‘Gilmore Girls’: 3 Moments That Prove Just How Awful Christopher Hayden Really Was as a Father
Christopher Hayden might have been Rory Gilmore’s biological father, but he was certainly a less-than-ideal dad. Sometimes it’s easy to forget just how absent Christopher was because of how heavily Gilmore Girls focused on Rory and Lorelai Gilmore’s mother-daughter relationship. We’ve picked three seemingly subtle moments from Gilmore Girls that prove that Christopher Hayden was an absolutely horrific father. If we are being honest, it makes us a little sad for Rory.
Rory Gilmore hinted at Christopher’s terrible parenting in season 2
Rory rarely became upset with her father. However, in the show’s earliest seasons, his almost complete absence was hinted at multiple times. In the season 2 episode, “Presenting Lorelai Gilmore,” Rory needed to ask her father to present her at a debutante ball. She was anxious and worried about asking him to show up for her, and opted to allow Lorelai to do it instead.
When Lorelai connected with Christopher, he told her he would be able to present Rory. When Lorelai told Rory the good news, she was beaming, but what she said next was pretty sad. Lorelai conveyed to Rory that Christopher said he would “definitely” be there. While it was a happy moment for Rory, it was also telling. Rory remarked that there was a 50/50 chance he’d show up, as if those were good odds. The bittersweet Gilmore Girls moment subtly revealed just how often Christopher Hayden had let his daughter down.
Rory Gilmore explained how much Christopher Hayden let her down in season 3 of ‘Gilmore GIrls’
In the first two seasons, it was clear that Rory idolized her dad, despite him never being around to care for her. In season 3, however, she finally revealed how she felt. After Christopher left Lorelai because Sherry was pregnant, he repeatedly tried to connect with Lorelai and, presumably, Rory, but the requests were ignored. Neither wanted to speak to him.
When he showed up at Richard and Emily Gilmore’s house to force a confrontation, he got more than he bargained for. It was the first time Rory unleashed on Chris. When Chris accused Lorelai of keeping Rory from him, she jumped in to defend her mother, telling Chris, “I always understand! and I don’t want to understand! I don’t even really wanna talk about this right now; I’ve got mom. That’s all I need! Go be somebody else’s dad!”
Even after his perfectly articulate daughter explained herself, he still refused to accept what she was saying. Christopher again accused Lorelai of forcing Rory to be angry with him, as if his decision to leave them, again, hadn’t been the real cause of Rory’s dismay. The Gilmore Girls moment proved Christopher Hayden knew nothing about his child. It also showed just how little responsibility he was willing to take.
He wasn’t a better father to GiGi
Christopher wasn’t a good father to Rory; that much we’ve established. Christopher fans, however, could argue that he was exceptionally young when Rory was born and that his age could explain much of his early behavior. There is one problem, though. He didn’t learn his lesson, and he really wasn’t a better father to GiGi in the grand scheme of things.
For the first two years of his second child’s life, he traveled extensively for work. He traveled so much that his then-wife, Sherry Tinsdale, abandoned their child with a nanny to take a job opportunity in another country. Chris didn’t know she was gone for some time. Once Christopher was forced to take responsibility for his second child, he knew almost nothing about parenting and didn’t seem keen on learning how to parent effectively. By the time Lorelai connected with GiGi, she was difficult and prone to temper tantrums so intense that several elite pre-schools rejected her. Christopher may have felt bad that GiGi’s mother bolted on her, but he wasn’t doing her any favors, either.
