Parent with New Paramour: Difference between revisions

 

[[Wicked Stepmother]] may be referred to in either 2 or 3 -- regardless of accuracy.

 

* In the Anime/Manga ''[[Midori no Hibi]]'', Seiji helps his neighbor Shiori to accept her new mother after Shiori's initial dislike.

** A more traditional version happened in Satoko's backstory. After Satoko's mom remarried after going through about three other husbands, Satoko was not happy about her new stepfather and constantly fought with him, to the point where she faked child abuse from him in an attempt to get rid of him through social services. It didn't work. {{spoiler|This comes back to bite her in the ass in some arcs where she is abused by Teppei, to the point where social services are reluctant to act out of belief she may be lying again.}}

* This takes over the plot by the end of ''[[Sakende Yaruze]]'' and all reactions are covered. Initially Nakaya and Tenryuu get along (1), but Nakaya is also nervous about older men in general (2), and when he finds out that Tenryuu wants a relationship with his father he is very averse to the idea and starts to dislike him (3). Nakaya moves out once they get together, and it's suggested that while he gets used to Tenryuu in the end he's never entirely happy with his father's choice in a partner.

* Source of conflict for Kaoru in ''[[Amagami]]''

* Odd variation in ''[[Marmalade Boy]]''. Miki's parents Jin and Rumi get divorced amiably, so do Yuu's parents Youji and Chiyako... and then they swap couples and the two "new" families move into a [[Big Fancy House]] to avoid parental issues. It takes Miki more than a while to accept it, though: despite liking her stepmother and stepfather, she can't get used to the rest of the deal.

** {{spoiler|Mariko Shinobu}}'s father mixed it with {{spoiler|[[Your Cheating Heart]], as he first cheated on Mariko's mom with an actress and then ran away with her, pretty much abandoning Mariko and her mom.}} Her classmates, and specially [[Alpha Bitch|Aya Misaki]], also use this to bully her.

* In the prequel to ''[[Slam Dunk]]'', ''Piercings'', 11-year-old Ayako isn't too happy when her mother starts dating again.

 

* The modern [[Batwoman]], Katherine "Kate" Kane, lost her mother when she was 12 years old, and her father got remarried to a wealthy Gotham socialite, who awkwardly enough is also named Catherine. Kate is always very quick to point out that Catherine is her ''step''mother, but they seem to get along well enough (though the fact that Kate is [[Lipstick Lesbian|gay]] is implied to be a wedge between them, and Kate does remark that she lives to see her stepmother offended when she [[Les Yay|dances with Maggie Sawyer at a charity ball]]).

 

== Fan Works ==

 

== Film ==

* In ''[[Enchanted]]'' Robert's girlfriend Nancy seems to get along with his daughter Morgan, but Giselle and her hit it off almost instantly, with Morgan even helping Giselle realize her feelings for Robert.

* Baroness Elsa Schraeder in ''[[The Sound of Music]]''. Of course, she ends up losing out to Maria.

* ''[[The American President]]'' has a scene where the widowed president asks his daughter her feelings about him seeing another woman. She is completely fine with it.

* In ''[[American History X]],'' the mother bringing home a Jewish Liberal teacher doesn't sit well with Derek her White Supremacist Skinhead son. Cue ''[[Family Feud]]''

* In the movie ''Freaky Friday'', Anna doesn't get along with her mother's fiance, despite him being a really nice and friendly guy, which also increases the tension between her and her mother. When he shows support for her band however, Anna realizes that he really is a good guy for her mom and their family, and she only disliked him initially because she didn't want her [[Disappeared Dad|dead dad]] "being replaced."

* [[Juno]] gets along quite well with her stepmother, who in turn, supported Juno during her pregnancy, even calling out a doctor lady who sterotyped her daughter.

* In ''[[Love Actually]]'', Sam got along fine with his stepfather Daniel, who raised him after his mother died. And when {{spoiler|Daniel met another woman}}, he had no problem with it.

* ''[[Sleepless in Seattle]]'' has this in spades, with Jonah being horrified with the women his dad meets, to the point that he tries to sabotage their dates. Of course, he has the perfect woman in mind for his dad...

 

== Literature ==

** Unfortunately for the girlfriend (now his Dad's wife!), she ends up {{spoiler|infested by the Yeerks}} after {{spoiler|Marco tells his dad everything and finally rescues his mom}}.

* ''[[Dexter]]'' puts a great deal of time and effort into gaining the trust of girlfriend Rita's children. He does succeed and they get as attached to him as they're capable of. {{spoiler|In the second novel, ''Dearly Devoted Dexter'', we find out that Dexter and Cody have ''much'' more in common than one would want to think, given that Cody's eight. Astor seems to share her brother's issues, but is more inclined to spectate rather than participate. Dexter decides the kids need him to train them in the Code of Harry.}}

* Anne Fine's ''Goggle-Eyes'' has the [[Tall, Dark and Snarky]] Kitty Killin reminiscing about her antagonistic relationship with her mother's new boyfriend to a classmate with the same problem. The boyfriend is old enough to be her grandfather and disagrees with every political stance the family takes, {{spoiler|but is supportive of it and is fatherly to Kitty's younger sister.}} Eventually, Kitty accepts him... {{spoiler|right before her mother breaks it off.}}

* ''[[The Princess Diaries]]'' has Mia's mom dating her algebra teacher, which freaks Mia out at first because while he's a nice enough guy, Mia struggles with the lesson itself. Eventually they marry and produce Mia's half-brother Rocky.

* The conflict in the second half of [[Barry Lyndon]] is derived from type 3 of this trope.

* In later books of ''[[Percy Jackson and The Olympians]]'', Percy's mother Sally begins dating Paul after her husband Gabe "mysteriously" disappears. Percy is fine with this for the most part (though he does call Paul "Blowfish" for some time after mishearing his last name) because Gabe was an abusive asshole to both him and Sally and Paul, in contrast, is a nice guy who makes Sally genuinely happy.

* The titular character in ''[[Ella Enchanted]]'' isn't too happy when her father announces he's getting remarried after her mother's death. She's outright dismayed when she learns the woman he's marrying is the mother of her two worst enemies.

 

== Live-Action TV ==

* ''[[The Brady Bunch]]'' is the case of Parent With New Paramour taken to the ideal conclusion, with a relative minimum of tension between the parents and step children.

* ''[[Pushing Daisies]]'' has a tweaked example: Ned's father trots him off to boarding school and ignores him in favor of his new wife and kids.

** And then there's Giles, who had a somewhat tentative but eventually friendly and entirely mature and responsible platonic friendship with Joyce. You know, except for that one time they ate the band candy, reverted to the mental age of 16 and had sex on top of a police car. Twice. Something of a [[Subverted Trope|subversion]] there, since Buffy canonically thinks of Giles as a father, but reacted with horror when she found out about the tryst - though that might have been because she got [[Squick|the gory details]] [[Psychic Powers|directly from Joyce's brain]], and the memory was apparently a very pleasant one.

** Also ''[[Dracula]]'', though that lasted even less time, and was offscreen.

* In ''Aquila'' one kid freaks out about their mother dating a new man, and spies on him, convinced he's up to something. Eventually he gets used to it.

* Much of the first season of ''[[Dynasty]]'' focused on this.

* In ''[[The Sarah Jane Adventures]]'', the title character's adopted son Luke, despite initial nervousness (and spying on his mother before finding out that she was disappearing to go on dates), gets along well with her new boyfriend/fiance and becomes the strongest supporter of her new relationship. He even brushes off his friends' valid concerns about the man's empty house with a warning not to spoil his mum's big day. {{spoiler|Of course, the relationship doesn't work out; the man had died weeks ago (thus the empty house), and the Trickster had revived him to serve as a trap for Sarah Jane. When he finds out, he chooses to die as he should have.}}

* [[Royal Pains|Hank Lawson]] was none too pleased when his dad showed up, and was even ''less'' pleased when he took up with one of his best clients, "New Parts" Newburg.

* On ''[[Gossip Girl]]'' Blair is excited to meet her mother's new boyfriend Cyrus, believing him to be a dashing, charming, worldly man. He turns out to be tiny, nearly bald and, well, played by Wallace Shawn.

** But, she does learn to at least respect him by the end of the episode. By the time he becomes her stepfather they have formed a pretty close relationship.

** Chuck and Lily may also count. Since Chuck's mother died when he was born it's never a case of him feeling like she's replacing his birth mother. They get along great at first, then he hates her for a while after his father dies, but then agrees to let her adopt him. She's practically a better mother to him now than she is to her biological children.

* In the '90s teen show ''California Dreams'', [[The Ditz]] Tiffany has been living with her dad since her mom walked out on them years before the time of the show. When Dad starts dating again, Tiffany is fine with it at first...until he starts blowing off his plans with her to be with the new girlfriend. She feels left out and unwanted, and makes a fool of herself trying to prove that the girlfriend isn't on the level (she's actually quite a nice person). The episode ends with something of a [[Broken Aesop]], because while Tiffany apologizes for being insecure and acting like a bit of a bratty teenager, her father never apologizes for ditching her or hurting her feelings.

* ''[[Glee]]'' has Kurt's father Burt finding love with Finn's mother Carole. While they're one big happy family now, at the beginning both boys had issues with the relationship. Finn was afraid that Burt would try to replace his father, who died in Iraq when Finn was a baby, while Kurt jealously (and erroneously) believed that his father would rather have Finn as his son.

* ''[[Mad Men]]'' gives us something of a combination of an inversion and Type 1: Don Draper invites his secretary Megan Calvet on a vacation to California with him and his kids specifically because she handled them so well on a visit to the office. It's only on the trip that he sleeps with her and ''then'' proposes after she's established a firm rapport with Sally and Bobby: when he announces his decision to marry her, they are actually kind of happy it happened.

 

* In ''[[Persona 3]]'', Yukari Takeba is disgusted with her mother's constant search for new lovers because she thinks it dishonors the memory of her dead father. {{spoiler|As the link progresses, Yukari learns that her mother wants to remarry, but ultimately decides to wait until Yukari is ready.}}

** ''[[Persona 4]]'' has Eri Minami, the Temperance social link, who recently married a single father and is trying to become close to her new stepson, Yuuta, but doesn't have any success. Meanwhile, Yuuta is convinced that Eri hates him because the two are so distant (what with Yuuta's father overseas at the time). It's up to the main character to help their relationship improve.

 

* The early days of ''[http://www.jaynaylor.com/betterdays/ Better Days]'' often had this as a plot element with Fisk's widowed mother Sheila trying to find someone new, including once dating her kid's principal ({{spoiler|this ended badly, with him being psychotic and raping Sheila only to die under suspicious circumstances}}) and their married next-door neighbor Sam (who was also the father of Fisk's best friend, just to complicate things), who after having an affair with Sheila and being caught eventually married her years later. Fisk then had a [http://www.jaynaylor.com/betterdays/archives/2007/06/chapter-18-reac-25.html a conversation] with his mother where he told her that it was too late for Sam to replace his father, it didn't matter, she was happy now, [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming|and that was what mattered]].

* In ''[[Kevin and Kell]]'', Lindesfarne (Kevin's daughter) bonds rather quickly with new stepmother Kell, while Rudy (Kell's son) has more trouble accepting stepfather Kevin, but does eventually. Species issues are probably relevant - Rudy, being a canine (fox/wolf cross), has some trouble accepting a rabbit as outranking him. Lindesfarne, on the other paw, does not have the pack structure issue complicating her relationship with Kell.

 

== Western Animation ==

* In ''[[Arthur]]'', Buster's mother dated a man named Harry for a while who Buster really liked, but eventually they broke it off so she could pursue other interests. However, Buster and Harry were still shown hanging out after this.

* ''Pepper Ann'' one-upped this by having the new squeeze of the mother actually be PA's ''teacher'', who had a dislike for PA. It didn't last.

* An episode of ''[[Duckman]]'' featured this trope; Duckman brings his new girlfriend home to meet his family, wondering if they'll accept her. His teenage son Ajax cries "Mommy!", leaps into the woman's lap and starts sucking his thumb.

* [[Metalocalypse]] plays with this trope in the episode "FatherKlok", where Skwisgaar's search for his own biological father is interrupted by his mother introducing his new stepfather to him. Complete with a [[You're Not My Father|"You amn'ts my f**kings dad!"]] from Skwisgaar. However, by the end of the episode, the two of them get along rather well. Too bad this is [[Crapsack World|Metalocalypse we're talking about]]...

* ''[[Family Guy]]'' had an episode where Peter's mother started dating local reporter Tom Tucker. Initially Peter is upset and tries to patch things up between his mother and father, but after a little while he warms up to Tucker and they get along very well - only for things to get complicated when Peter's mother dumps him.

* ''[[Darkwing Duck]]'''s [[Happily Adopted]] daughter, Gosalyn, ''really'' likes his [[Dating Catwoman|reformed criminal]] girlfriend Morgana. There is even an episode where, after Darkwing and Morgana have a fight, she tries to patch up their relationship with a [[Love Potion]]. [[Hilarity Ensues]].

[[Category:Parental Issues]]

[[Category:The Parent Trope]]