Category: Bad Dad Tales

The subject of Sylvia Paths’s poem “Daddy” is a predator and a Nazi who should be renounced, but also the father of a woman who loves him. Plath’s line, “Every woman adores a Fascist” indicts both the reader and him. For the story of another bad dad, read The Great Stork Derby, based on an actual contest in which a husband pressures his wife to have babies for cash and, fifty years later, learns the true value of fatherhood. Read more about the book in NOVELS.

Pop star Britney Spears’s father Jamie controlled her life, abused her, and squandered her money through a 13-year conservatorship until a new lawyer petitioned to remove him. Britney finally danced her way to freedom, but her father is demanding she pay his legal fees! For the story of another bad dad, read The Great Stork Derby, based on an actual contest in which a husband pressures his wife to have babies for cash and, fifty years later, learns the true value of fatherhood. Read more about the book in NOVELS.

In John Cheever’s story “Reunion,” a boy who hasn’t seen his father in the three years since his parents divorced, has one hour to spend with him in Grand Central Station. The dad spends that time in search of a drink and the hour ends without their having talked at all. The boy says, “That’s all right, Daddy,” but they never see each other again. For the story of another bad dad, read The Great Stork Derby, based on an actual contest in which a husband pressures his wife to have babies for cash and, fifty years later, learns the true value of fatherhood. Read more about the book in NOVELS.

In Titus Andronicus, Shakespeare’s most violent play (14 murders total), no one is a good guy. But patriarch Titus comes off as the worst for killing his son and then his daughter, who has already been raped and mutilated. Predictably, this is one of The Bard’s least performed plays. For the story of another bad dad, read The Great Stork Derby, based on an actual contest in which a husband pressures his wife to have babies for cash and, fifty years later, learns the true value of fatherhood. Read more about the book in NOVELS.

The dad in Akhil Sharma’s An Obedient Father rapes his 12-year-old daughter and decades later, when she comes to live with him because she’s broke, thinks about raping her daughter. He feels bad about his badness but too bad for this family rapist. For the story of another bad dad, read The Great Stork Derby, based on an actual contest in which a husband pressures his wife to have babies for cash and, fifty years later, learns the true value of fatherhood. Read more about the book in NOVELS.

Movie director Woody Allen’s sexual behavior with his daughters is not the stuff of comedy. At age 56, he had a relationship with the 21-year-old adopted daughter of his then partner, Mia Farrow; they later married. He was also accused of molesting the young daughter he and Farrow adopted together. Allen continued to work, but his reputation never recovered. For the story of another bad dad, read The Great Stork Derby, based on an actual contest in which a husband pressures his wife to have babies for cash and, fifty years later, learns the true value of fatherhood. Read more about the book in NOVELS.

In Rabbit, Run by John Updike, Harry Angstrom, a.k.a. Rabbit, is equal parts terrible husband and father. A washed up ex-high school basketball star who can’t face adulthood, he has an affair and abandons his wife, a recovering alcoholic, which causes the entire family to fall apart. For the story of another bad dad, read The Great Stork Derby, based on an actual contest in which a husband pressures his wife to have babies for cash and, fifty years later, learns the true value of fatherhood. Read more about the book in NOVELS.

The father of Lisbeth in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series by Steig Larsson is an ex-Soviet spy and crime boss who beats his wife nearly to death and is an even worse father. His daughter’s revenge: She becomes a vigilante hacker. For the story of another bad dad, read The Great Stork Derby, based on an actual contest in which a husband pressures his wife to have babies for cash and, fifty years later, learns the true value of fatherhood. Read more about the book in NOVELS.

In Edna O’Brien’s Down by the River, a work of fiction grounded in history, 14-year-old Mary is raped by her father and, after a failed abortion attempt, is forced into an insane asylum where religious fanatics insist she have the baby. Her father avoids prosecution. In another history-inspired bad dad story, The Great Stork Derby, a husband pressures his wife to have babies for a large cash prize and, fifty years later, learns the true value of fatherhood. Read more about the book in NOVELS.

After losing his lucrative New Jersey bank job, John List, a deeply religious man, decided it was better to kill his family than have them go on welfare and turn away from God. He shot his mother, wife, and three children, then escaped to Colorado, changed his name, and remarried. He was finally caught 18 years later. Asked why he didn’t shoot himself too, List said that those who killed themselves couldn’t go to heaven, whereas if he lived and confessed to God, he’d be forgiven, get into heaven, and be reunited with his family. For the story of another bad dad, read The Great Stork Derby, based on an actual contest in which a husband pressures his wife to have babies for cash and, fifty years later, learns the true value of fatherhood. Read more about the book in NOVELS.