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I have no doubt that she really does love Henry. But I am still a little unsure if I would call her a good mother or not. A part of me wants to. Henry wouldn’t have turned out to great if she wasn’t, and even though they have problems, I don’t see anything that would make me want to call the authorities. She may be over-protective and controling, but not in the same way as her own mother was. I think Regina means well and always thinks she’s doing the best for him.
But at the same time, I want to think that Henry should be with Emma instead(Emma is the hero and his real mother, Regina is the villain, so that’s how feels it should be). I don’t think Henry would believe Regina is the Evil Queen for no reason, and something surely must have happened to make him so accepting of what he read in the book. Maybe it’s because of that hole that Regina feels in her life. Something is missing, and she cannot truely and unconditionally love her son. It seems she adopted Henry to fill a need in her life, to have someone to love and care for and who would love her back. But since it really wasn’t enough, she became distant and reserved as a mother, regardless of her love of Henry.
Another thing I noticed is that Regina said in the pilot: “I want Henry to excell in life. I don’t think that makes me evil, do you?” I don’t know if I am reading too much into it, but it sounds like she may be pushing Henry to be the best he can possibly be, to always be a grade A-student, do well at sports. Maybe a part of her wants to groom Henry to one day follow in her shoes as mayor? And that sounds a lot like what Cora did. Making plans and controling her child, and not listening to what the child actually wants.[adrotate group="5"]I don’t think that Regina is a good mother. Just because she won’t physically harm him is not enough for me. I think that she thinks she loves him, but i am not sure that she really does. She is perfectly willing to hurt him to get what she wants and she at the very least is pretty neglectful having no clue where he is most of the time. She is the Evil Queen though and a murdering crazy sociopath so it works.
And honestly i don’t think she gets points because he turned out alright. Henry can still choose to turn out alright even if his upbringing was not good.
@hjbau wrote:
I don’t think that Regina is a good mother. Just because she won’t physically harm him is not enough for me. I think that she thinks she loves him, but i am not sure that she really does. She is perfectly willing to hurt him to get what she wants and she at the very least is pretty neglectful having no clue where he is most of the time. She is the Evil Queen though and a murdering crazy sociopath so it works.
And honestly i don’t think she gets points because he turned out alright. Henry can still choose to turn out alright even if his upbringing was not good.
You basically wrote what I was going to, but I just wanted to write that I agree. I think it’s definitely possible for a person to turn out good even if his/her childhood was awful or in Henry’s case, his parent wasn’t a good parent. Likewise, a person can turn out pure evil even when he/she comes from the best home and has great parents. Sometimes it’s just a roll of the dice. I think in Henry’s case, luckily nature was more of a factor than nurture, so in that way I think he’s very much like Emma since she had an awful childhood but still turned out to be a good person.
I also don’t agree that Regina is a good mother. Just because she took care of his physical needs doesn’t mean anything to me since she obviously wasn’t taking care of his emotional needs, and I think that was even before he found the book because of the very thick file that Archie had on him. He’s only a 10 year old boy, so I don’t think things were going right between them for quite awhile to amass such a thick folder.
I think Regina really wants to love Henry, and I guess she does in her own way, but it’s not truly love because I don’t believe she can actually love anyone once she made the choice of killing her own father. This is why until the finale I was very fearful about what she might do one day to Henry if he continued to live with her. After the finale, it did seem like the writers were making sure to show that Regina would never actually physically hurt Henry, but this is a woman that killed her own father and was willing to use her true love’s ring, the last reminder of him, to get rid of her son’s biological mother, so I’m still fearful that if Regina were desperate enough to get something, she’d go through with hurting Henry physically. So I am a very happy that the writers didn’t have Emma going through a long drawn out custody case over Henry which she probably would have lost anyways, and just had everyone get their memories back to solve the problem of Henry having to live with Regina. Also, in Henry’s case, even if Regina would never hurt him physically, she certainly has no problems hurting him psychologically, and I’m sure won’t have any problems continuing to hurt people that he cares for. So that’s another excellent reason that he shouldn’t have to stay with her.
I know there are a lot of people who hate Henry for not recognising Regina’s love for him. They are annoyed that he goes on hating her and calling an evil queen. Apparently they missed that she’s not an ideal mother by any means. She acts out of spite time and time again and is doing so out of her own interests, not Henry’s.
Her love of him seems like ownership. It all fits the symptoms that Maleficent told her about. She’s really trying to fill her life with things that might make her happy, but it doesn’t.Right Emma still turned out alright and she didn’t have a good upbringing. People can still choose to do the right thing even if they did not live in a good situation as a child. And i agree that it is a very unsafe environment for Henry because while now it seems like Regina would not harm Henry physically that may not always be the case. If he continues to fight against her she may eventually decide that enough is enough. She killed her father to do the curse. She killed Graham because he went against her. So sometime in the future who knows what she might do to Henry, so i think that it is certainly best for him to not be with her.
@TheLadyBelle wrote:
I know there are a lot of people who hate Henry for not recognising Regina’s love for him. They are annoyed that he goes on hating her and calling an evil queen. Apparently they missed that she’s not an ideal mother by any means. She acts out of spite time and time again and is doing so out of her own interests, not Henry’s.
Her love of him seems like ownership. It all fits the symptoms that Maleficent told her about. She’s really trying to fill her life with things that might make her happy, but it doesn’t.Yes, I hate that too. While I have to admit that during the first few episodes, I did find Henry annoying; although, I think it was just the writing for him because now he’s really grown and brings on a lot of whimsicalness that I think this show definitely needs more of at times, I never once disliked him because I thought he was wrong in his feelings for Regina.
They always talk about how she raised him since birth using that speech she gave Emma about how she changed his diapers and etc., but I always wonder how they miss all the other things that she did out of spite. She destroyed his favorite place to go, manipulated his birth mom into saying his ideas were crazy in front of him, barely pays attention to where he’s at most of the time despite knowing that he does get into dangerous situations, and of course constantly tries to hurt the people that he loves/cares about the most.
I also didn’t feel as much sympathy for her as it seemed a lot of viewers did after her speech to Henry in “A Land Without Magic” about how she really does love him, because I think once again it was more about her needs rather than Henry. Now if she at least had a little awareness that her it was her actions all along that turned him against her and not other people trying to turn him against her, I would have felt more sympathetic.
I still remember that scene (I think it was from Desperate Souls) where Regina went to Mr. Gold about Henry and she said, ‘she’s not her son, not legally’ and had this evil grin on her face. She just had a complete disregard for Henry in that episode.
I tend to draw the line at calling rapist, murderers good parents. Funny that way I guess.
I think part of being a good parent is being a good enough person that society doesn’t have to fear you’ll do them harm, and thereby keep you locked away from most people.
That said I do find Henry and Regina’s relationship fascinating. I get sad when I see it claimed that not loving the person who took care of you is a sign of mental defect or that he’s ungrateful. As far as I can see, Henry doesn’t run around destroying Regina’s property or trying to kill her in her sleep. He does his chores. He (usually) goes to school. He doesn’t physically attack her. He goes to therapy, he sits down to meals with her.
Gratitude and love are different things. I can be grateful someone made me dinner, or let me borrow a dollar, or even saved my life without deciding I need to live with that person and love them.
One thing, Henry even AGREED with Emma when Emma tried to leave him and said “She’s going to take really good care of you.”
He said “Yes, but she wants you dead.”
He has no doubts Regina would take care of him. But his moral compass doesn’t allow his own needs be where his concern for others stops. He knows with 100% certainty he lives with a KILLER who enslaved an entire world. “Yeah well, she makes a mean pot roast!” doesn’t cut it for him. And thank goodness for that.
If we had to sit down with Henry to hash it out, most arguments pretty much would end there:
“Your mom makes sure you have food clothing and shelter.”“Yeah but she kills people.”
“Your mom never lays a finger on you.”
“Yeah but she kills people.”
“Your mom doesn’t yell at you even when you yell at her.”
“Yeah but she kills people.”
“This woman raised you for 10 years. Show some respect.”
“I’ll respect her when she stops TRYING TO KILL PEOPLE.”
lol. Exactly oncescape. Well said. When it really comes down to it Henry’s safety will always be in question because you just don’t know what Regina will do.
It also cannot be underestimated that while our heroes are a lovely bunch of Henry’s relatives there are surely some baddies who want revenge on Regina for what she’s done to them. Who is to say they wouldn’t try to hurt Henry to exact their revenge on the Evil Queen? Her actions put him in danger.
I was pretty sure Regina ran from the hospital without him because she didn’t want him caught up in the lynch mob she had no protection against (until magic was unleashed again.) While we don’t know how they do it in the Enchanted Forest, in many an Earth revolution, if you take out the ruling party, you take out their entire family.
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