A Goku's Fatherhood Thread with Real Psychological Backing

[Kairi Yajuu]

So awhile I spent months of time on researching the topic because, quite frankly, I'm sick of nobody putting in the time and effort to truly define what makes a good father and why that's how they define it when making this argument.

So I actually went to my local library and read up on the topic. Spoiler alert: Especially considering Japanese culture, Goku should be considered a good father. (Note that I don't include anything with Super as it's my choice to look at the original 42 volumes of the manga and nothing more when discussing this series. Volume 1 is where it started and Volume 42 is where it ended. So, no, despite popular demand asking for my thoughts, I don't have any thoughts on what happened in the latest DBS manga chapter. This project was well underway long before that chapter came out, anyways. It has no bearing and was not even the catalyst as fate would have it seem.)

Parenting is complicated. Across cultures, across families, across ages, everyone has their own ideas of what is "good." But what really matters at the end of the day? And why are we so quick to call Goku a "bad father" anyway?

I tried to look for the reason, originally thinking that it was a cultural difference, but the more I studied the more confused I got.

Why do we say Goku is not mentally capable of being a good father when all the signs point to him being a realistically written good one?

Is it because everyone expects him to be perfect and when he's not we call him “bad”? That's what I see. I see an audience that is not used to realistically written good-guy characters. The same goes for the criticisms I often hear against the Androids and Buu Sagas that I scoff at. These comments come from a place of not realizing how hard life is and how easy it is to make a simple mistake when you are the one in those shoes.

It comes from a place where you're only looking at fiction through the lens of other fiction and not through the lens of experiencing real life.

And don't get me wrong, I studied today's topic thoroughly. I wanted to keep studying cause, well, I wanted to prove my initial hypothesis true but I just had to suck it up.

The reason the American audience views Goku as a bad father is because it was a joke about Goku being dead and coming back to life that too many people took seriously. It's because the people talking don't really stop to analyze what makes real-world fathers good and instead states that the only good father is the overly-eccentric “this is my baby girl” like Hughes or the special case of Akio Furukawa where the father made his job connected to their house.

I've noticed a trend in the anime community that states that the two factors of A) never allowing your child to learn to be independent because you are with them 100% of the time and B) obsessively doting to a comedic level that barely looks realistic by any means are vital to considering one a good father. But is that really how good fathers need to act? Is that really the requirement? Is that really how we define parenthood? What real-world examples do you people have that these are the only ingredients to a good parent?

There is a third element in the community, though, and that's the tsun-dad. A dad that shows no real signs of being one of the two but their very nature of tsun-dad creates a fun fan-made fantasy of the father being points A and B to, once again, comedic levels that hardly make any sense for the real world, behind closed doors. Off screen. Where no evidence of such is actually shown but rather just happily assumed.

“What's your evidence that points A and B aren't what is considered good?” I hear you cry. Well, sit back and take a listen cause I read real-world books by real-world psychologists on the subject. If we don't take our cues from the real-world then what is art even for? Art is a magnification of real world experiences carefully designed by experts to purposefully resonate with us. US – human beings who have been experiencing the real world. Not aliens that have only Anime as a reference point.

When asking such a real-world question “Is Goku a good father?” we need a real-world answer. This is like a math problem. We need to punch in the variable of what we consider a “good father” before we can decide whether or not Goku is equal to that.

Meg Meeker, M.D talks at length about what is considered a good father and being your child's hero is a factor in that. She says:

“Think about heroes: They protect people, they preserver, they exhibit altruistic love, they are faithful to their inner convictions, and they understand right from wrong and act on it. No fireman counts the odds when he runs through sheets of flame and showers of concrete to save just one terrified person. Heroes are humble, but to those they rescue, they are bigger than life.” This screams Goku to me. Goku doesn't set out to be a hero, he sets out to do what he considers right when wrong is in front of him and as he grows it becomes less of a black and white “bad people need to die” and more of a gray “I'll kill you if I must but I'd rather no one die.”

Dr. Meeker uses an example to describe a father who is a hero and states that “Doug is a great hero because he saved his family. That's what hero's do.” and no I'm not just going to give you a blanket statement of “Goku saved the world, you guys!” I'm talking specifically about saving Gohan. I'm talking about Goku sacrificing his life against Raditz all to save Gohan. Don't believe me? Well, that's funny, cause he very clearly states it on page 60 of Volume 1 of DBZ, page 71 and page 79.

Toriyama makes it clear to us that Goku's motivation for fighting Raditz was first and foremost, save Gohan and Goku makes that fact clear to Raditz and also to Gohan. “Daddy's here, Gohan! Hang in there! Daddy'll save you!” Goku proves to be Gohan's hero and Gohan recognizes that at the same time that all of us start to recognize our parents as heroes. When we've matured. Once Gohan is mature in the Buu Saga he recognizes Goku as his hero.

Not only does Dr. Meeker say that “heroes see a battle through until the end, they never run away.” which describes Goku as a hero as well, but she also says that “even if her IQ is higher than yours, she can't make decisions as well as you can.” which puts a bit of a damper on the “Gohan knows what's best for Gohan” arguments that I've seen around.

But enough of defending Goku's hero status – ugh that feels so dirty that I have to do that, I really don't understand this fanbase – let's approach another facet of parenting since, let's be honest, simply being your kids hero is not the only important factor, here.

Ms. Susan Stiffelman, MFT, says in her book “Parenting with Presence” that there are four modalities of interaction of which one is the best. These are passive, aggressive, passive-aggressive and assertive. Today we're going to focus on passive, aggressive and assertive because one of these is Piccolo, one is Goku and one fits Atsushi Yadomi from Anohana better than it does Goku despite popular fan opinion. And of COURSE I can't ignore the Piccolo problem when discussing Goku's parenting. Heck, we could probably call my “Gohan and Piccolo's Relationship: A Double Take” video a companion piece to this.

Our best bet to get the whole message across is to simply directly quote these long passages of explanations so please bare with me.

Starting with passive being described as “When we are passive, we say yes when we mean no, put others' needs ahead of our own, and are terrified of ruffling anyone's feathers. Passive parents are afraid of their children's upset and desperately want to be liked by them, so they give in to their demands.”

Then aggressive which is “We come at our children using threats and intimidation to bend them to our will. It may look effective on the outside – the misbehavior stops – but this approach comes at a high price. Our children cannot feel close to us because we are not emotionally safe.” next is the really long one. Assertive.

“The Captain of the ship in our children's lives. In this mode we maintain healthy boundaries with our children, allowing them to have their needs, wants, feelings, and preferences without making them wrong when they don't nicely overlap with our own. We don't need our children to like us, and we are not afraid of their unhappiness, recognizing that if we fix all their problems we are impairing their ability to develop true resilience. Our children know that they are loved for who they are, not for what they can do for us (cough cough Piccolo) or how their achievements make us look to others. When we are assertive, we can acknowledge that our children may not want to do what we ask, without taking their complaints personally or escalating the disagreement into a power struggle. We empathize with their position, allowing them to feel what they feel, but we are not reluctant to set limits that may disappoint them.”

Personally I think it's obvious which is which.

Starting with discussing passive and how I don’t believe it fits Goku, let’s look at the Anime Anohana. Jinta’s dad, Atsushi, openly admits to purposefully taking a laissez faire approach which basically means “a policy or attitude of letting things take their own course, without interfering.” He believes in a way of parenting that involves, well, not being involved. He’s at home and he talks with his son but for the most part he lets his kid do whatever he wants and doesn’t bother him. Even allowing him to skip school. Whether this is caused by his wife dying or not is up in the air but at the end of the day, it’s evident by how ill-prepared for the real-world Jinta is that he has suffered for this. Being allowed to skip school is what caught him in the anxious spiral of worrying about other students and teachers whispering about him skipping so much so that he’d rather just avoid the issue. Instead of being forced to confront his fears either by being forced to go to school or by explaining to his dad about why he doesn’t want to go, Jinta is caught living with an avoidance attitude. He doesn’t want to bother with his emotions because he wasn’t properly prepared to deal with them.

Moving on, if we continue to name Piccolo “green dad” then the addition of “aggressive” should be added because his method of dealing with children, even way after his redemption when training Trunks and Goten, is intimidation. Piccolo's go-to answer to a child not bending perfectly to his will is to yell at them at how death is imminent if they do not comply in one form or another. The fact that Gohan turned out okay after all of that is a miracle as all evidence points towards this method forming a bad relationship. As for Goten and Trunks, well, it's no wonder Gotenks had trouble following through with Piccolo's demands.

So why do I feel Goku fits as assertive? We need only look at the moment when Goku asks Gohan to fight Cell. I've already talked at length about this practically line-by-line in a video I made previously (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJMIQapshJ8) but allow me to give a quick run-down. The whole time Goku is merely suggesting to Gohan that he fight Cell. At no point does Goku threaten him or his livelihood and neither does he intimidate Gohan into it. He simply tells his son what he's capable of, encouraging him and at the end of the day leaving the ball entirely in Gohan's court. This also goes along with how Goku trained Gohan. Goku was assertive in pushing Gohan but not intimidating at an unhealthy level. Once again, this is dissected carefully in the previous video.

Comparing the way Piccolo speaks to Goten and Trunks to how Goku talks with them is further evidence of the differences between how these two handle children.

The whole time Goku is talking with the kids on an equal level only raising his voice once to get them to dry their tears because of the stressful situation where letting them cry it out would take too long and even then he apologized immediately after because he knows that that was aggressive parenting. He answers whatever questions they have and asks them to try these moves out for him and it's evident by how Goku was able to talk Trunks into getting the radar that he formed the right impression. Piccolo responds to Goten's attitude of asking what they're supposed to learn from the person who was knocked out while his son was killed with anger and insults at the ready but Goku calms Piccolo down and validates Goten's feelings turning the question into an opportunity to encourage the boys to do what is needed.

Goku acts as captain of the ship not only for the kids but the whole group. Remember Goku mentioning that he wanted to fight the androids? He didn't ask everyone to follow him but they did, some because they too wanted to fight (Tien and Piccolo) and others because it's Goku (Krillin). Either way, they all happily follow Goku. Why is that? It's because he's assertive. It's why they would never follow Vegeta but we're talking about children and fatherhood here, let's not get too carried away.

Why do we think Gohan listened to Goku and understood his plan (oh yeah, he knew Goku's plan from the beginning, he told Cell himself, don't forget that)? It's because there's a fatherly connection between the two of them that was not built by years of fear but rather years of skinship where the little time they had spent together left a lasting impression. I'll get to skinship in a second but for now, Parenting with Presence states that “when children feel a connection with the person making a request, their instinct to cooperate is awakened, naturally inclining them to comply.” Gohan's natural instinct was to listen to his dad because of that natural connection. It is evidence of Goku's parenting style being to be assertive, the style that Parenting with Presence states is the best way to raise a child.

Before we put this book down and move on to skinship and Goku's absences, let's talk about how Goku handled sacrificing his life against Cell to save the Earth. “The trick isn't making the unpleasant experiences go away, it is making peace with them." As far as Goku was concerned, this was the best course of action for everyone involved because his son almost died against a threat that was built to destroy Goku. He had decided that he wasn't worth the trouble of Namek. As far as Goku was concerned, he was better off dead, and instead of telling Gohan to ignore the pain of loss, he helped him to move past it. He helped Gohan to accept that Goku would be fine and so would the Earth. Goku talked Gohan through the bad feelings like a good parent should.

Now I keep dropping the term “skinship” but what does that mean? Well, it's a Japanese concept that rarely involves physical proximity or touch. It's a concept that means that there is a lasting impression of the loved one even when away. The book “The Japanese Family: Touch, Intimacy and Feeling” states that “skinship in father-child relationships seems to be manifest in different ways than mother-child relationships. There seem to be more subtle ways to be intimate, ways that do not necessarily involve close physical proximity but which still make the father feel close with his child(ren). Fathers are not there much.”

After all, in Japan, the societal roles state that a good mother is her children and a good father is his work. It matters not how long the father is away so long as he leaves a lingering presence when he is there. I repeat, it matters not how long the father is away so long as he leaves a lingering presence when he is there. What does Goku do when he's home? Either he's cosseting Gohan, holding him, protecting him, training with him or fishing with him, Goku is present. All times when he is separated can be compared to a Marine being missing in action or a singer on tour. There's actually a great Linkin Park song about how the work is for the family so he asks for his children to understand his absence. Y'all should check that out.

The book continues to state that the relative absence would highlight his devotion of time to his children when he is home. The amount of times that Goku is away only makes the time he does spend with his kids, which is a lot of the time he's home, don't mistake that, all the more meaningful.

It's funny that a bunch of anime fans who claim to be thinking about Japanese culture when they talk about these characters conveniently leaves all of this out. It's even in other anime, such as Clannad in how Tomoya hates that his father is home all the time.

As for Goku's mistakes of believing too much in Gohan and later in Goten and Trunks, well, that's accounted for, too. I'm amazed that those are Goku's only two mistakes because my own parents have made some world ending mistakes that have lasting impressions on my life but I still wouldn't trade them or how I was raised for anything. Why? Because despite the mistakes, there's honest love and honest want to do the right thing. When my parents make a mistake, I find it easy to forgive them because their reasons for their mistakes were pure and were in my best interest. The same goes for Goku.

When I say that those mistakes are accounted for, I mean back in the first book we looked at by Dr. Meg Meeker. "We talked about how difficult it is for parents to be realistic about their own children. Because we want them to make good decisions, we assume they will. We want to believe our kids are stronger, more mature, and better capable of handling situations than other kids. And that's when mistakes happen." Even she recognizes that this is an easy pitfall to fall into and I believe the evidence I have shown shows that the fact that Goku made this mistake only twice makes him a pretty great dad.

So, your move elitist who claim to have the perfect idea of Japanese culture and parenting. Your move people who state simply being around makes you a good parent. Your move.

[Captain Strawberry]

I skimmed through it (otherwise, an overload of information could hurt my brain) and I would say a big reason why people label Goku as a "bad father" is because of how passive and neutral he is in his world view which is something really alien in the real world and not something a lot of people can understand.

Goku had his tail cut off (the first time), he was surprised but he quickly moved on. I think this is where I would insert Goku being some kind of "introvert" because he doesn't involve himself with others in the world no matter how long the gears turn, how long the world spins. The world will keep moving, with or without him.

Goku will do as he pleases and he doesn't let the world affect that. People can interpret that as "selfishness" which can be true but also him being "neutral" in his world view because of his innocence.

[Cure Dragon 255]

Psychology is all well and good but you have to remember Goku is an Alien you cant aply human psychology to him.

[KBABZ]

To me, the whole Goku being a bad father is mainly coming from a meme angle taken too far and into reality. Having watched Kai again, Goku is very supportive, understanding and flexible with Gohan. Unlike Piccolo's rougher style, Goku is willing to work with Gohan and find the best angle; he's normally a bit soft and fair, but when Gohan asks him to go all-out and hold nothing back, he goes for it. And in the moment he does screw up in mis-interpreting Gohan's hidden power, he has no hesitation to change tack and do what it takes to save him. Then of course, Goku goes out to take on Raditz specifically because he took Gohan; it feels way more about that than about saving the Earth, because Raditz wasn't occupied with that at the time. Goku even sacrifices his life for it!

Goku's main failings as a father to me comes from things that aren't exclusive to his fatherhood, and instead also apply to his relationship with people. At the end of the day, Goku is still the little boy Bulma found in the mountains, and that side of him comes out the strongest at the end of nearly every arc when he just departs his closest friends to do a thing:

[spoiler]

1. Pilaf Arc: Departs the gang to train with Roshi, thinks nothing of it
2. 22nd WMAT: Departs the gang to search for the Four-Star Ball, thinks nothing of it
3. RRA/Baba: Departs the gang to train in the wilderness, thinks nothing of it
4. King Piccolo: Trains with Kami for three years and barely mentions it to the gang, thinks nothing of it
5. 23rd WMAT: Departs the gang with Chi-Chi for five years, thinks nothing of it
6. Namek: Hangs out in space away from Earth to train, thinks nothing of it
7. Buu: Departs the gang with Uub for who knows how long, thinks nothing of it

[*]Battle of Gods: Departs the gang to train with Beerus, thinks nothing of it[/spoiler]
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Psychology is all well and good but you have to remember Goku is an Alien you cant aply human psychology to him.

IMO you can because A) He was treated as an extraordinary human boy for nearly 200 chapters, and B) Saiyans are as good as Space Humans anyway, especially since they can procreate with them. Many of Frieza's men can be viewed in a similar category like the guy who tried to shoot Trunks in the Android arc, or that guy with the wicked moustache that shot the Namekian spaceship. In a story like Dragon Ball, any character of any origin can be assumed to be human-like unless otherwise noted

[Captain Strawberry]

Psychology is all well and good but you have to remember Goku is an Alien you cant aply human psychology to him.

This is the same alien that got a heart virus on Earth... nonethless, I think Goku's behaviour is abnormal even amongst Saiyajins (and I think this is something Vegeta has inferred with Goku's fight against Kid Buu)

[Simere]

This is the same alien that got a heart virus on Earth... nonethless, I think Goku's behaviour is abnormal even amongst Saiyajins (and I think this is something Vegeta has inferred with Goku's fight against Kid Buu)

What inference are you referring to?

[Captain Strawberry]

This is the same alien that got a heart virus on Earth... nonethless, I think Goku's behaviour is abnormal even amongst Saiyajins (and I think this is something Vegeta has inferred with Goku's fight against Kid Buu)

What inference are you referring to?

I don't know if this is in the manga but it was from the subtitle I watched during kai. Vegeta says something like "How can someone be so kind and yet love to fight" while Goku was SSJ3 against Kid Buu, in my opinion Goku is kind of weird on the Saiyajin spectrum so that's my interpretation.

[Bardo117]

I don't believe that a show like this has to emphasize any realism when it comes to those aspects of life. They don't even need to address them.

[Cure Dragon 255]

This is the same alien that got a heart virus on Earth... nonethless, I think Goku's behaviour is abnormal even amongst Saiyajins (and I think this is something Vegeta has inferred with Goku's fight against Kid Buu)

What inference are you referring to?

I don't know if this is in the manga but it was from the subtitle I watched during kai. Vegeta says something like "How can someone be so kind and yet love to fight" while Goku was SSJ3 against Kid Buu, in my opinion Goku is kind of weird on the Saiyajin spectrum so that's my interpretation.

But Autism and or Aspergers, as previously stablished are a spectrum of the HUMAN psyche. And Vegeta noted it was his KINDNESS and innocence that made him weird to Saiyans (NOT saying Autism or Aspergers having people arent kind) if you consider showing kindness in spite of being a Saiyan being neurodivergent... you kind of shoot your point in the foot there, because then he'd be Saiyanly neurodivergent and not a person with Autism or aspergers.

[Captain Strawberry]

What inference are you referring to?

I don't know if this is in the manga but it was from the subtitle I watched during kai. Vegeta says something like "How can someone be so kind and yet love to fight" while Goku was SSJ3 against Kid Buu, in my opinion Goku is kind of weird on the Saiyajin spectrum so that's my interpretation.

But Autism and or Aspergers, as previously stablished are a spectrum of the HUMAN psyche. And Vegeta noted it was his KINDNESS and innocence that made him weird to Saiyans (NOT saying Autism or Aspergers having people arent kind) if you consider showing kindness in spite of being a Saiyan being neurodivergent... you kind of shoot your point in the foot there, because then he'd be Saiyanly neurodivergent and not a person with Autism or aspergers.

I wasn't talking about Autism or anything like that. What I am trying to say, Goku is the kind of person more than just his blood on a worldy aspect but that Goku is unique as a soul, Goku is just Goku even without his blood. Even if you put him in a body that isn't a Saiyajin, Goku is just Goku.

[Cure Dragon 255]

Oh ok. Then I apologize for any inconvenience and agree.