The Simpsons is one of the longest running animated shows to ever air. Since its creation, The Simpsons family has been used as the go-to example of the animated family… With Homer and Marge at the helm as the two parents. But how do they stack up in comparison to the other families of Springfield? From mixed families to single parents to the traditional nuclear family, we want to know who is the best among these caregivers and who is the most evil and selfish?
I’m Brad with WickedBinge and this Simpsons Parents: Good to Evil.
For this list, we’ll be covering those in the show that we actually see the parenting styles of. While there are more parents and families in the background, not everyone has gotten a fair amount of development, so we’re only going to be discussing those that we can give fair commentary on. Some parents will be ranked together since they work better as a team while most parents will be ranked separately for having some pretty wildly different parenting methods.
As usual, we'll be starting with the most pure and noble character and working our way down. These characters are The Good.
Marge is without a doubt one of the best moms in animation. One of the few people to stand up for Bart and his antics. The one who fought like hell to get Lisa to stop starving herself when she was self-conscious. The one that Maggie went missing for a full day to try and find, due to missing her way too much. Marge devotes her entire self to her family and anyone else she can help. She mothered Nelson when she found out his home life was especially rough and helped Lisa fight for her cause against Malibu Stacy, welcoming the founder into her home. When she saw her family being trapped by rhinos on tv, she went with her gut and drove to the scene, rolling her car to create a fire and draw the animals away. Even some of the biggest criticisms against Marge are understandable… such as the fact that she can be a bit judgemental and over-protective. For instance, her common viewpoint of “I personally don’t like this, therefor nobody else should allowed to enjoy it…” can certainly be annoying, but she genuinely believes she is doing what’s best for her children by shielding them from whatever topical game, movie or media of the day. She may be a bit over-protective, but frankly, it’s a good balance for her kids when compared to Homer’s lack of concern for most things…
Clancy and Sarah we have to place together. While Ralph is a pretty odd kid… and by odd, we mean immensely stupid… We have to appreciate how sweet Sarah and Clancy are towards their son. They give him a fun backyard to explore, give him affectionate nicknames and were always seen as doting and caring. While Clancy is not the most competent officer, he does make sure to make Ralph feel welcome when his son takes an interest in police work. Police Chief Wiggum is actually pretty awful as an agent of the law, but he is a loving dad, and we can’t take that away from him.
Ned and Maude we’ve decided to place together. Ned is the breadwinner and Muade was the glue that held their home together… You know, until Homer got her killed by way of tshirt gun... They raised their two sons in a pretty sheltered and over-protective environment, but they were raised polite and knowing right from wrong. They taught their sons to see the best in any situation. Maude even put forth extra effort to keep Rodd and Todd happy and singing when they were being evicted from their home. When Maude passed, Ned made sure to keep raising them as sweet young men, trying not to rattle their lives too much by dating around, only having a few relationships here and there. We will dock them a few points, because although they seem to be exceptional parents in many regards… They do crank the judgemental attitude and sheltered behavior to the max. And this is definitely something that is likely going to have a rough impact on their kids adapting to the real world when they’re older.
Homer gets a lot of crap for being inattentive, but he’s often labeled the fun parent. He comes around, getting to know his children little by little. He helped Lisa sneak into the Egyptian exhibit. He helped Bart with his studies when everyone thought the boy was a genius. He bonded with Maggie by teaching her how to swim. He doesn’t always get things right, but he at least makes an effort. There have been more than a few times where he’s given a comforting word to his children. He helped Bart get over his loss as student council president and Lisa’s lost substitute teacher in the same night. He gave up being a genius so he could be accepted by his friends again, but not before writing Lisa a letter telling her that his increased intellect helped him see and appreciate how gifted and wonderful she really was.
And his use of Maggie’s baby pictures is considered one of the most heartwarming moments in the show, with a flashback showing a sign of “Don’t forget: you’re here forever” being changed by Homer to read “Do it for her.” Showing us the sacrifice he was willing to make for his family.
Now, Homer is a bit neglectful, and he makes some rather poor parenting decisions on and off… But the reality is that he comes around in the end and puts his family first when push comes to shove.
Abe is not on the ball for most of the series. In fact he kinda comes off as senile after the first few seasons. But Abe, despite all of his faults, does care about his son Homer. Even after his wife left, Abe still made sure to take the role of dressing up like Santa Claus, trying to give Homer advice on growing up and teamed up with Homer for a tonic to help men struggling in their relationships. In the early episodes, Abe gets into a feud with Homer after the passing of a woman Abe was seeing. Abe had missed the last night he got to spend with her, with her dying of a heart attack the same night the family was held hostage by lions at the discount lion safari.
Manjula is next. While we don’t see a lot of her, what we do see is her making sure to keep up with all eight of her children. She makes sure to take them to the park, set them up on play dates and is sure to give all of the identical children the same amount of attention. We rank her higher than her husband since we don’t really see Apu taking the octopletes out like Manjula does. However, we also can’t rank her higher because she isn’t given much screen time other than her interactions with Marge when their kids are present.
With that said, we've arrived at the neutral territory. These characters fall in The Grey Area.
Mona was a little harder to place. While she did become an outlaw and had to choose a life of running over being with her son, we give her some credit since she was going up against Mr. Burns and so she really didn’t have much other choice. Still, prioritizing her activism in that way when it put her relationship with her child in danger definitely lost her some points.
She did try to stay in touch, with it being revealed she sent a care package to her son every week but Homer didn’t get them since he never tipped the mailman around Christmas. When she had to fake her death, she sent in clues in the newspaper to let him know she was okay and safely on the run again. But we dock her points for the anguish she causes Homer. While we can recognize her fighting against Burns helped a lot of people, it broke a family and hurt an innocent little boy in the process.
Moving on, we have Apu. We don’t really see him with his family since he’s more occupied with his work. He clearly cares for them, going the extra mile to be sure they’re all happy. He loses points for being the one to think having the public watch them grow, basically selling his kids off, was a good idea but only so they could get the care and attention they needed. Once he realized how his children were going to be used for money, he quickly formed a plan to spring them out. There was also a friend of his shown more in the early seasons that had a young daughter who even addressed Apu as “Uncle Apu,” most notably when Edna and Skinner were exposed in the school’s janitor closest and the young girl rushes to the Kwik-E-Mart to share the news. A moment that may seem insignificant, but shows he has a good relationship with kids when he is around them. It also helps that Apu is clearly not a pushover after years of having to fight for his education, his citizenship and being threatened at gunpoint at an almost weekly basis.
Krusty was revealed to have a long long daughter in season twelve. As it turned out, Sophie was the result of Krusty hooking up with a female soldier. He was left out of Sophie’s life due to how he botched a mission for the woman and she began to fester a hate for anything clown related because of it. While Krusty makes a living entertaining children, he is not the most responsible guy on the planet. He has a difficult time connecting with his daughter, wanting to be lazy and not making much effort in the beginning. He makes things worse when he loses Sophie’s most prized possession: her violin. But we give him some points for realizing how awful his actions were and getting the instrument back for his daughter. While she doesn’t reappear in the show, it was a sweet side of Krusty we don’t often get to see.
Marge’s Parents were an odd mix. On the one hand, we don’t hear much about her father. We see him only in flashbacks when he disapproves of Homer asking her to prom and when Marge discovered he was a flight attendant. Marge’s mother on the other hand we see more of. We see her in her elderly stage, telling Marge with her fading voice that she doesn’t do anything right. She brushed off Marge’s concerns when she stated she accepted Mr Burns’ marriage proposal, even staying quiet when the man hit Bart during the ceremony. In Marge’s flashbacks, we see that she taught Marge to be a doormat, telling her to smile so everyone knew she had a good mother and letting Patty and Selma basically do as they pleased, letting them smoke from an early age. She even told them after saying their father died of lung cancer that she let them keep smoking because she thought it made them look cool.
Kirk, Milhouse’s father, is next on our list. He suffers from very low self-esteem and so takes it out on everyone around him, unwilling to learn from his mistakes. He uses his son as a pawn of sorts to try and ease his way back into his ex’s life while still trying to convince his son that he’s a cool dad. And he doesn’t really ease off on that much even when he is taken back.
Finally, we've reached the dark side. These characters are The Bad and The Evil.
Mr. Burns we have to place due to his temporary guardianship of Bart as he was seeking out an heir. Now, we’re obviously ranking Mr. Burns low… But because this is strictly a parenting list… We’re actually not ranking him too low. He was drawn to Bart’s destructive behavior, seeing him as someone who could run his empire as merciless as Burns himself. He encourages Bart to abuse people like Smithers, tossing peas and degrading everyone’s effort just because he could. He tried to reshape Bart’s back with a suit way too tight for him, just to try and give him a hump on his back. When Bart was beginning to miss his family, Burns hired a group of actors to make Bart think his family didn’t want him back. He then gave the ultimatum of choosing either him or Homer. Fortunately, Burns lost that round.
Luanne Vanhouten we had to place lower on our list. We aren’t calling her evil for asking for a divorce, but she didn’t handle it in a way that was healthy. She burns all of Kirk’s shirts, risking taking the whole house down. She quickly rebounds and begins dating a stuntman and in the process, lets Millhouse do whatever he pleases. We see Millhouse trash the house in a small car, breaking lamps and slamming into the wall with his mother only telling him to be careful. She does eventually take Kirk back, but it’s hard to say if this is a good move for their child considering all the bad blood between them. While Kirk is more desperate, we place Luanne lower for letting her son be reckless and without any boundaries. A far cry from her once telling her son not to hang out with Bart as she had in one of the earlier seasons.
Cletus and Brandine take the Bronze Medal for Worst Parents. They are much like Nelson’s mother in that they have no motivation, but unlike Nelson’s mother, they are shown to at least have an account on their children at all times. Cletus is even seen being an overprotective dad when one of his daughters takes an interest in Bart. Still, they’re often portrayed as exceptionally neglectful, which is why we rank them any better.
This might surprise people, but we’re giving Reverend and Helen Lovejoy the Silver Medal for worst parents in Springfield. They were shown to have a daughter that was sent away due to her issues with stealing, lying and outright going against authority in any way she could. They painted Bart as the hellion, refusing to admit to the town that their daughter stole the collection plate money even when the stash was revealed in her own room. We don’t see the girl after this episode, left to assume she was once again sent away without any further word given. So we have to have them fall low because not only did they raise a criminal, but they would rather deny the poor girl existing than admit that they aren’t good enough to be parents. They kind of take the issues that the Flanders had and crank it up even further, and without the love and respect for their kid. The rebellious nature of their daughter was also clearly influenced by their authoritative, judgemental and hyper conservative rules.They’re typically very judgemental towards everyone else in town, but should probably spend more time looking inward at the problems in their own house.
Nelson’s mother is no doubt the worst parent on the show. To be honest, she much resembles Hyde’s mom on That 70s Show, who we covered on that Good to Evil list. She neglects her son, letting him go hungry and sleep in the park or really wherever he won’t be a bother to her. She invites weird and random men over, including Moe of all people, and tells off Marge just for letting Nelson feel like a respectable person. She even mocks her son, saying he had his vest buttoned “like he was somebody.” She’s no doubt one the most classless and ruthless moms displayed in Springfield. When Nelson is reunited with his father after the Simpson family steps in to help the poor boy, there’s the implication that since they’re a family again, everything would work out. But we then don’t see Nelson’s father afterwards, implying that life with his wife was so terrible, he decided to take off again. To be honest, both of Nelson’s parents need a lot of work, but we have to place his mother as the worst since she’s the one that stays and really sculpts Nelson’s life. Her lack of discipline and care leads to the young man lashing out at others, only showing mercy in times where the kid he’s picking on is losing their family in a way. A prime example being when he comforted Millhouse after the Vanhouten’s decided to be divorced.
But what do you think? Who are the most good and evil parents of Springfield? Let us know in the comment section. Don't forget to hit that notification bell and binge our Good-to-Evil playlist. Where we break down the morality of the characters in your favorite cartoons, shows and movies. But most importantly, stay wicked!
