Dragon Ball Zfans, Question for all of you: Did you find Goku to be an awful father?
 

Towards the end of the series of Z in my opinion he became a worse father than even Vegeta, which is weird and surprising :lol:

Who the heck just leaves his family behind to train with a random kid for years? Not even a loving good bye to his family and friends either, it's like what the heck?!

Good thing Gohan had Piccolo to grow up with, he was more of a fatherly figure than him, he wouldn't have sacrificed his son to Cell just cuz of a theory he thought of while training with him, sure it worked out in the end some how but with a major cost in the end. I'm shocked Gohan has no emotional drama in at the end of the series after the Cell saga, that was a big emotional ride he to go on. Watching his family and friends almost slowly die due trying to get that hidden power out if him, it was painful for me to watch even :(

I'd probably have some father issues later on in life due to that :lol:

Poor Goten though, was thrown to the wolves. he had pretty much no father figure his entire life. Only one he had sort of was his brother Gohan, he had to get help from his abusive mother a lot too :P

In GT, Vegeta turned out to be a better father again my opinion.

Since when has Chichi ever been abusive? She was strict with Gohan because she didn't want him to grow up the way Goku did, but notice how much she lightened up when it came to Goten? She even trained him and allowed him to fight. I blame Goku's death for that.

That aside, yeah Goku wasn't the best father in the world but he did love his family and would do anything to protect them.

Most fathers in anime are awful parents!

Would you rather he'd be a deadbeat dad who was never around and slept with Bulma every chance he got?

Common sense wasn't one Goku's greatest features, anyway.

Gohan grew up just fine without Goku there most of the time.

Chi Chi on the other hand was a single parent for most of her life, especially raising Goten in the 7 years Goku stayed dead. Chi Chi should have remarried.

Chichi was more laid back with Goten probably because he wasn't the first born. I always viewed her as the type of mother that felt pressured to raise a successful child because it's what society wants her to do, and she raised Goten closer to the way she actually wanted to raise a kid. Of course, I could be reading too much into it, but I've never really understood Chichi hate very well because of this.

I wouldn't necessarily call her abusive though considering who is on the other end of her violent actions. Like, is hitting Goku even a big deal? I mean its still done with intent to cause harm I guess, and I probably shouldn't be exempting anybody from any rules, but I just... don't think hitting Goku [or Gohan] is really very abusive.

Anyway, yes, Goku was an awful father. Not for being dead, though, of course, but he wanted to stay that way at first because he thought it would keep "evil" away from the Earth? Goku, don't be a ****ing idiot. Your presence does not attract evil, even the androids -- they would have wreaked havoc if you'd been dead anyway, as Trunks' future notes. And IIRC, Chichi even noted that he needed to be there for his family. It's like she's the only one that really views the family as important.

I also know that Goku makes a lot of incredibly stupid, impulse decisions, so even though he stayed with his family during that time skip before the last few episodes of Z, I can't imagine he did too well there in that off-screen time. When he was invited to that party at Bulma's, he... ran off to take care of some eggs. How, exactly, was that really so important?

And yeah after that time skip he just runs off to train this kid he didn't know. Stupidest ****ing thing he could have done, but it's still an emotional scene for me since it's still such a Goku thing to do I guess.

[Goku might be a terrible dad but no, he's nowhere near as bad as Vegeta.]

It would be a terrible series if they showed the in-between "family edition" series.

Also, my dad was in the Navy and, always, had to ship out to some war or to some other country to train. The in-between such instances, he was a good dad. He was strict like Chi-chi and made me, always, do yard work or wash the cars on the weekend, but, that's part of parenting, to teach kids responsibility.

I wouldn't base your opinion on what they show you because, like facebook friends, they will only show you what they want you to see...it's not a full representation of the whole.

Probably. But its kinda hard to judge since he was dead half of the time.
Picollo and Vegeta were better father figures to both Gohan and Trunks respectively.