Worst and best parent (s) in the Whedonverse?

[Wildfly]

Who was the worst parent and caused the most severe trauma to his/her kid?
(Can be inadvertently, with the best intentions or simply by neglecting or somesuch)

And who was the most supportive / best parent?

 

[vellavu]

Bad and unchanged
Mr. Price: He has zero understanding of Wesley and enjoys a lifetime humiliation of his son.
Hank Summers: He is retconned to be as terrible as Buffy's nightmare version of him.
Mr. Lehane, Mr. and Mrs. Young: Abandoning your kids is not cool, no matter if it's because of drinking or saving the world.

Bad but trying to be good
Joyce Summers: She was raising her daughter like doing a scientific project. Careful, passionate, but without much empathy. She became much better later though.
Angel: He tried in S3 and finally gave up in early S4.

Good but failed
Liam's father: Little can be done with his son really.
Giles' father: What do you expect the man to do? Calling the police to capture his son?
Fred's parents: They already did their best.
Most potential slayers' parents: I believe they are good parents due to my belief in humanity. I guess they were either killed by Bringers or kidnapped/tortured by the Twilight group. Poor people.

Good and succeeded
Darla.
Giles' grandma.

 

[Samuel Reyes]

• Fred's parents were easily the best.
• Spike's mother genuinely loved him, at least before she became a vampire. But as Spike points out, it was a demon doing the talking.
• Joyce tried her best. There were times in early seasons where she failed, but that was mostly because Buffy neglected to tell her about being the Slayer. After that, she's a pretty normal, supportive parent.
• Faith and The Mayor. I know he wasn't her actual father, but come on, it was sweet. Working-class, street-smart Faith and germaphobic, family-values Mayor Wilkins coming together out of their desire for a father/daughter. Buffy putting Faith in a coma was the only thing that caused him to snap, ever. Even after redeeming herself, Faith finds it difficult to look back at her time with The Mayor and feel anything but loved.
• Angel tried. Wesley, Holtz, Justine, Lilah, Jasmine... literally the whole world was against him and it clearly wasn't meant to be. But he did the noble thing and gave his son the family he needed to grow up normal.
• Liam's father was reasonable, if rather stern, but as Taake pointed out, little could be done with hedonistic layabout Liam.
• Darla. Gave up her own life to give birth to Connor.
• Nikki Wood. I actually think Spike was in the wrong when he told Wood his mother never loved him. I think she did, but her slayer duties got in the way. Not bad, just extremely neglectful.
• Potential slayers' parents: Nice that they bothered to check in on their kids during the apocalypse. What, did they convince their parents they were going on an extended field trip indefinitely???
• Willow's mother was neglectful, of the uptight-conservative variety.
• As far as we know, Cordy's parents aren't even aware their daughter is dead.
• Xander's parents were just annoying alcoholics, and he had to sleep outside in the cold winter's night to avoid getting in the crossfire of their drunken fights.
• Never met Gunn's parents.
• Faith's parents were shit: both of them were alcoholics, her mother is implied to have beat her, and her dad went to Faith after at least 15 years of having not seen her to try and convince her to kill someone for him. WOW.
• Kendra's parents abandoned her; their intentions must have been good, but still not cool.
• Hank Summers: He seemed OK at first, but after his S1 appearance he becomes a piece of shit.
• Lorne's mother: awful, but then again this is Pylea...
• Tara's parents: convinced their daughter was a freaking demon!
• Wesley's father is on the low end of the spectrum ("a man doesn't have to be possessed to terrorize his children.") The fact that Wesley actually believed his father would hold someone he loved at gunpoint speaks volumes as to how horrible he was.

 

[GwenRaiden]

The Tams weren't the best of parents. They didn't notice any change in River when she sent the letters, nor did they believe Simon when he thought River was communicating with a code. Overly stern and overly concerned with their social status that their children had to cut themselves off from them to survive.

 

[ILLYRIAN]

Samuel Reyes,
just one thing Darla didn't give up her life to give birth to Connor.
She knew that when his soul left, as soon as he was born she would want to drink his blood - kill him. To avoid that she killed herself.

 

[Wildfly]

The worst
- Agree about the Tams - i have no words to describe a father who would let the governnent to experiment upon his daughter, denounce his son and feign ignorance in exchange of social status and wealth.
- Catherine Madison (she was mental, else she'd be on top)
-Faith's parents


Bad but with good intentions
-Angel's father ( i think with positive encouragement Liam may have turned out differently)
-Wesley's dad
-Kendra's parents


Mixed results
Joyce
Giles
Angel
Willow's mom
William's mother - i believe she loved her son but part of the things she said was from her subconscious, she pobably was disappointed in him and dreamed of a different life.
The mayor - absolutely cool except when he threatens Faith to get rid of her if she fails
Nikki - wrong priorities 🙁

The best
Nikki's watcher
Fred's parents
Darla
Buffy (well big sis, but still, she gave her life for Dawn)

 

[HowiMetdaSlayer]

Dunno about the rest of the 'Whedonverse'. For this I'll just be concerning myself with just BTVS. Kinda wondered about Whedon's own parents, cause it seemed like the only good parent on the show was Joyce Summers. Not that she was by any means perfect. I mean, if you think about it, they're either hinted abusive drunks (Xander's parents), negligent (Willow's parents), abandoned by one parent (Buffy's dad) or abandoned by both (Faith's mom & dad). On the other hand, they all sorta became their own family in a way with Joyce as the literal & figurative mother figure & Giles as the father figure. Maybe Josh needs some therapy. He can certainly afford it. 😉

 

[Fuffy]

Best Parent:
Joyce, she was kind of lousy as a parent, but at least she tried.

Worst Parent:
Faith's mom, she completely neglected Faith because she wanted to enjoy the drinking and passing out parts of life.

 

[Ethan Reigns]

Best parent: the Burkles (Fred's)

Worst parents: the Harris' (Xander's)