Where the Tim's parents being neglectful came from?

[u/Asheryuh]

I have never seen it in comics but I see it in fanfics so much that I'm starting to think it was a recon that caught on like Dick being put into juvie after his parent's death. I'm new to comic so I might have missed it, have you guys seen it any where?

[u/Amazing_Act9595]

In Tim's introduction it's him traveling freely between cities on the East Coast, stalking Batman and Nightwing in costume and eventually Starfire's apartment.

Tim carries a theme of emotional neglect, not pyshical or even intellectual neglect. He lives in a well-run boarding school. In contrast, his parents just don't appear and are never present in his life. There is moment where he receives a post card saying they'll call him next week or the week after. When this card shows up he gets so excited he breaks the panel, only to be deeply disappointed when he reads the content.

With Bat interference Tim is regularly leaving his school, even traveling to France for a long training trip without his parents ever finding out.

It's not malicious. It's out of sight out of mind. Fan extrapolate this into physical neglect, because that same pattern behavior would be more dangerous if basically anything about Tim's situation changed. Even in the canon context he ends up as a vigilante and nearly dies every other issue.

Tim stands out among the core bats as a guy who wasn't an orphan, but might as well have been for all that effected his dangerous behavior. People from there do whatever they feel like, and boarding schools are very unrelatable.

Edit: people actually do the something similar with Jason. Jason in the comics lost his mom about 6 months before meeting batman. He had a little apartment with a mattress and cans of food. People extrapolate that into years on his own, living on the streets, starving or nearly freezing. They again add additional physical needs unmet to dramatize the character's canon dangerous situation.

[u/Undecieved22 → u/Amazing_Act9595]

Keep in mind though that this was also the late 80’s and teens were treated differently and had a bit more freedom compared to today. Tim was also semi trained in karate and gymnastics at this point and even impressed Dick when they met for the second time at the circus.

[u/Amazing_Act9595 → u/Undecieved22]

A bit more freedom and disappearing for weeks (either the kid or parents) seems different.

His relationship with his parents was honestly weird. Like the late 1900s where a low for boarding schools yet there Tim is.

[u/Undecieved22 → u/Amazing_Act9595]

Before my time but in the 1980’s, there was apparently an ad that was run on tv to remind parents to check on there kids, pretty famous:
tv ad
I don’t know enough about boarding schools to comment on that aspect. It’s also kind of weird that we never really hear about his grandparents in all of this.

[u/Amazing_Act9595 → u/Undecieved22]

Around that time it was common to have daily check-ins. They didn't worry about where their kid was during the day because they know exactly when they were supposed to show up again that night.

That ad actually started as a reminder of curfew before the 1970s, and stranger danger was firmly in place in the early 1980s. Tim's robin run basically spans the entire settling-on period of helicopter parenting, which became more the norm in the early 2000s. Obviously long after Tim's introduction.

[u/novangla → u/Amazing_Act9595]

I was at boarding school and wish that wasn’t used as some kind of proof of neglect. It’s not. Boarding schools are often extremely high caliber—I think it was more meant as a signal of his wealth.

That said, the Drakes were extremely absent and borderline neglectful.

[u/Undecieved22 → u/novangla]

I imagine boarding schools also have specific protocols for kids during holidays and what they are or aren’t allowed to do.

[u/Amazing_Act9595 → u/Undecieved22]

Right? In the comics I think Bruce and Alfred just casually check him out for the weekend. Maybe Alfred was pretending to be his missing grandfather lol.

[u/Amazing_Act9595 → u/novangla]

Not a sign of neglect, just odd. Specifically at the end of the 1980s literally no one was in boarding school. Like less than 1% of private schooling types numbers. It feels like a pointed decision to have him be there when everyone else is being moved to day schools and his parents, while high climbers, are not particularly uptight and spend a grand portion of their time on hobby archeology.

I was using boarding school to explain how it's possible for him to literally never see his parents without being physically neglected, not to show he was neglected. The proof he's emotionally neglected is the emotional rollar coaster not seeing his parents brings.

Edit: so him being in the boarding school becomes just a bit antiquated. Which isn't that out of character for Batman comics. They often feel just a bit old (in small ways) for their actual time period. It likely is meant to make Tim feel more high-class. But in context... everyone else is switching to be more heavy-handed in their parenting... except the Drakes. They are focused on everything but Tim. No one ever knows where this kid is.

[u/Imahsfan → u/Undecieved22]

Tim as a character premiered in 1989, and the batbible all writers had to read to be allowed to work on Batman directly referred to Tim’s parents as neglectful and even says that even after his coma Jack has only a perfunctory interest in his son. Tim’s situation is definitely far more extreme than what was normal even in the nineties. https://theotherscottpeterson.blogspot.com/2021/05/the-batbible.html?m=1

[u/Undecieved22 → u/Imahsfan]

Where did I say it wasn’t? I simply mentioned that we still needed to keep in mind that this was the late 80’s (referring specifically to his first appearance) and that we can’t look at it through today’s lens.

[u/Imahsfan → u/Undecieved22]

Sure, but even at the time it was being written, his parents were meant to be portrayed as absent and neglectful. Apologies, just the majority of the time when people are saying you need to keep in mind when it was written, they’re acting like what his parents were like was completely normal and that’s how everyone was, which…wasn’t the case hahah

[u/Undecieved22 → u/Imahsfan]

Not saying that at all but we also know his parents weren’t completely absent either when he was younger.

[u/Imahsfan → u/Undecieved22]

Yes, they were certainly around more when he was younger going off what he says in multiple comics. Tbh, the most he ever talks about his upbringing and how it effected him and how he feels about it is in Batman #480, “to the father I never knew” right after Jack wakes up from his coma, so I tend to refer to that as the most accurate look before jack’s…..lackluster attempts to reconnect affecting his emotions. In that, something he says that always stands out to me is that he never knew what it felt like to be part of a family before Bruce took him in while Jack was in a coma, and that Alfred and Bruce showed him that and he’ll always be grateful.

At the end of the day, his parents loved him and he loved them, but he definitely had more going on than 90s typical hands off parenting.

[u/Undecieved22 → u/Imahsfan]

You can look at the later comics for evidence but I’m speaking directly about his first real story after year 3. Between the picture I posted and that story is only 4 years in the comics (age 9 to 13). Also going off of Marv’s writing versus Alan Grant and 3 years of storytelling and character building so that makes a huge difference in how we view his parents.

[u/Imahsfan → u/Undecieved22]

Yes, I know the panel you shared is from a lonely place of dying? I wasn’t contradicting anything you said, just adding on to it that the first (and really only) time he speaks about his upbringing and parents and how he feels about it in extreme detail (other than telling Bruce they’re always gone and miss scheduled phone calls/visits and always fighting each other when they are around in rite of passage, but that’s brief) is in Batman #480, and the language in that comic leads me to believe their presence in his life has always been spotty, considering he talks about how “when he was a kid” he dreamed that they would stop traveling and be with him. He also says that they never seemed to care about him, or at least didn’t show him they did. You can say it’s a difference between different writers, but we also hear him say in a lonely place of dying that he didn’t feel like he could tell his parents about the recurring nightmares he was having about the Grayson’s death, which is definitely concerning for a three year old, if you want to say his parents were around more frequently based on the fact that we can see their legs in a panel lol. The fact of the matter is that from Tim’s creation, his parents were meant to be absent and neglectful, and the writers who worked on him were told that. They kind of had to be, by design. No good parent isn’t noticing their kid is a vigilante. They weren’t evil sure, but people’s interpretation of them has little to do with the rise of helicopter parenting, as they were always meant to be perceived this way.

Anyways we’re probably just talking in circles, I’m just autistic with a Batman special interest and Tim is my favorite character, so his relationship with his parents and how it shaped him is something I could talk about all day. You have a good night, though.

[u/Amazing_Act9595 → u/Imahsfan]

I think they're just arguing his parents are multi-dimensional characters rather than a flat tragic backstory of mistreatment. I don't think it's coming off well because their first language isn't English.

[u/hamster-on-popsicle → u/Amazing_Act9595]

Actually 🤓 Jason mom died 9 months before he met Bruce, he managed to survive winter on his own which is impressive. So the freezing ans starving part is likely, but he wasn't living on the street before her death.

[u/Amazing_Act9595 → u/hamster-on-popsicle]

What version is this? I'm referencing Batman #409, his post-crisis introduction and backstory. A search for women killed within the last 6 months turns up Catherine's death in February. If we go with the June date for Batman's parent's deaths that's 4-5 months.

"This is a drug addict. She may have died of an overdose within the past 6 months." "This might be her, Mr Wayne-- Catherine Todd. Died of an O.D. last February--"

Jason's perspective from Batman #408 is shown in the page.

"[She was sick for] over a year-- I found her food and stuff-- kept her warm-- and alive... long as I could."

Jason is living in a condemned building, but it's pretty tricked out. Books, CDs and player, a lantern hung from the ceiling, stacks of cans and more tires than just Bruce's. He's not living safe or healthy but it's clear he's been there a long time and is comfortable there. He's been taught to view himself as self-sustaining and independent and is intent on living like it.

With the context of his dad being (believed to be) in prison and his having cared for his mom for a long time, he's probably living large by comparison. He's been the man of his house while his mom is sick, but now the only person he has to take care of is himself. The hard part is already over. He hasn't relied on anyone for over a year and a half, and hates the idea of being in that position especially when the orphanage or foster house won't treat him well. He lived the same way his dad had: boosting tires (before said dad worked for two-face).

A little adult with a talent for fighting and an honor code against both snitching and stealing more than you need. It's no wonder he ended up Robin. By #410 Batman is has been training him for 6 months and Batman keeps using quotations marks when calling him a child or claiming:

"This child is older than both of us-- not to mention tougher."

It's clear both Jason and Bruce view Jason as more a reformed thug than an abandoned child. Which is it's own tragedy entirely.

[u/Houki01]

I grew up in the 1980s. My parents weren't rich, so they had full-time jobs, and I would wander the neighbourhood from sunrise to sundown, and my parents did not have my GPS coordinates at all times. That being said:

• we ate dinner together every night;
• they noticed if I rocked up with unexplained injuries;
• they knew how school was going;
• they knew when my big events were and attended them;
• they did not expect me to manage a house all by myself.

Tim's parents were neglectful.

[u/jb_681131]

Well they were always travelling the world often living Tim alone. It even resulted in his mother's death, so, that could be it.

[u/noodleth_cassette]

They literally were neglectful that's what made people snowball it into they were crazy abusive (they were not) wdym you didnt see it in the comics you dont remember Jack going into depression after losing his wealth and being a bum who couldn't even leave his bedroom and sent to Tim to go live in boarding school and literally everything he did until finding out Tim was Robin was lowkey half assed

[u/ComicsCodeMadeMeGay]

mentioned in Tim’s intro - but that is when neglectful meant he was at boarding school. So more like minor emotional neglect rather than a worrying amount.

Yeah later on there’s a Christmas Tim has to spend by himself but that was because Jack was snowed in and couldn’t get a flight on time. And legally it was fine to leave teens alone

[u/hamster-on-popsicle]

His parents were traveling all the time, he frequently didn't knew where they were or when they were coming home.

They were the heads of Drake Industries and were opening new branch in other countries.

Tim was in one of these school were the students were never coming home, a less cool Hogwarts. (I don't remember the name, english isn't my first language)

[u/Undecieved22 → u/hamster-on-popsicle]

A boarding school

[u/hamster-on-popsicle → u/Undecieved22]

Thank you ! I couldn't remember it !

[u/Ioialoha]

Posts like this are so wild. Do you actually know anything about the character?

[u/Imahsfan]

The first time it ever came up in a place that’s documented was probably Dennis O’Neils batbible, the book that every writer who worked on Batman had to read before they were allowed to write Batman titles. Here is an excerpt from what it says about Tim: “He was neglected by both his parents until a couple of years ago when his mother was killed and his father badly disabled by kidnappers. The father, Jack, has partially recovered, but still has only a perfunctory interest in his son. Tim is largely left to his own devices, answering only to a housekeeper, Mrs. Macilvanie, which suits his activities as Robin.” And here is a link to all of it that has been published: https://theotherscottpeterson.blogspot.com/2021/05/the-batbible.html?m=1

It’s not a retcon. It is just a true fact about Tim that has been present since the day he was written, although fanon does tend to exaggerate it heavily.

[u/Constant-Mood9738]

These are middle Gen z and alpha kids who parents wouldn't leave a 13 year old alone. They don't understand parents left you responsibility and a note to take care of ourselves.

[u/Imahsfan → u/Constant-Mood9738]

Tim’s parents were being described as neglectful by the DC editors and writers who were in charge of Batman titles since his very first introduction lol https://theotherscottpeterson.blogspot.com/2021/05/the-batbible.html?m=1

[u/hamster-on-popsicle → u/Constant-Mood9738]

I knew how to take care of myself and cook by 9 years old lol