The town of Quahog, Rhode Island from the series Family Guy, is full of crazy characters…
From Peter Griffin to the Angry Chicken and the Greased Up Naked Deaf Guy.
And some of the most prominent characters are the parents who reside in town.
But in a world as crazy as Family Guy, which of the parents are actually good parents?
And which parents are bad or straight up evil?
Let’s figure it out!
I’m Kyle with WickedBinge and this is Family Guy Parents: Best to Worst.
And remember, we’re basing our rankings on parenting skills…
So morality outside of fatherhood or motherhood may be disregarded, unless of course it ties
in with parenting personality.
Now, as usual we’ll start from the good and work our way down to the worst.
Starting with the most Pure.
These are The Good Parents.
The Gold medal for parenting goes to Mort Goldman.
Mort is a single parent to Neil Goldman ever since his wife Muriel Goldman was murdered.
Mort not only parents Neil but also runs the Pharmacy in town to provide medicine as well
as keep an income going for his son.
Mort burns down his pharmacy with Peter to get the insurance money, but we don’t think
that it was entirely selfish, and that at least some of the money would go to benefit
his son.
While Neil isn’t the most well behaved kid in town, we can’t blame that all on Mort,
we don’t know how well Neil took the death of his mother and it is possible that Neil
partially acts out because of the loss of her.
Neil can be seen helping his father out with the family business showing us that they are
close enough.
Mort showing his son the value of working hard.
Even though we don’t necessarily see a ton of Mort parenting Neil, it’s hard to be
a single parent and we have to give him credit for doing what he does.
Granted, he essentially buys Meg for his daughter when Peter runs up his tab at the pharmacy.
It really shows how terrible many of the characters in this show are, when the best parent is
guilty of that.
Our silver medal for parenting goes to Cleveland Brown.
Cleveland has one son, Cleveland Brown jr. and two step kids Rallo and Roberta.
Cleveland was married to Loretta before she cheated on him and then later died, before
marrying his childhood crush, Donna Tubbs.
We can see that Cleveland is a good father from how he reacts when Peter shoots his son.
Cleveland cuts ties with Peter even if he does forgive him later after seeing how sorry
Peter really was for the incident.
Cleveland can be seen attempting to bond with his step kids even if it doesn’t always
go well.
That said, he does let Peter get away with a lot of terrible things that otherwise are
quite dangerous to his own family.
But Cleveland, at the very least, seems competent most of the time as a dad and doesn’t do
the damage to his kids that other Family Guy parents do.
The bronze medal for parenting goes to Muriel Goldman, Mort’s deceased Wife and Neil’s
Mother.
Murriel isn’t in the show long before she is murdered by Diane Simmons.
We know that she and Mort had a nice marriage from her back story while they met on a dating
service, and spent a lot of their time watching their favorite movies to the album “Hotel
California” to see if they synchronized at all.
We can’t rank her higher on the list because of how little she is in the show along with
the fact that in the episode “Follow the Money” Neil is seen angrily throwing money
on a park bench telling his mother to “buy something nice in hell.”
The next good spot goes to the mother of Rallo and Roberta and the stepmother of Cleveland
Brown jr., Donna Tubbs-Brown.
Donna is a very protective mother, also being furious with Peter for shooting her step son
and takes good care of her actual kids.
However Donna is knocked down a peg for two reasons.
When her and Louis don’t get along at first, she tells Cleveland that he can no longer
hang out with Peter.
If she also does this to her kids, that’s a pretty controlling way to get your kids
to do what you want them to do.
She also is seen to not be as prepared for disasters as she should be, in “The Cleveland
Show” episode “The Hurricane” Donna only buys food for one day at a time, which
leads to a massive food disaster while the family is trapped in the house from the hurricane.
Next is Ida Davis.
Originally Dan Quagmire, she came to Quahog to get a sex change.
Glenn looks up to his dad when he comes to town and even supports his decision to have
the sex change surgery.
Where Ida goes down some notches however is sleeping with her son’s worst enemy, Brian
Griffin.
Glenn also admits that Ida wasn’t around as much while in the military, however Ida
gets a few points back for helping search for Glenn when he was kidnapped by Sonja,
going to Brian’s funeral, and donating her old Penis to Glenn after his is bitten off
by a shark.
Now that we’ve gone through the very short list of Good Parents…
Let’s move into neutral territory.
These parents fall in the Grey Area.
The second member of the grey area is everyone’s favorite paraplegic cop, Joe Swanson.
Joe is the Husband to Bonnie Swanson and is the Father to Kevin and Susie Swanson.
Joe stays in the grey area because while there aren’t a ton of bad things against him,
his mental instability and constant screaming could be doing some damage to Susie as she
grows up.
The worst example of Joe’s anger comes when he beats his son Kevin in a blind rage so
bad that Kevin had to live in a foster home.
While him and Kevin have a better relationship now, there is no denying the fact that Joe
has some serious anger issues that he needs to take care of.
Joe also has shown that he has selfishness as well, telling Peter and Evelyn that he
is saving the last time that he can walk for Susie’s wedding, but using it to walk out
of the clam to get away from them.
Joe can be a good guy, but it’s clear from his actions that he isn’t the best parent,
but isn’t the worst.
Peter’s mother Thelma Griffin is up.
Thelma had a hard time taking care of her son mostly by herself while Peter’s stepfather,
Francis, wasn’t around to help much and was frequently abusive to Peter.
She was there for her son’s parent teacher conference’s showing that she cares at least
a bit about how her son turns out in school.
However she would throw whiskey bottles at Peter when he would have a toothache instead
of getting him help from a dentist, and she also allowed Peter’s sister to bully him
without doing anything to help.
While these aren’t signs of good parenting, Peter is very upset when his mother dies which
gives her a few points in our book.
Speaking of mothers, next is Babs Pewterschmidt.
Bab’s married Carter almost solely for his money and even leaves or cheats on him several
times when he runs out of said money.
Although, Carter has cheated on Babs too so that can’t really go against her.
What she has going for her as a parent is her love for her daughter Lois and Carol.
Babs doesn’t love Peter very much but accepts that Lois loves him and gets along with him
a lot better than Carter does.
What she DOESN’T have going for her however, is how she treats her son.
In the episode “The Fat Guy Strangler” it’s revealed that Babs cheated on Carter
with Jackie Gleason and when her son Patrick walked in on them, he had a mental breakdown
and had to be sent to an institution.
Inside of the institution, Patrick came to the conclusion that he had Gleason because
he was fat and when he was released from Brookfield Insane Asylum, he went on a killing spree
killing fat people and almost killing his brother-in-law, Peter.
Next up is Brian’s dad Coco.
We never get to see Coco, but we do get enough information about him to put him in the Grey
Area.
When Brian gets the “good dog” award from Stewie, Brian tears up and says that he wishes
his dad was alive to see it.
However, he does have a racial problem that he passed on to his son, and Brian uses this
as an excuse as to why he barks at black people.
Peter’s real father, Mickey Mcfinnigan fits in around here.
There isn’t much to say about Mickey.
Peter didn’t meet him until he was 43 years old and he won’t admit that Peter is his
son until Peter beats him in a drinking contest.
Mickey is known as the town drunk.
It becomes clear that Peter gains many of his attributes from his father, including
being a “fat stinking drunk.”
The fact that many of Peter’s attitudes come from his father is what drags Mickey
so far down on this list.
Spoiler alert for the rest of the list, but Peter is pretty far down here.
We can only assume that with how bad Peter is at raising his kids that he might have
been raised that way by Mickey too.
However because we know so little about him, we can’t rank him as a totally bad parent...
After all he didn’t know that Peter existed.
The last member of the Brown family, Loretta Brown has to be next.
Loretta came dangerously close to be included in the Bad area, but we kept her just outside
of it...
Loretta Brown cheats on Cleveland with Glenn Quagmire and may have also slept with Adam
West, Ollie Williams, Frank Sinatra jr., and the greased up deaf guy.
Plus, when she and Cleveland divorced, she took the old house and left her son with Cleveland.
What keeps her out of the side of the worst parents, was that after she died she left
her estate for their son with the stipulation that none of it be used for her ex-husband.
The fact that she at least left everything to her kid with foresight to make sure it
goes directly to him keeps her just outside the “bad” category.
The mother of Glenn Quagmire, Crystal Quagmire is next.
Crystal has three kids, Glenn, Brenda, and Gary Quagmire.
Crystal did a lot of raising kids by herself since her ex husband was in the military,
and we don’t discredit her for trying.
However, she spends more time with sexual partners than with her son, leading to Glenn
not having a good role model and can probably be partially blamed for how Glenn turned out.
When she finally shows up, Glenn makes it clear that she did nothing to raise him and
that he doesn’t want anything to do with her.
What stops her from falling to the worst side of the parents is that when Crystal does show
up she claims to be a better person and helps her son get out of jail... and promises him
that she wants to be a part of his life.
While this doesn’t change what she did while Glenn was growing up, it is good that she
acknowledges her shortcomings.
Now we move from The Grey Area to the downright bad parents.
These parents have little to no redeeming value in them but aren’t short of terrible
things that they do to their kids.
Some of them are straight up evil…
The character who was pregnant for the longest time is Bonnie Swanson.
For the most part we actually don’t see much of Bonnie as a parent and that’s most
of the problem.
While Joe usually has a moral compass despite a few slip ups, Bonnie seems to have no such
thing.
We can blame her just as much for how bad Kevin turned out, but on top of that she cheats
on her kid’s father several times and then tries to kill Joe several times.
Not liking your husband is one story, but trying to rid your kids of their father is
another thing.
If this is how she treats Joe, we can only imagine how she treats little Susie when we
don’t see.
The first Griffin on this list is Brian Griffin.
Brian is the father to Dylan, and is in his son’s life very little.
Let’s start with the good things that Brian has done for his son.
When Dylan first came to live with the Griffin family he was disrespectful and rude.
However after working with Brian for a little bit he became a nicer, more respectful person.
Brian was reluctant about Dylan going back to live with his mother but Dylan reassured
Brian that this was what was best for him and Brian let him go.
The next good thing that Brian does for his son is acknowledging that he was a terrible
father and that he wants to try and fix that error.
That’s about where the good ends for Brian however.
After his initial meeting with his son, Brian doesn’t talk to him for years which is even
noticed by Quagmire.
When Dylan calls Brian, Brian tells Stewie that he doesn’t want to talk to Dylan and
only talks to him when he finds out that his son is famous and that he could get a job
from this.
Brian may have had some decent moments with his son, but the fact that he only seems to
want to talk to Dylan when he can get something out of it drags him down.
We can’t go through a family guy bad list without mentioning Carter Pewterschmidt.
On paper, Carter as a father doesn’t sound too bad.
He loves Lois deeply and wouldn’t dream of hurting her and even though she lives in
the middle class and left the wealth they had behind, he still supports her.
However, it’s the actions around his parenting that puts Carter this low.
Carter hates his son-in-law deeply, and doesn’t try to hide it at all, even to his daughter
who he made it clear that he would be happy if Lois dumped Peter.
Carter cheated on Lois’s mother and got mad at Peter for blowing the whistle on it,
he’s very racist and sexist, and hates those who have less than him.
Cater falls this far on the list because of how bad of an influence he was on his children
and probably plays a part in why Lois ended up being such a bad parent.
Sidenote, as bad of a parent Carter is…
He is actually a significantly better parent than he is a person in general…
If we were ranking his morality in general, he would be even further down the list.
Next up is Peter’s adopted dad, Francis Griffin.
While Francis did love his stepson it is clear that he doesn’t like him.
Francis and Peter have always had a rocky relationship, with Francis being verbally
abusive to Peter for most of his life.
He is a stereotypical and bigoted religious fanatic who judges everyone else.
He even taped “to a protestant wh---” underneath the “Just Married” sign at
Peter and Lois’s wedding.
Even after the Pope tells him that Peter and Lois being married is ok, Francis refuses
to listen to him.
Francis has no redeeming qualities as a father or a person and even hits Brian with a bible
for questioning him.
Next is Lois Griffin.
While Lois shows some love for Stewie when he isn’t trying to kill her, she doesn’t
show much love for her other kids.
When Meg had finally got a boyfriend, Lois quickly jumped on the opportunity to make
out with him and then blamed the cheating on her husband’s inattention.
When Meg has the courage to stand up to her mother for her abusive behavior, Lois is too
emotionally fragile to take the truth and her daughter has to apologize for telling
her the truth.
Meg isn’t the only kid who takes abuse from Lois.
Lois helps Peter kill off a fictional character Arthur Valentine causing him to go catatonic,
and then confides in her already crazy son that she’s killed before.
If Chris hadn’t lost his mind before, he definitely lost it then.
Really, Lois is actually one of the more selfish characters on the show…
And she’s incredibly apathetic about her kids more often than not.
And her sadism towards Meg, in particular, is also pretty appalling.
Landing the silver medal for bad parenting is Glenn Quagmire.
Because of all of the sexual partners that Quagmire has he has many illegitimate children
that he doesn’t want any part in taking care of.
These kids often show up for one off gags or full episodes.
Quagmire ends up so low on the list because of how often his kids show up, to babies left
at his doorstep, strippers with his head, even Giraffe babies!!
We can’t put him any lower however because of how he tries to work with Anna Lee before
giving her up for adoption because he knew it was best for her.
He tries really hard to come back and get her back afterward, but gives up after seeing
how happy she is with her new family.
The gold medal of worst parenting in Family Guy goes to the family guy himself, Peter
Griffin.
The first and most obvious reason is how he constantly physically and verbally abuses
his daughter meg, who is already an unpopular, self-conscious high school girl who is shown
several times to hurt herself.
I mean, he literally chases her around with his farts.
He is shown to have killed Peter Griffin Jr, by shaking him to death and has been seen
shaking stewie on several occasions, which is one of the worst things that you can do
to a baby and toddler.
While Peter is a little better towards Chris, his oldest son is always searching for his
father’s approval and almost always fails before Peter apologizes…
Only to never learn from his mistakes.
Considering this scenario happens several times we can see that Peter never really learns
how to support his son.
On several occasions Peter leaves his kids behind, sells their things, verbally abuses
them, physically abuses them and takes advantage of them.
Peter not only is the worst parent on Family Guy, but might be one of the worst parents
in cartoon history.
Who do you think the best and worst parents of Family Guy are?
Did we miss anyone?
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