Bumbling Dad/Playing With


 * Basic Trope: A comically incompetent father in a Dom Com.
 * Played Straight: Bob means well, but he often grabs the Idiot Ball and gets his wife and children into all sorts of misadventures with him. He is also a very flawed (yet sympathetic) individual.
 * Exaggerated: Bob is an outright Jerkass who is a borderline (if not outright) abusive father.
 * Downplayed: The family share possession of the Idiot Ball pretty fairly, but Bob carries it more than most.
 * Inverted:
 * Bob is a Standard Fifties Father
 * Alternatively, Alice is an incompetent mom.
 * Justified:
 * Unfortunately, emotional maturity and common sense are not (and never have been) prerequisites for parenthood.
 * Bob's family is a rather Dysfunctional Family
 * Subverted: Bob seems dumb, but that was Obfuscating Stupidity.
 * Double Subverted: But it turns out, he was really that dumb. When he seemed smart, he was Feigning Intelligence
 * Deconstructed: Can have a negative effect on his children and his wife, leading to the breakdown of the (presumably already dysfunctional) family.
 * Reconstructed: Bob is dumb and irresponsible, but he sincerely loves his family and is capable of stepping up when it's important.
 * Parodied:
 * Bob is The Ditz.
 * Alice ends up Parenting the Husband as much as (or more than) her kids.
 * Lampshaded: "He's like all those bumbling dads you see in sitcoms."
 * Averted: Bob is a competent father.
 * Enforced:
 * "All those perfect Dom Com families on TV...they make me sick! I'll make a Dysfunctional Family, with a blithering idiot as its head!"
 * One of the parents needs to be somewhat on the ball for the sake of Conservation of Competence, and you want the characterisations to be relatively consistent rather than a constant game of Idiot Ball. You know that every time the dad is shown to be somehow "superior" to his wife, you'll have a protracted battle with the Moral Guardians, but not so the other way around. What are you gonna do?
 * Invoked: Alice specifies in her Lonely Hearts ad that she's looking for an Adult Child with whom to settle down and raise kids.
 * Defied: Alice breaks up with Bob when she sees that he is too immature to raise a family, and not likely to change any time soon.
 * Discussed:
 * Conversed:
 * Played For Laughs: Almost always is.
 * Played For Drama: Bob's mistakes and selfishness negatively affect his family.

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