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The Cobbler's Children Have No Shoes: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
{{quote|''"Physician, heal thyself!"''
|'''[[The Bible]], Luke 4:23'''}}
{{quote|''"En casa de herrero, cuchillo de palo"''<ref>"In the blacksmith's house, the knife is made of wood."</ref>
|Spanish saying}}
A character is very good at his profession. He is completely unable to use this ability to help his own family. This is seen most often with therapists.
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{{examples}}
== [[Anime]]
* Doctor Bombei, the greatest Choujin physician in the ''[[Kinnikuman]]'' universe, succumbed to a malignant tumor because he spent so much time watching ''other'' Choujins' health he didn't pay attention to his own.
* Used and subverted in ''[[Black Jack]]'', in the most literal manner. Twice, Black Jack himself is wounded. The second time, he has to have someone else operate on him, as even he cannot heal himself. The first time? He removed a parasite from his intestinal tract. Without anasthetic. In the middle of [[Down Under|the Outback]]. Surrounded by wild dingos.
* The history of Mr. Riddles in ''[[Zatch Bell]]'', in the original Japanese, involves him as a surgeon trying to save his grandson, but failing, sending him into a depression that is only lifted once Kido arrives.
== [[Comic Books]] ==
* Dr. Malcolm Long in ''[[Watchmen (comics)|Watchmen]]''. Overlaps with [[Critical Psychoanalysis Failure]].
** Another case is Rorschach also remembers a version of a joke (that has been around longer than the comic):
{{quote|Heard joke once: Man goes to doctor. Says he's depressed. Says life seems harsh and cruel. Says he feels all alone in a threatening world where what lies ahead is vague and uncertain. Doctor says, “Treatment is simple. Great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight. Go and see him. That should pick you up.” Man bursts into tears. Says “But doctor...I ''am'' Pagliacci.”}}
== Film ==▼
▲== [[Film]] ==
* Used in ''[[The Dark Knight Saga|Batman Begins]]'' where [[Dirty Cop|Detective Flass]] steals money from a street vendor. The man says he has kids to feed, and Flass merely responds, "What? They don't like falafels?" {{spoiler|Flass gets jumped and worked over by Batman five seconds later.}}
* The premise behind ''[[Dan in Real Life]]''.
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* The psychiatrist's family in ''[[What About Bob?]]'' is highly dysfunctional.
== [[Literature]] ==
* In [[L. M. Montgomery]]'s ''[[Anne of Green Gables|Anne's House of Dreams]]'', Gilbert, being a doctor, is very solicitous about Anne's health, explicitly wishing to refute the proverb "Cobblers' wives go barefoot and doctors' wives die young."
* The above-quoted proverb from [[The Bible]] makes this trope [[Older Than Feudalism]].
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* In [[Charles Dickens]]'s ''[[Bleak House]]'', Mrs. Jellyby is heavily involved in charity work for poor children, but neglects her own large family.
* In one story about [[Sherlock Holmes]], he and Watson break into house of blackmailer Milverton, which goes horribly wrong. After that Holmes comments, that for all years where he looked for criminals based on small clues they left, he still didn't manage to cover ''his own tracks''.
* In Carolyn Mackler's ''The Earth, My Butt and Other Big Round Things'', Virginia's mother is a supposed "expert" on teen
* In one of [[James Herriot]]'s books, he describes how the kid singing their Drill Sergeant's bawdy song loudest and with the most enthusiasm turned out to be the son of an archbishop.
* ''[[The Dresden Files]]''{{'}}s Molly Carpenter is an extremely sexually active young woman, with multiple piercings and a certain amount of emotional tumult, such that she spends a good portion of the first few books living away from home. Her dad is a devout Catholic, and Knight of the Cross, and takes orders from the archangel Michael. He is rather worried about the direction Molly is going in. {{spoiler|She turns out to be a witch.}}
* Quoted in [[Stephen King]]'s ''[[Hearts in Atlantis]]'' by an adult Bobby Garfield. He is a carpenter, yet admits his own roof leaks in a good rain.
* Rachel of Tish Cohen's ''[[Inside Out Girl]]'' edits a parenting magazine, but when she tries to apply her advice to her own kids, it comes off as cheesy and fake.
== [[Live
* In ''[[The Complete Guide To Parenting]]'', George Huntly (Peter Davison) is a professor of child psychology who is absolutely useless at parenting his seven year old son.
* ''[[Frasier]]'': Being a psychologist, one would figure that
** Eventually, Frasier actually does seek therapy from his Harvard professor/mentor, after the man demonstrated that Frasier couldn't help himself by having him roleplay calling in to his own show ''as'' himself.
* An episode of ''[[How Clean Is Your House]]'' featured a professional cleaner whose own house was the dirtiest Kim and Aggie had ever seen.
* The therapist on the HBO series ''[[In Treatment]]'' has his share of parental issues, as well as being recently divorced.
* The overarching plot of the short-lived series ''[[Miss Match]]'' was that a woman who was both a matrimonial attorney and a professional matchmaker couldn't handle her own relationships well.
* Adrian Monk's therapist, Dr. Kroger, on ''[[Monk]]'' has a terrible relationship with his son.
** Similarly, Monk often does not understand
** Closer to the gist of the trope, Monk solved many, many cases, but was frustrated that he couldn't figure out who killed his wife.
*** The finale revealed that {{spoiler|Monk was unable to solve the murder due to a lack of evidence. And once he ''did'' solve the murder and get all the dangling threads of his life cleaned up, his OCD became less excruciating to bear.}}
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* When the medical officer on the spaceship ''Pegasus'' in ''[[Space Odyssey: Voyage to The Planets]]'' develops cancer, he refuses to undergo chemotherapy because he doesn't want the toxic byproducts excreted in his urine to contaminate the ship's water supply. See the show's article for [[Fridge Logic|problems with this premise]].
* Similar to the above, in the [[Poorly-Disguised Pilot]] ''Virtuality'', the ship's medical officer discovers he's in the early stages of Parkinson's disease.
* On ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]
* Emma from ''[[Glee]]'' is the extremely OCD high school guidance counselor... who can't come to terms with her own mental disorder.
* There was an episode of ''[[What I Like About You]]'' in which Val was trying to get a client for her PR firm, a woman who had written a parenting book. Of course, inevitably, when Holly meets the woman's own teenage daughter, she has just bought a box of home pregnancy tests.
* On ''[[ER]]'' the treatment of Mark's father causes a temporary rift between himself and Elizabeth. Elizabeth does not think Mark should be treating his own father and Mark wants his father to live at home rather than go into a hospice. Mark's father doesn't want to stay either but has mixed feelings about palliative care anyway. In the end, Mark prevails and his father dies at home.
* Leonard's mother on ''[[The Big Bang Theory]]'' is a brilliant and world-renowned psychologist and parenting expert... who treats her son very, very badly. He confesses to Penny in one episode that he built a hugging machine when he was a child just so he could feel like somebody loved him.
** It's not just
== Newspaper Comics ==▼
▲== [[Newspaper Comics]] ==
* In ''[[Zits]]'', Jeremy Duncan's mother is a child therapist, but much of the strip's humor revolves around her inability to get her teenage son to communicate with her.
* Discussed in ''[[Peanuts]]'' when Peppermint Patty and Marcie debate about how the judges for a skating contest can be qualified if they themselves can't skate.
{{quote|'''Marcie:''' The world is full of unmarried marriage counselors.}}
==
* In ''[[Footloose (musical)|Footloose]]'' (the stage version at least) the main character [[lampshade]]s this by quoting the phrase in reference to the behavior of the local pastor's daughter.▼
▲* In ''[[Footloose]]'' (the stage version at least) the main character [[lampshade]]s this by quoting the phrase in reference to the behavior of the local pastor's daughter.
== Video Games ==▼
▲== [[Video Games]] ==
* In ''[[Zone of the Enders]]: Dolores, i'', James runs into the author of the fatherhood book that's helped him get back together with his estranged children (more or less), just in time to see him have a panic attack as his own son busts out of jail looking for him.
* Common problem in MMO games, the healer gets so focused on keeping the other characters alive that they forget their own health, often resulting in someone repeating the page quote.
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* If {{spoiler|team shrink Kelly Chambers}} survives the events of the second ''[[Mass Effect]]'' game, {{spoiler|she shows the most trauma of the NPC crew. When she shows up in the third game, she's still too traumatized to consider returning to the Normandy. A therapist with crippling Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.}}
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* In ''[[Something*Positive]]
▲* In ''[[Something*Positive]],'' Jason's father is another psychologist who can't relate to his own family. Or in this case, he apparently ''tried'' to relate to them by using his knowledge to manipulate them into acting the way he wanted, if Jason is to be believed.
== Web Original ==▼
▲== [[Web Original]] ==
* There are dozens of articles online titled things like "Reasons to Date a(n) X," with different occupations. One such, entitled "20 Reasons to Date a Writer," annoyed an actual writer so much she actually took to her blog to [https://web.archive.org/web/20131005003819/http://www.rebeccarosenblum.com/2010/10/07/why-date-a-writer/ shred the whole idea,] citing this as a reason, namely if a writer is getting paid to write, he or she's not going to waste good material on you for free. Similar articles exist citing such things as a chef not wanting to cook when they get off work and the like.
* In related news, a dose of common(?) sense [https://twitter.com/Viss/status/727348814588170240 from] Dan Tentler (the guy who found the open wide vulnerability of servers running ImageMagick "as is"):
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'''@Viss''': of ALL the conferences to be able to deal with fake badges, hackercons should be at the top of the list.}}
== [[Western Animation]] ==▼
* In ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'', Reverend Lovejoy's daughter Jessica is a bratty, manipulative hellion who steals from the church collection plate. Near the end of the episode Jessica keeps mentioning things she did ("Remember the glee club brawl?!") in a baldly obvious attempt to win her father's attention, as he tries to ignore her by covering his ears and singing "Bringing In the Sheaves" loudly.▼
▲== Western Animation ==
▲* In ''[[The Simpsons]]'', Reverend Lovejoy's daughter Jessica is a bratty, manipulative hellion who steals from the church collection plate. Near the end of the episode Jessica keeps mentioning things she did ("Remember the glee club brawl?!") in a baldly obvious attempt to win her father's attention, as he tries to ignore her by covering his ears and singing "Bringing In the Sheaves" loudly.
* In ''[[As Told by Ginger]]'', both of Macie's parents are therapists so naturally she has to make appointments to see them, they forget her birthday and don't even know how old she is.
* Frankie, from ''[[Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends]]''; ironically, unlike her grandmother, she's never created an imaginary friend of her own, but that may be for the best, seeing as she has to take care of ''dozens'' of neglected and abandoned ones. Although, it is implied she may have adopted [https://fostershomeforimaginaryfriends.fandom.com/wiki/World World].
== Real Life ==▼
▲== [[Real Life]] ==
* Historical example: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) wrote a lot of material on innovative ways of child-rearing and education, mostly centered around the concept of the child as an unspoiled creation of nature who should not be tainted by science and reason and civilized norms, but allowed to develop naturally. Also, he had five children (with a woman he did not marry), all of whom were immediately after birth placed in an orphanage and never heard from again.
** That could be interpreted as practising what he preached, not spoiling the children by attempting to form them himself.
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