parenting

Breeders: the Season 2 Finale Confronts a Painful Parenting Truth

Warning: contains spoilers for the Breeders season two finale. Philip Larkin put it memorably, but there’s no need to take his word for it. We all know that characterful noses aren’t the only things carried down the generations. There are also the traits that no parent means to pass on: insecurities and neuroses absorbed in daily doses from age zero to left-home, that leach out involuntarily to our own kids when the time comes. For Martin Freeman’s character Paul in FX/Sky One comedy Breeders, it’s his anger and anxiety, inherited by son Luke (Alex Eastwood), and threatening to break their relationship.  The Breeders…
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Raised by Wolves: Ridley Scott and Aaron Guzikowski Talk Parenting on a New Planet

HBO Max’s new science fiction series Raised by Wolves is the kind of genre collaboration where it’s fascinating to trace its disparate elements back to their various sources. Showrunner Aaron Guzikowski broke into Hollywood with the 2013 film Prisoners, about the lengths to which a father will go to rescue his kidnapped daughter—themes that are just as relatable whether it’s a pair of androids or space Crusaders on that same parental journey. Then there’s Sir Ridley Scott, who describes his process as “shifting from visual image to visual image in my head.” The iconic director brought everything from childhood remembrances…
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David Tennant on There She Goes: ‘Parenting is Often Sentimentalised’

When the first series of Shaun Pye and Sarah Crawford’s autobiographically inspired comedy-drama aired, they were prepared for a mixed reaction. Their dramatisation of life raising a severely learning disabled child would likely shock, cause discomfort, and – in these furious days of gladiatorial online parenting forums – almost certainly provoke judgment and criticism. What they weren’t necessarily expecting were stories about poo.  “The most common reaction from parents or siblings with a child similar to Jo [Sarah and Simon’s learning disabled daughter on whom the character of Rosie, played by Miley Locke, is based] is they’ll come up and…
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