not-actually-smart:

i hate the discourse that aang and toph wouldn’t be terrible parents. like obviously it’s shit that these beloved characters are so bad at parenting but it makes sense when you think about it properly.

aang’s father figure was a monk, a man who’s first job wasn’t raising aang, it was teaching him. aang grew up around peers who could bend and none of them had a biological family either – his childhood was far from ordinary. he didn’t know what a normal family looked like, with two parental figures in a loving and kind household. so yeah, he loved his kids, definitely, but it’s only logical that he struggled when it came to raising them. he had katara to help, of course, but also consider: when he had kids, he knew it was the only chance he could ever have to rebuild the air nomads. so obviously he paid more attention to his one singular airbending child. does it suck that he paid less attention to bumi and kya? yes it does. does it make sense? absolutely. aang loved his culture, and he made sure that he did everything he could to pass it on to his airbending child, so it wouldn’t get lost. even if he unintentionally lost his other children along the way.

toph grew up with overprotective parents who never let her do anything. she literally left them when she was 12. her family through her teenage years were her friends: she was never raised properly by parents in a loving and healthy manner. her default, when it comes to children, is to give them all the freedom they want, because it’s what she never had. so when lin and suyin beifong grow up resenting their mother for always leaving them alone, it’s because toph thinks it’s for the best. that her distance is what her children want, not her love and affection. toph’s childhood is what makes her a bad parent: she fears becoming her parents so much that she instead becomes the complete opposite, and alienates her daughters in a different way.

sucks that our favourite characters are shitty parents, but in terms of their character, it makes complete sense, and furthermore, it makes them flawed. they aren’t perfect, and i think that’s more beautiful than making them be absolutely healthy parents. the writers might have disappointed the audience, but they didn’t disappoint the story.