I have been thinking about this for awhile, but I hesitated to do a post because I vacillated back and forth over whether psychological inflicted damage should count more or less than actual physical violence. I finally decided that as evil and twisted as psychological abuse was that actually trying to kill or otherwise physically harm your child wins out. I ranked them according. I also ranked attempted murder or murder of someone close to the child above other types of physical attacks. Although if I just went with my gut Brandon Spaulding and Lucile Wexler should tie at number one because what they did their children was sick and the damage lasted far after their deaths.
1. Carmen Santos– Carmen wins because she was actually guilty of both years of psychological damage by trying to turn Danny into a pliant version of her late husband and she actually shot Danny nearly killing him. She also encouraged Mick’s reckless violence that lead to his own death. Plus between her faked shooting of her house, the cover up from shooting Ben Warren, and faking her own death, plus making sure she didn’t get the mental health care she needed (since she might turn Carmen in if she did) Carmen was directly responsible for Pilar’s total mental breakdown.
2. Claire Ramsey – Claire got this rank because she actually tried to kill Michelle as a baby and actually convinced Michelle that it was Michelle’s fault later. She claimed she didn’t mean it and would have stopped, but as much as I liked Claire back then when she was coupled with Fletcher Reade, she totally would have killed Michelle if Ed hadn’t made a timely arrival. Later she colluded with Carmen to fake Carmen’s death and did everything possible to destroy her daughter Michelle’s marriage despite the fact that it was what made her happiest in the world. She also told Michelle in no uncertain terms that Michelle’s career choices weren’t good enough and that only being a doctor reflecting glory on to Claire would do. Claire didn’t tell Michelle Carmen was still alive which gave Carmen opportunities to both gaslight Michelle and try to kill her. Once that came out, Claire made a plea bargain to testify against Manny. The bad mother points just keep on coming.
3. Maria Santos – Maria’s three sons were already dead before the Santos Family arrived on our screens and Maria didn’t play a role in their deaths. She did make sure they followed the crime family which surely at least contributed to their deaths. However, Maria owes her place on the list to her treatment of her grandsons. She personally – and in person – ordered hitmen to take out two of her grandsons because they wouldn’t return to the crime family and she felt her own power threatened. I won’t even start to list her many mindgames against them because they are legion.
4. Alfred Randall – Alfred emotionally and physically abused Jonathan Randall his adopted son, but it’s a debatable point whether murder or attempted murder is on his list. It was implied, but I don’t think actually proved (statements made to Jonathan designed to bully and threaten him aren’t really proof) that he killed his wife, Olivia’s sister. His placement this high on the list assumes that he did, but if we’re wrong, others would be worse because Alfred was a pretty basic thug without the complex layers of evil manipulation you’d find with some of the others. He did seem to be on the point of killing Jonathan’s birth mother, Reva Shayne Lewis, when during a struggle with Jonathan he fell into a boat propeller, one of the more grisly on screen deaths in the history of the show. Even then Alfred wasn’t done, he was one of the very few evil people to return as a ghost, normally an honor reserved for good people to show up as guardian angels on the show.
5. Bradley Raines – Bradley was Beth’s step-father, but he played a major role in raising Beth, even giving her his last name which she continued to revert to even to the end of the show. He was physically and emotionally abusive to Lillian and Beth. Beth’s abuse also became sexual and he raped her. Ultimately Bradley was imprisoned for his various crimes and when he got out he tried to apologize to Beth, but she wasn’t interested. He also left her a mine in his will, but as that only got Edmund more fully entangled in her life and he was as controlling and manipulative as Bradley with Beth it really didn’t turn out to be much of an apology. I don’t think he felt the need to apologize to Lillian for the frequent line “Lillian, shut up and bring me a beer.”
6. Brandon Spaulding– Despite Vicky’s watercolor memories/family stories of Brandon when she returned to Springfield in the late 1990s, I truly believe Brandon was the most thoroughly evil regular character in the history of Guiding Light. He viewed his children as competitors who had to fight for control of the company and his love and he regularly set out to pit them against each other. He fed Alan all this macho crap about having to be in control and taught him to have affairs so he was incapable of being, long term, the man true love Hope Bauer needed him to be which destroyed her. Brandon arranged that both Alan and Alexandra have their children taken away and raised by strangers (Alan lost Gus Aitoro, Alex both her twins Lujack and Nick McHenry). Brandon slept with Jennifer Richards while she was involved with Alan, fathering Amanda and didn’t claim her as his child instead letting Alan believe she was his once the story behind her adoption came out. Brandon faked his own death, letting his family believe he was dead for over a decade and didn’t tell them about another daughter, Victoria, he’d had years before with a woman in Barbados. Finally he told both Victoria and through her Vicky stories that made him the good guy and Alan the evil one after everything Brandon did to destroy his life to the point she basically came looking for revenge against Alan. EVIL!
7. Lucile Wexler – Easily the most evil female regular character on the show (her only real challenger being Susan Piper), Wexler totally ruled her adopted daughter Amanda’s life. She kept her suppressed and acting, thinking, and at least occasionally dressing like a child, well into adulthood. Lucile attacked anyone that tried to gain a place in Amanda’s life. Even when Amanda finally showed some backbone and ran off to get married, her mother convinced her to come on her wedding night and not see her husband again for years. Lucile also set traps to try to kill several people she saw as coming between her and Amanda. Jennifer Richards, Amanda’s biological mother, was a strong contender for this list and both men she believed to be her biological father made this list, so people really ought to cut Amanda Wexler Spaulding some slack. She truly had a lot of garbage thrown at her to overcome.
8. Bill Bauer – If some day I do a list of best siblings, Bill Bauer will surely be on that list too, but let’s face it as a father and a husband he was awful. He was an alcoholic and an adulterer and took legitimate criticisms of his behavior as unfair attacks which he counter attacked his own family on. Eventually he was believed killed in a plane crash and let his family believe him dead, while really sneaking off to Canada where he’d gotten another woman pregnant years before. He now married the other woman and let his own daughter believe she was his stepdaughter. As much as I love the Bauer family, Bill was a rotten apple in the barrel. It’s a miracle that people as awesome sauce as Mike and Michelle sprung from his line and they should get extra awesomeness points for having overcome the handicap of being his descendents.
9. Buzz and Nadine Cooper – Although I’d be the first to admit that both Buzz and Nadine could be truly great friends and Buzz actually was a great mentor to Jesse Blue, as parents for their actual children Buzz and Nadine deserve to be on this list. Although to be fair, where many of the people listed could add actual maliciousness to their selfishness, neither Buzz nor Nadine really meant to be hurtful, they were just really, really self-centered and frankly never really matured beyond how they were in high school for years. Neither had any problem dumping their kids permanently on older relatives like the children’s grandfather and Uncle Stavros and for a large part on their kids themselves. Frank especially had to become an adult way before he should have to keep the family going. Harley had commitment issues with men for years mostly because she felt her father had abandoned her. Harley also had a tendency to remember her mother’s good points and not her dumping them because she thought she could become a movie star and moving to Hollywood. Harley constantly forgave her for any stunt Nadine pulled and even continued to call her Mommy even as an adult woman. Frank and Harley’s half-sister Lucy probably was the best off of the three as Buzz actually spent a lot of time raising her, but even then he kept her from knowing any of her extended family and they were constantly on the move with little chance to development friendships or relationships with other people. Family tradition for Lucy growing up meant eating holidays at Chinese restaurants because they were normally the only ones open on the holiday. When Buzz started a second family with Jenna after Nadine’s death, he seemed to have matured a great deal and really did a wonderful job with the boys and homelife until shortly after Jenna’s death when he shipped the kids (Coop and Rocky) over to Jenna’s relatives in England (that we’d never heard of before) to “celebrate Thanksgiving” (which they don’t do in the United Kingdom). Coop was college age before Buzz saw him again (he’d been just below pre-school when he left) and Rocky never saw Buzz or Springfield again. Buzz did develop a better relationship with his adult children after his younger children departed, but had further difficulties with Frank after Buzz fell in love with Frank’s then girlfriend Olivia, and slept with her behind Frank’s back and the fact that Buzz seemed determined to irresponsibly borrow money against Company which caused the family many financial hardships.
10. Alan and Alexandra Spaulding – I hesitated to put brother and sister team Alan and Alex on this list because frankly I think a lot of their destructive behavior can be directly traced back to Brandon. In fact, even though I think he earned his place on this list, Alan should at the same time be commended because while lots of soap stories emphasis the importance of blood over nurture, Alan truly never treated Phillip any different because he was his son by adoption than he would have if Phillip was his biological child. Alan-Michael would even say that Alan favored Phillip over him which along with Michelle and Maureen was an example of the strongest and best endorsement of bond created by adopting a child and how it is just as real as the other kind. In fact while there is a lot selfishness and control issues with both Alan and Alex, I don’t think even their worst enemies would say that didn’t love their off spring fiercely. All that being said, Alan and Alex were adults when they had their kids and while their are certainly excuses for their actions they are adults and have to take the responsibility. Both Alex and Alan inherited their father’s issues with control, Alan’s made worse by his experience in causing wife Hope’s descent into alcoholism. They truly wanted their kids to be happy, but on Alan and Alex’s terms. Their children were supposed to have the careers and spouses that their parents approved of and both felt quite free to use manipulation and even hired thugs to enforce their desires. Alan actually ended up shooting Phillip twice, once accidentally while trying to kill Phillip’s bride, Blake to stop their marriage and once on purpose while trying to get Phillip under control to get the psychological help that to he really did desperately need. (That alone would move him higher on the list except that he didn’t have an intent to kill either time.) Beloved granddaughter Lizzie felt so threatened by Alan’s control that she let Jonathan disappear with their daughter Sarah rather than let Alan be a major influence in her life. Alex didn’t quite get that desperate with that control on her own children, but mostly because she didn’t get a chance, Lujack died shortly after she truly developed a relationship with him and she liked Beth who he was involved with at the time. Later when she discovered Nick McHenry was her son she was willing to do anything, including engaging sworn enemy Roger Thorpe to keep Nick and his then fiancee Mindy Lewis apart. It was only after Nick moved on to another woman she approved of that her meddling backed off some. It continued with Alan’s children being quite willing to play the same control games with Phillip and Alan-Michael that Alan did and that they both learned from Brandon. While she didn’t personally endanger nephew Gus Aitoro, she did get involved with and allow a drug deal to continue that did risk his life.
Now, I’ll have to start thinking about my best parent list.
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