The Top Four* Most Annoying Parents on Children's TV Shows

*because that’s how many I could come up with

1. Dora’s Mom and Dad-What is the story with these people? Where the hell are they? They let their one and only child wander freely in forests and over bridges. She is constantly lost and looking for assistance. Are they available? No! The have provided her with one hell of a backpack and a lousy paper map-no GPS in sight. Her trusted accompaniments are a monkey (Ebola virus?), a squirrel and an iguana. I will be kind and not bring up Benny the bull. He seems to be missing a few nuts and bolts if you know what I mean. A horrible fox is constantly chasing Dora while she is lost. Is it just me or is no one else concerned about rabies? Someone should really talk to these people. A little supervision seems to be in order.

2. Caillou’s Mom and Dad-These two really get under my skin. It may be the tonality of their voices or just their overall frumpy appearance. Can you really trust a woman who picks out heart wallpaper borders? I don’t think so. They seem totally high on something to me. They wander around completely ignoring the fact that their child is the biggest whiner on the planet. They are so high on life that this does not seem to bother them in the least. At least not in the way that his little high pitched, irksome voice seems to bother me. And what kind of name is Caillou? I’m sorry, but they did not do him any favors with that one. Not to mention they may want to talk to someone about why at four he still is not growing any hair. Call me crazy, but that would concern me.

3. Frances’ Mom and Dad- They both are annoyingly good spirited about everything. They have a nice, large house. Yet, no one seems to really do any hard work. I find it most annoying that they are both home all of the time. I know you can be a piano teacher and a photographer and set your own hours, but really in order to keep those businesses thriving someone must have to work at some point, right? Not in Frances’ house. Everyone is home all of the time. Perhaps, that’s the secret to being so chipper-constant help from your husband. Frances will do something like throw a tantrum and it won’t even faze the two of them. They just look lovingly at each other and sigh. Then, one of them will say in a very passive voice to Frances “Well, what do you think the solution to this should be?” Are you freaking kidding me here? Perhaps, it’s because my husband is on his second or third week of being out of town for 4 days in a row that I’m about ready to pop. But if you throw a tantrum like that around here, your ass is in timeout.

4. Binky Barnes Mom and Dad- One word-denial. They are in complete denial about their child. Binky is running with a not so great crowd, The Tough Customers, about half of the time. The other half he seems to be pretending to be Arthur’s friend so that he can keep his parents off his back. I mean, he is terrorizing small children on the playground from the top of the play equipment. That is not nice. He has failed a grade in school and they do not appear to show much concern regarding this situation. I would have completely flipped a gasket by now, but that’s just me. I will throw them a bone and say that they did get involved when he developed his peanut allergy. But, I believe they could step up their parenting game a little in order to get old Binky back on track. Of course, they have a new distraction with the addition of little Mei-Lin from China. So, we’ll see how having to share attention at home positively effects Binky. I’m sure he won’t rebel at all…