truly compassionate man. He tries to escape Death, but when he learns that a child will die in his place, he sacrifices his life to save the kid by distracting Death with the "ultimate pitch, one for the angels" (hence the episode's title) until his deadline is up. Afterward, Death comforts Bookman with the knowledge that his kindness got him into Heaven.
    • Old Ben from "The Fugitive".
  • CSI: Miami's Horatio Caine is an utter dick unless you're a little kid, then he's the nicest, most compassionate friend you'll ever have.
  • Michael and Fiona in Burn Notice both have soft spots for children. A good example of this is that in one episode, Michael helps a desperate father get his money back from a gang of con artists who claimed to have a cheap cure for the terminal illness of the father's son. Fiona bonds with the child and when she goes undercover with Michael to meet with the leader of the gang of con artists (Michael and Fiona are posing as a rival gang of con artists) The leader of the con artists makes some very rude remarks about the child, and Fiona almost kills her.
    • Michael, having been abused by his father, has a particular soft spot for children in the same situation. In the first season, an assassin uses such a story to convince Michael to track down her mark for her by posing as a mother who's son has been kidnapped by her abusive husband.
    • Quite a few clients have only managed to get Michael to work for them by mentioning their kids.
      • Similarly, in one instance, when a woman and her children are being abused, Michael's mother Madeline opens up her house to them (knowing that the father is a well-connected and dangerous man), no questions asked, and mentions that if it involves kids, "Michael will take on the Chinese army."
  • Ben Linus of Lost seems to have a soft spot for children. Not only did he spare Rousseau because she had a baby girl in her camp (and went on to be a loving - if scarily over-protective - parent) but he also spared Penny's life because she had an infant son on board her boat.
  • Shiraishi Mako from Samurai Sentai Shinkenger, being an ex-kindergarten teacher, is shown to be caring and nurturing to them. In fact, this goes to extend that if there's someone having Heroic BSOD, she sees that friend like 'a kid that needs care and nurture' and will do her best to comfort that person and sometimes with Cooldown Hug.
    • It also provided her a CMOA, one episode Akumaro abducted children so he could use their fear and sorrow. And what did Mako do in the end? She went Super Shinken Pink and whupped his Ass!
  • Dr. House, the champion of Loners Are Freaks, doesn't mind babies. "People don't bug me until they get teeth."
    • He gets on with older children much better than adults, even when they have a full set of teeth.
    • In the seventh season, when he goes to dinner in Cuddy's house and he and her daughter are alone, he did say she was adorable.
    • Dr. Chase gets along very well with children, and often forms good connections with child patients.
  • Doctor Kovac from ER cares deeply for children and gets particularly upset if they are mistreated in any way. He even watches kids' shows, like the Wiggles, to keep up with what kids like and be able to talk to them.
  • Richard Hammond on Top Gear—if any of the presenters is shown interacting with the local kids, it is probably the Hamster. Known to host children's science shows like Brainiac: Science Abuse and his own Richard Hammond's Blast Lab.
  • The Doctor of Doctor Who has a lot of this. When explaining to Amy that they must be observers only, and that in all his travels, it is the one rule he always sticks to, he is watching a crying child on the monitor. He abruptly exits the TARDIS to go and help. This prompts the remark from Amy:

Amy: Is that how it is, Doctor? You never interfere in the affairs of people or planets. Unless there's a children crying.
Eleven (grinning): Yes.

    • From that same episode, the Star Whale.
    • This applies mainly to the Eleventh Doctor, who seems to be something of a kid magnet.
    • In the episode "Full Circle" the Doctor frightens off the marsh-man child and observes it's odd, he's usually good with children. Later, he would have managed to calm it if he hadn't been knocked out.
    • The Ninth Doctor seems perfectly at home among a group of orphans in "The Empty Child", chatting and joking over dinner while he tries to gather information.
  • Patrick Jane from The Mentalist loves kids, particularly little girls due to the loss of his daughter, and will abandon everything else when they're around. His partner Lisbon has a soft spot, too.
  • NCIS's own Leroy Jethro Gibbs. Probably due to the fact that, like Patrick Jane, his own daughter died young.
    • Abby and McGee both show signs of being this as well, as does Ducky.
  • Omar Little from The Wire. The first sign we get of him being more than the average criminal is him showing affection to the child of a dope fiend who has come to him seeking a free fix. On the streets of Baltimore, Omar walking down the street triggers cries of, "Omar's coming!" from the hoppers, but this is inverted in season five when we see him in retirement in Puerto Rico, giving neighborhood kids (who joyfully run up to him, shouting, "Omar!") some candy.
  • Two notable examples from Leverage:
    • Parker abandons a job to spring a slew of orphans from a nightmarish orphanage, even going so far as to put herself physically between them and several guys with automatic weapons. She takes an apprentice car thief under her wing in one episode, and is seen as early as the third episode of the series teaching a little girl how to pick a lock.
    • Eliot also abandons a job in one episode to champion an abused child in a hospital, almost throwing the kid's father down several flights of stairs. He arranges for the team to donate skads of money to mistreated children, mentors an underage miner, and drops character in a con to help an Iranian girl find her family in an airport. He even turns out to have a knack for teaching kids, as shown in an episode where members of the team pose as private school instructors. When he receives a 911 call for a domestic disturbance while disguised as a Boston police officer, he insists on going to the scene on the chance that there are children present.
  • Jean-Luc Picard from Star Trek: The Next Generation is a pragmatic aversion. He's not that fond of kids, but that's only because he's a professional and children are too unpredictable and uncontrollable for him.
    • Note that this was the case at the start of the series. He does grow into the trope over time - most notably "Disaster." Not that he doesn't dislike the idea of "Captain Picard Day" in Season 7, however.
  • The grumpy, snarky, conspiracy-theorizing John Munch of Law and Order Special Victims Unit is routinely shown to have a very soft side for children. One episode had him reading Goodnight Moon to a little girl who was left hospitalized in a near-vegetative state by her mother's abuse.
  • This trope is what Kamen Rider Kuuga's Yuusuke Godai lives for.
  • Teal'c of Stargate SG-1. Whenever a child is around, he turns into the Gentle Giant. It helps that he has the patience of a mountain.
    • Right behind him is his teammate Samantha Carter, who pretty much has yet to meet a kid she doesn't like - or who doesn't like her.
  • Clark Kent of Smallville.
  • Megan Calvet Draper in Mad Men. When Sally Draper ran away to visit her dad's office and tried to run away when forced to return home, the only sympathetic adult was Megan. She later takes care of Sally and her brothers during their trip to Disneyland. Contrast this with Faye Miller, Don's girlfriend, who was incredibly awkward around children and talked to Sally as if she were an infant. In a show full of bad mothers, Megan at times seems like the only one who likes kids which is one of the reasons why she's Don's second wife instead of Faye.
  • Percival's Establishing Character Moment in season 4 of Merlin is endangering his own life to save three frightened children by carrying them all to safety in his arms.
  • Eric Matthews on Boy Meets World relates well with children due to being an Adult Child. His most serious girlfriend on the show was a young single mom whose kid he bonds with, and in another season he forms a relationship with a kid from an orphanage.
  • Barney the Dinosaur.


Mythology And Religion

  • Jesus was both The Messiah (he's the Trope Namer, even) and a Friend to All Living Things, but he definitely qualifies for this trope, too. (He did preach that Children Are Innocent, after all.)
  • Don't forget Santa Claus St. Nicholas of Myra, the Patron Saint of Children.
  • The Greek goddess Artemis is the protector of young animals and children, especially virgin girls. Her brother Apollo is patron of boys...although when one reads about Hyacinth and Cyparissus, he comes across as more of a pedophile.

Tabletop Games

  • Dungeons & Dragons:
    • Tinker gnomes build auto-gnomes, Clockwork Creatures resembling gnomes which have three directives, one of which is to protect children. While whoever thought this up had good intentions, the species of the children was never specified, which can cause problems when the tinkers have to deal with races they regard as enemies. Especially since an auto-gnome's first directive is to defend gnomes from assault by non-gnomes, and tends to malfunction if it has to deal with a situation where its directives contradict.
    • Very little is known of the mysterious Zaphikiel, the mightiest of the Hebdomad and one of the most powerful of celestial beings. One thing that is known about him is that he takes custody of the souls of murdered infants and those that died as a result of miscarriage, faithfully protecting what he sees as innocence in purest form.

Theatre

  • Jerusalem gives us Johnny Byron, a former daredevil and local legend who lives in a trailer in the local woods, is seen as a sort of modern-day Pied Piper. Local teenagers spend most of their free time hanging out at his place, getting drunk, doing drugs, and generally having fun; he regales them with mad stories of his former exploits and supposed encounters with real-life giants. This is portrayed as being a sort of tradition, with several characters in their late twenties and early thirties discussing how they used to be the kids who hung out at Johnny's place. Subverted in two ways, though: firstly in that Johnny's sheltering of the kids is not always seen as wholesome (naturally); and secondly in that it is revealed the kids don't really care about him as a person, and mock him behind his back for being a crazy loner unable to pay taxes.


Video Games

  • In the Yakuza series, nothing brings out Kazuma's good side like kids, especially his kids from the orphanage and his adopted niece Haruka. Subsequently, nothing brings out Kazuma's BAD side like someone hurting a kid. The most savage and satisfying beatings Kazuma's rained on someone are those in retaliation for abusing a kid.
  • Juno from Soul Nomad and The World Eaters distrusts humans but loves children... even human children, as she is raising Thorndyke's son.
  • Jade of Beyond Good and Evil takes in war orphans and cares for them, despite being occasionally frightfully low on cash. She's even extra-kind and nice to the kids in the city who aren't staying with her. Threatening her kids is a good way to get Mama Bear'd.
    • By extension, this applies to Pey'j as well. He probably wouldn't let them stay in his house if he didn't care for them, after all. And the end credits Photo Montage shows that Double H really is a Gentle Giant by having several pictures focus on him playing with the lighthouse kids.
  • Fallout 3 lets an adult be one with the Child at Heart Perk... except for the fact that it can be used to make kidnapping a child for slavers easier.
  • In the Metroid manga, Samus is very friendly with children, and even manages to strike up a small friendship with a little girl she rescues from a raid.
    • This seems to be a confirmation of elements from the time Super Metroid was released, where Samus was typically portrayed as being quite passionate about the infant Metroid, treating it like her own offspring, unleashing the bowels of Mama Bear after it was destroyed, and even entering a state of deep sorrow after she'd cooled down. This hovered around various fiction, including Nintendo Power comics and Manga. In other words, the Manga serves to confirm that when Samus says she kills to protect others, she really really means it
  • In The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess, Link is friends with all the children of his village, and happily looks after them and plays with them. Not surprisingly, when they get into trouble, he goes Papa Wolf quick. And literally.
  • Milla Vodello in Psychonauts loves working with children, and when you use Clairvoyance on her, she explicitly sees Kid Hero Raz as a sweet little baby to look after. Her history even shows that she used to work at an Orphanage of Love. But, uh... don't ask why she doesn't anymore.
    • Though, in case you are wondering: There was a fire one day while Milla was out getting the groceries, and it's implied nobody else in the building survived. She's mostly over it now, but there are still a few "Nightmares" locked away in her Mental World.
  • Rozalin's first Pet the Dog moment in Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories comes when she treats the kids really well. Barring her other persona, being nice to kids seems to be a consistent part of her character.
  • Zangief has developed into this during the Street Fighter IV series. He even cites their cheers and adoration as the reason why he continues wrestling.
  • Big Boss in Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake takes in war orphans and raises them as his own, although it's twisted at the end when he reveals he's training them into soldiers to perpetuate war in the future. At least that was the excuse he gave at the time.
  • The poor children are most of why Allegretto steals bread at the beginning of Eternal Sonata, and why he embarks on his quest. One part of the game involves him navigating a puzzle graveyard and beating up a large beast... so a little girl can have water for her flower.
  • Aerith Gainsborough could count for this in Final Fantasy VII; the original game has her trade herself for the safety of a little girl she barely knows and puts her on friendly terms with the slum children, who looked after her flowers in her absence; Crisis Core and Advent Children also show her having a soft spot for children.
  • Final Fantasy VI has an even better example in Terra Branford, who takes care of a village full of orphans and turns into a Mama Bear whenever any of them are in danger.
  • Kratos from God of War. They may have been his daughter, his kid brother, and a little girl that reminded him of his daughter, but they remain the only children depicted in the games. More Friend To All Children Who Appear In The Series. His Papa Wolf nature is one of his very few redeeming traits.
  • To everyone's great surprise, Haseo of the .hack GU Games. Though he does become much friendlier in general over the course of the story, even back when he was a revenge-obsessed Jerkass he would act kindly toward kids.
  • In BlazBlue Litchi Faye-Ling is very good when it comes to dealing with children, she usually comes around to the Kaka clan to kindheartedly teach and play with the Kaka kittens and her child-assistant Linhua looked up to her greatly and she returned the favor. She's also quick to befriend and hug Ronin-Gai children despite that their boss just harassed her. She's also incredibly fond to Carl Clover, who was virtually unknown to her and would even give her life to help him. She doesn't even hold a grudge when a bratty little girl like Platinum went bonkers on her just due to breast size difference and still finds herself comforting her. In the CT Arcade Mode, she mistook Rachel Alucard as a lost child and sweetly asked to escort her to her mother... This gets slightly subverted in Continuum Shift after her Face Heel Turn. Once she learned what kind of creature Rachel is and that she's an enemy, she drops her kindness and opts a more antagonistic manner (though not as over the top). However, she went back into Friend to All Children mode when she met a distraught Carl (still post-Face Heel Turn) and even offered him a Cooldown Hug in her Marshmallow Hell.
  • Daisy the Thief and Asaello the Bow Fighter from Fire Emblem Jugdral. Patty and Faval are implied to be this too. (Makes sense since Daisy and Asaello are they expies in the first place.)
  • Rutee Katrea from Tales of Destiny is obsessed with money, but that's only because she's trying to raise enough money to save the orphanage she grew up in and prevent the orphans from ending up on the streets.
    • Nanaly Fletch from the sequel, Tales of Destiny 2 is an even bigger example in that she runs an orphanage in her home town and functions as the team babysitter. One of the reasons she's like this is because she couldn't save her little brother without giving him a Fate Worse Than Death (in the form of a life of eternal servitude to the Corrupt Church) and doesn't want other orphans suffering her brother's fate.
  • Cheria Baines from Tales of Graces is implied to be this. In a skit in Tales of Graces f, Asbel mentions that Cheria likes taking care of children.
  • In Skyrim it's impossible for the player to harm children. Also, you can play games like tag and hide & seek with the children that you meet. Even the dead ones.
  • Oddly enough, some of the mercenaries in Team Fortress 2 appear to be this, as shown by the comics on the official website. Soldier takes kids trick-or-treating, Scout treats kids like little brothers (understandable, considering he's the youngest of eight brothers), and they both get very defensive when they're on mall santa duty and a kid gets kidnapped. Spy sees the kid's fear and teaches the kid how to stab the kidnapper in the jugular and free himself, and consoles the kid afterwards, asking him if he was scared, and even giving him a piggyback ride. Even Heavy shows this when he gets angry and calls a kid presumptuous and fat for wanting him to spend his hard-earned money on Halloween candy, and then apologizes profusely when the kid starts to cry, taking back the "fat" comment when he realizes that he hates being called that himself. He then proceeds to give the kid $7,000 to make up for it.
  • In Tokimeki Memorial's Tabidachi no Uta continuity, Mira Kagami turns out to be this.
  • Both Kings (jaguar masked religious pro-wrestler) in Tekken series. Parts of the reason why they enter the Tekken tournament is to raise money for the orphanage they're in, although as for King II, that has become a background thing while he focuses on some darker issues (but still retains his kind heart).
    • Bruce Irvin is pretty much chiefly known as a friend of Kazuya and usually serves as The Dragon for him. All of his endings basically involve helping kids to stand up for themselves, or inspiring them (to be good kids, not to be like Kazuya)


Web Comics

  • Von Pinn from Girl Genius isn't necessarily fond of kids, but as a completely frightening construct designed to protect her charges, she cannot bring herself to harm children, even if they stand in the way of her duty. When Bangladesh Dupree tries to get around this and kills the girl standing in the way of their pursuit of Agatha, Von Pinn nearly takes her head off.
    • Oh, she's fond of kids. Monster Nanny terrifies the living daylights out of them, but all of them know she loves them. Tarvek and Gil are particularly voluble on the subject.
    • The reason she is so unhinged in the first place is because she failed to save Agatha's brother when Castle Heterodyne was attacked.
  • Quentyn of Tales of the Questor is particularly sweet and tolerant of a very young child who pulls on his whiskers and twists his tail, thinking him a cat. (he quickly makes her a harmless toy that occupies her hands)
  • Marilith of the comic of the same name, when she started out in her less than lawful career, used to pay to feed an African child every time she killed someone. Eventually she could no longer afford to; now the kids are banded together into something of a war group to find out what happened to her. She also arranged the capture, and suggested rape, of a date rapist. The girl he hurt is not all that old. It's also one of the few times she negotiates on prices. She is also partnered with her possibly Stockholm Syndromed ex-mark, who is either young or has fantastic genes.
    • Christi is also intent on saving Marilith's partner; being an orphan, she is sensitive to the plights of children.
  • Cale in Looking for Group used to be this, up to a particular Sadistic Choice. And although no more a friend to children than any other living being, Richard's rare, curse-breaking Pet the Dog was a self-sacrifice in defense of a child.
  • In Manly Guys Doing Manly Things, one of the Big Daddies from BioShock (series) is presented this way. It's rather adorable, up to a point.
  • In No Rest for The Wicked, Red. She has a Slasher Smile and is Ax Crazy, but her reaction to a woman being burned to death for killing children is "Not cruel enough." Later, when they track down the actual killer, she disposes of her.


Web Original

  • Doctor Steel loves children (he's a toymaker, after all). He even created a theme song for a fictional kid's show called "Smokey, The Kid-Loving Trout" (Smokey's Theme), and his episodes of The Dr. Steel Show are modeled after childrens' television shows.
  • Stone of the Global Guardians PBEM Universe is one of the roughest toughest heroes out there. He's hard on criminals normally. If they specifically hurt a child? Let's just say things will get really ugly, really fast.
  • The Nostalgia Critic has pretty much declared himself the defender of all children. It's even been implied that he's babysat kids a couple of times.
  • Two examples from Felarya:
    • The naga Fiona loves children, and is often seen venturing to jungle villages to play with the local kids. In fact, she's earned the in-universe nickname of "The Kind Naga". Her behavior is especially noteworthy because Felaryan nagas are typically man-eaters.
    • Katrika (also a naga) is far more predatory than Fiona, but children and their families are completely off the menu. She'll even comfort children who've lost their families to predators.
  • In Doctor Horribles Sing Along Blog, one of Dr. Horrible's reasons for refusing to fight a self-proclaimed nemesis in the City Park is that "there's kids in that park." Also, when told he has to kill someone to enter the Evil League of Evil, he's offered the suggestion of a child who is destined to become President of the United States. Dr. Horrible replies that he's not going to kill a kid.
  • Harley Morenstein, of EPICMEALTIME fame, draws the line at dead baby comedy and gives apple pies to kids when he was shopping at McDonald's.
  • From the SCP Foundation, SCP-644, aka Mr. Hot, one of the Little Misters, could potentially be this. He has the ability to, upon looking at an adult, tell exactly how many children the person has (biological and otherwise), the ages of those children, and what those children's tastes are. In theory, he'd be a big help for any parent shopping for their kids. However, by his own admission, Mr. Hot works as a merchandising advisor for Dr. Wondertainment, making him more like a pitchman.

Western Animation

  • Modo from Biker Mice From Mars is extremely fond of children. This is used against him in the Ten-Minute Retirement episode "Modo Hangs It Up".
  • A Crowning Moment of Heartwarming in the Phantom 2040 series: Hubert Graft, a monstrous cyborg who hates the heroes, stops the fight in one episode when a kid gets in danger. He rescues the child, as the heroes look in confusion. "This war should not include children."
  • Kronk from The Emperors New Groove. This could probably be partially attributed to the fact that he's really a child at both heart and mind.
  • Fowlmouth, a side character in Tiny Toon Adventures, swears a [bleeped out] blue streak in every known context except in the presence of babies. He believes that swearing in front of babies is crude.
  • Sergeant Rita Torres in Exo Squad shows her tender side when interacting with the Martian Exoscouts (who were abandoned on Mars since the war outbreak) in the second season.
  • Batman the Animated Series: Particularly in an early episode, "The Underdwellers," near the very end. Bats is threatening the episode's villain, the Sewer King, who "took in" a large number of abandoned and orphaned children, only to abuse them and teach them to steal:

Batman: "I don't pass sentence. That's for the courts. But THIS time... THIS time, I am sorely tempted to do the job MYSELF."

  • This continues to the Justice League, where Batman comforts Ace, who was dying of a terminal disease and only had hours to live. She had asked him to stay by her side because she was scared. And he did.
  • Woodsman in Hoodwinked is this sort of guy. And he sold a shnitzel to each of those kids.
  • Zeta in The Zeta Project pretty much IS this trope. When he saw a child learn to ride a bike and the joy it brought her mother, he knew he could never kill anyone because life was precious. Hence his peaceful and nonviolent nature.
  • As mentioned above, Young Justice has Batman being more of a fatherly figure to Robin and the rest of the team than Superman.
  • In My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic, Fluttershy is this as part of her being a Friend to All Living Things. In fact, trying to harm young ponies is a good way to press her Berserk Button, as the unlucky cockatrice from Stare Master found out.
    • Pinkie Pie also counts; she's acted as a Cool Big Sis for Spike and Apple-Bloom, chaperoned the local kids on "Nightmare Night", adores Mr. & Mrs. Cake's infant twins Pound & Pumpkin Cake and frequently plays with & watches over them, and during her Image Song "Smile, Smile, Smile" she goes out of her way to make kids happy.
  • Transformers a recurring theme to all Autobots, in most continuities they tend to have kids hanging out with them.
  • Miss Grotke from Recess
  • In the Kung Fu Panda franchise, especially the non-film productions, Po prides himself as being loved by children. As such, he proves to be an excellent teacher. In an episode of Kung Fu Panda Legends of Awesomeness, he even makes a despicable Royal Brat change her ways, even before discovering the horrific reason why she feels she must drive everyone away.
  • Hank Hill is shown to be really good with kids in several episodes, including one where he becomes the substitute shop teacher at his son's school and is very popular with the kids because his teaching style is informal, educational, and fun. In another he stops some kids from getting into a makeout party by using old-school party games, and they end up legitimately having fun, causing the neighbors' wives to remark that his reliability and skill with kids are very attractive traits.


Real Life

  • It's fairly well-known that a lot of the same convicts who have committed the most heinous of crimes are actually pretty fond of kids, to the point that if a convicted child abuser (or worse, child molester) isn't put in solitary, he's likely to get shanked... or worse.
    • Two murderers had been placed in the same cell, and were together for a year. The only difference was that one had murdered adults, while the other had raped and killed a little girl. When the adult-murderer found out exactly what his cellmate had done, he proceeded to beat him to death.
    • Similarly, communities that otherwise might come across as hostile or indifferent to the police will often step up if a child was victimized.
    • According to a lawsuit filed against a Midwest prison, a man who spent years raping his young stepdaughter was himself raped multiple times by a cellmate specifically to make him feel like his victim.
    • Two Words: Katie's Revenge.
      • To elaborate: a man in Indiana was convicted of molesting and killing a girl named Katie. After his fellow inmates found out about it, they held him down and gave him a nice tattoo: the words "Katie's Revenge." Across his forehead. In huge letters.
  • WWII Russian soldier example: the German army pushed the Russian defenders back to the river in Stalingrad; in a furious battle, the Russians surrounded the city, cut off the Germans from their supply lines and started to annihilate them room-by-room and building-by-building. Some children who were kept as servants by the German army were trapped in such a building, and called out in fear. The Russian soldiers who found them immediately formed a defense perimeter and escorted them to safety. Some of the children were adopted into the unit because they were orphans. Years later, one child related, "The one who found us shouted, 'Lads, there are kids in here!' I had never seen men cry."
  • Another WWII example: A German soldier was sweeping a village looking for contraband. He poked his head up into the attic of a cottage to find several hiding Jewish children. When another soldier called to him from below to ask if he had found anything, he replied, "No," and left.
  • Michael Jackson tried to give himself this image, possibly due to not really having a childhood himself. It famously backfired on him and, until very recently, he was more known for the various (and never convicted) pedophilia scandals than his music.
    • Though in fairness, Macaulay Culkin met Jackson while a child and considered him a dear friend for the rest of the latter's life.
  • Fred Rogers, a man who devoted his life to children, and helped raise an entire generation of them via Mister Rogers Neighborhood.
  • Angelina Jolie. Over the past decade, she's criss-crossed the globe on behalf of UNICEF and UNHCR, often in the company of her significant other Brad Pitt, and regularly takes time out from her movie shoots to work on some project involving children or refugees (or refugee children). She often keeps her work low-key so as not to have her celebrity status distract from the matter at hand; for instance, at the time of this writing, she and Pitt have visited Bosnia to look into the issue of civilians who haven't been able to return home even 15 years after the war's end, but are making no public appearances.
  • Audrey Hepburn. During the last decade of her life, she did tremendous work for UNICEF, virtually becoming the face of the organization. Several months before her death she visited Somalia at the height of that country's famine; the stark photos taken during that event (a particularly heartbreaking one showed her, with an incredibly grim expression on her face, cradling a child dying of starvation) helped raise world awareness of the disaster. She was strongly influenced in her work by memories of the hardships (including starvation) that she herself had to endure as a teenager in Nazi-occupied Holland.
  • For all of her flaws (such as praising Hitler for his initial work at the beginning, referring to Deion Sanders, Dave Parker, and Eric Davis as her "million dollar niggers," didn't quite understand how the epithet "Jap" could be offensive, and stated that men who wore ear rings were fruits) Marge Schott loved kids, and would let them run around the outfield before games at Riverfront Stadium.
  • 1930s gangster/bank robber John Dillinger once apparently carjacked a family with kids in the back, but made a point of not hurting anyone and even patted one of the kids on the head before getting out while reassuring the parents "Don't worry, we like kids."
  • Ed Gein, of all people. He was proven to be behind some truly disgusting acts (and suspected of worse), but when it came to kids? Before he was found out and arrested, his neighbors would hire him as a babysitter. He was consistently described as caring and benevolent to the children placed in his care.
  • Doug Walker, in a much less screwed up way than his character of The Nostalgia Critic. You only have to put on a random VLog or commentary to see how much he cares about children and hates movies that treat them like idiots.
  • Jim Henson. Really, what more needs to be said?
  • Yet another: Badass Princess Noor Inayet Khan -- who died on duty as a clandestine radio operator for the SOE -- was mostly known before that for her anthology of didactic parables for children. She was perhaps too innocent herself to make a good spy but was incredibly brave and well deserves her blue (commemorative) plaque in London.
    • Maybe this is yet another example of a friend of children becoming a Mama Bear?
    • By the way, her anthology of Twenty Jataka Tales is available on Amazon.
  • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow had lots of this. He always returned letters from children and children feature in several of his poems.
    • The protagonist of The Village Blacksmith is a blacksmith who likes it when children watch him make horseshoes (presumably as long as they don't get too close) and loves hearing his daughter sing in the church choir.
  1. ↑ Though not every Friend to All Children is Purity Personified.
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