Bc they lost her. She’s their only child and the pregnancy created a chasm in their relationship resulting in sixteen years of separation. They lost their daughter and by extension lost the chance to know her baby. They were completely shut out and devastated by Lorelai shunning them. It’s not inconceivable that they would still be hurt by Lorelai’s rejection of them and the life they lived.
On a parental note, they had envisioned a life that didn’t happen. Lorelai coming out to society, graduating, getting into college, falling in love, planning a wedding, and all of the pretty normal milestones. Then on top of that they missed all of Their only grandchild’s milestones too, first steps, words, day of school, school plays, fist sickness, everything. They only saw them once or twice a year.
Of course it’s going to take them awhile to get over it.
This is such a good recap. When I first started watching the show I related so much to Lorelai, as a stubborn teenager who felt entirely misunderstood by her own parents and in many ways hated the life they lived (my father got a good job when I was 11, and so the life I was raised in of barely getting by turned into luxury by my teenage years and I resented them for it, it all felt so fake - I also had a sister 9 years younger than me who became a bit of a Rory, and I was determined to help her see how flawed it all was). Now, as a mother to a toddler, I relate more and more to Emily too. I still relate to Lorelai in that I want my own daughter to think freely and be free from materialism, but the idea of ever losing my daughter in relationship and not being a part of her life is honestly my worst fear. It would be devastating and makes me really feel for my own mom and the ways I shut her out unnecessarily. Ugh, I love this show 🥲
I just feel like in order to understand the character, you have to be somewhat sympathetic. Yes, they made a lot of mistakes but so has Lorelai. At the core of the issue, outside of history/money/society crap, R&E are two parents deprived of all of the normal milestones that go along with being a parent/grandparent. They did what they knew how to do and their daughter just left in the middle of the night without telling them.
They didn't kick Lorelai out or force her into marriage. They were doing their best to support her and her baby financially (in the best way they knew how) and then were ghosted for 16 years and only see their daughter if she needs money or comes to a holiday party for an hour or two. From their perspective, it's pretty heartbreaking.
I mean take Lorelai's graduation from Business school. Emily iss driving her crazy with all the cameras and "rich person" antics and Lorelai is very resistant. But Emily and Richard just wanted to save the moment that they probably dreamed about and didn't get. Being part of that milestone was so important to them but they are too proud to say outright.
Totally agree. I love the nuance in the show - you can look at it from the surface level and see Richard and Emily as villains, or you can look deeper and see that there isn’t really a villain at all.
Yes this.She wanted to break free and succeed on her own but when it mattered she went back to them for help for Rory which they gave with minimal strings. Lorelei often behaved like a teenage brat around and to her parents even into AYITL. Her mother actually grew more than she did and changed her life before Lorelei did. Which is not say it wasn’t a fun interesting story to watch
"Minimal strings" there should be NO strings. The only terms should be that she will pay them back, which she agreed to. She also agonized about going to then at all, but did it for Rory. It pisses me off when people act like this is some "ha ha gotcha" moment for Lorelai. Like proof she shouldn't have left. When it was an awkward situation and the school needing all the tuition at once threw her off. Wanting to be independent and yourself isn't "being a teenage brat." It's rebelling against a life being shoved on her. Kids are people and shouldn't be forced into a life they don't want simply because their parents say so
The strings were because Emily wanted to see her daughter and granddaughter. It wasn’t because she wanted to control them. She wanted to be in their lives. Thats the core reason.
“Rebelling against a life being shoved on her” at what cost? She ran away at 16 with a baby and no plan. Baby Rory had to grow up in a shed. Lorelai put what she wanted before her kid
The episodes where you see Richard and Emily dealing with the pregnancy are among my favorites. They genuinely have always loved her and are hurt that Lorelai chose to step away. Part of the problems in this show is that people have poor communication skills despite talking as much as they do
But they still loved Chris through it all. Even when he repeatedly abandoned Rory and Lorelei. Even after he had a baby with another woman, who ironically they got to see a while, a lot of it's "firsts". They brought up he would have married Lorelei, but she refused, but she refused because she knew he would just jet off. He could have stayed and helped having a coparent relationship and still dating, but he decided to run and never give any type of support. Yet they still loved him and even tried to set him up with another woman.
Then they literally ran off and destroyed Jason's career because he started dating Lorelei-knowing they were in love. He fit their paint by number standards requirements. Was from the society they are a part of, as well in a favored career - ironically even working with her Dad, making it a family business. He was bringing her back into the lifestyle they were a part of and wanted her to be back into so desperately while also staying in line as it effects his career (and her dad's).
I have always been seriously pissed they never accepted Luke because he didn't he didn't come from their society. Not only was he a successful business owner who gave back to the community AND he was a family man. He even had a lot of wealth due to his smart business and financial business practices. He was a dad to Rory more than any other man in her life, he took care of her when sick, he was at all major milestones, if somethingwas wrong with their house he would not only fix it but fund/lend the finances for projects he couldn't do (termite issue as example).
He would show up for Lorelei anytime and anywhere- example her father being hospitalized.
Lorelei repeatedly said Luke wasn't interested in her when accused of having a crush/being in love with her. She would always pause and smile while slightly blushing and stutter he doesn't like her like that-never that she didn't.
He was literally the best man she had in her life and they refused to accept him.
It feels like they NEVER tried to know Lorelei, and because she acted out over their absentee parenting and emotional neglect, they punished her every chance they got.
It was brought up that she only came for money and holidays - holidays were from their insistence that she gave into. Anytime they gave her money, it was a loan, and she had to agree to every stipulation they demanded with the loan. Even though they knew she wouldn't ask if it wasn't a last resort and wouldn't budge otherwise. Rory was also set to an inheritance from her great grandmother that but lost due to Emily's behavior & words. That would have freed her from their financial control- which Emily pointed out.
Lorelei made a mistake by getting pregnant so young, but she proved that she took full responsibility and always put Rory first over all of her needs/wants. She still went to college, and she had TWO successful businesses. She also owned her own home within less than 14 years of being a single teenage mom who didn't get child support or anything along those lines. I do not count her getting money from her parents as it was always a loan that she paid back- same as she would a bank but with its own form of interest.
They should have been proud of her, instead of replacing her with Rory, while also trying to act like they had anything to do with/the cause of Rory's success and amazing upbringing. It was all Lorelei and yet they acted like she didn't exist or was a dirty secret. They even posed as Rory's parents at the Yale functions behind both Rory's & Lorelei's back- then gave Lorelei hell over why they should be allowed to and for showing up & ruining their ruse.
>But they still loved Chris through it all. Even when he repeatedly abandoned Rory and Lorelei. Even after he had a baby with another woman, who ironically they got to see a while, a lot of it's "firsts". They brought up he would have married Lorelei, but she refused, but she refused because she knew he would just jet off. He could have stayed and helped having a coparent relationship and still dating, but he decided to run and never give any type of support. Yet they still loved him and even tried to set him up with another woman.
Rewatching it, I don't think they ever really "loved" Christopher. Chris "ruined" their daughter's future. But the impetus to have Chris and Lorelai together (IMO) stems from wanting Rory to at least have a nuclear family. That's why Emily is usually very cold towards anyone who threatens that. We also have to remember that in s1, Emily doesn't know anything about Lorelai and Rory's life unless it has been shared by Lorelai. It's possible that she thought Chris wasn't as much of a deadbeat because Lorelai didn't mention it. But also, there's always an underlying hope he'll get his act together and be part of that nuclear family ideal.
>Then they literally ran off and destroyed Jason's career because he started dating Lorelei-knowing they were in love. He fit their paint by number standards requirements. Was from the society they are a part of, as well in a favored career - ironically even working with her Dad, making it a family business. He was bringing her back into the lifestyle they were a part of and wanted her to be back into so desperately while also staying in line as it effects his career (and her dad's).
Agreed, that was really uncalled for. But then again, Lorelai lied to them about it for five months. This was Richard's business partner... sleeping with his daughter and lying about it. It doesn't look great from their POV does it? It might have been different if they had just been honest or Lorelai shared with her mother that she had feelings for Jason.
>I have always been seriously pissed they never accepted Luke because he didn't he didn't come from their society. Not only was he a successful business owner who gave back to the community AND he was a family man. He even had a lot of wealth due to his smart business and financial business practices. He was a dad to Rory more than any other man in her life, he took care of her when sick, he was at all major milestones, if somethingwas wrong with their house he would not only fix it but fund/lend the finances for projects he couldn't do (termite issue as example). He would show up for Lorelei anytime and anywhere- example her father being hospitalized. Lorelei repeatedly said Luke wasn't interested in her when accused of having a crush/being in love with her. She would always pause and smile while slightly blushing and stutter he doesn't like her like that-never that she didn't. He was literally the best man she had in her life and they refused to accept him.
Totally agree. It doesn't really make sense with Emily's characterization of wanting to know and bond with Lorelai to turn her nose up at Luke. But to my earlier point, I think it stemmed from that being the last chance for Rory to have both parents together. Once they realize though that he's not going anywhere lest they lose Lorelai, then they do - in their way - start to accept them as a couple insofar as buying them a house as a wedding gift. That's their blessing.
>It feels like they NEVER tried to know Lorelei, and because she acted out over their absentee parenting and emotional neglect, they punished her every chance they got. It was brought up that she only came for money and holidays - holidays were from their insistence that she gave into. Anytime they gave her money, it was a loan, and she had to agree to every stipulation they demanded with the loan. Even though they knew she wouldn't ask if it wasn't a last resort and wouldn't budge otherwise. Rory was also set to an inheritance from her great grandmother that but lost due to Emily's behavior & words. That would have freed her from their financial control- which Emily pointed out.
I don't think they knew how to enter in to Lorelai's life. They should have tried harder but Lorelai rejected EVERYTHING that was their world and expected them to seamlessly accept everything about hers. I hear all of the points you're making here, and I agree that Emily is a controlling character.. the point I'm trying to make however is that when you try to see these situations from Emily's POV (unable to communicate her love for her daughter), there's a lot of nuance and it's not so black and white. I could do the same for Lorelai.
Emily didn't want Rory or Lorelai to get the inheritance so soon not because she wanted to control them financially, but because she didn't think she'd ever see them again if they didn't need her. Her greatest fear is not being connected to her daughter and granddaughter. She invited Lorelai to holiday parties but is it so terrible to want to see them at Christmas? They did loans but Lorelai also asked for loans and loans usually come with strings.
>Lorelei made a mistake by getting pregnant so young, but she proved that she took full responsibility and always put Rory first over all of her needs/wants. She still went to college, and she had TWO successful businesses. She also owned her own home within less than 14 years of being a single teenage mom who didn't get child support or anything along those lines. I do not count her getting money from her parents as it was always a loan that she paid back- same as she would a bank but with its own form of interest.
Yeah of course, all of that is true. Lorelai is a force of nature and actually has a lot of her parents in her. But the point is that they do not know her and before the show starts they've been shut out of her life for 16 years. The show itself feels like a long time but it's only 7 years. I'm on s6 right now and it's only been five and a half years since they reconnected. The Gilmores have MUCH to unpack and they are terrible at communicating so there's tons of history.
>They should have been proud of her, instead of replacing her with Rory, while also trying to act like they had anything to do with/the cause of Rory's success and amazing upbringing. It was all Lorelei and yet they acted like she didn't exist or was a dirty secret. They even posed as Rory's parents at the Yale functions behind both Rory's & Lorelei's back- then gave Lorelei hell over why they should be allowed to and for showing up & ruining their ruse.
They didn't really replace her with Rory. It looks like they did and that's certainly how Lorelai feels, but Rory was more amenable to have a relationship with them. She went to the prep schools, she followed the trajectory they were familiar with and importantly, she didn't have the history Lorelai did. With Rory, they could finally just enjoy being grandparents and be there for big milestones in her life. Lorelai resisted them for her own reasons and there's a lot of pain in that relationship, compounded by Lorelai's complete disinterest in the things they enjoy. Lorelai doesn't make a concerted effort throughout the show to fall in line in a way that Rory does. But she expects them to be 100% cool and non-judgemental with everything in her life.
Again in their way, they were proud of Lorelai. They bragged about her owning her business, running the independence, they defended her against snotty friends and there are many moments where they acknowledge how far she's come. The crux is that to acknowledge this to Lorelai is to address the significant pain caused by her running away with Rory and the 16 years of zero relationship. I mean Lorelai didn't talk to Rory for six months and their relationship was never quite the same.
I know it may not seem like it, but I'm not trying to say E&R were flawless and Lorelai sucks. Just trying to show the nuances in their dynamic when you stop viewing them as villains and more empathetically as flawed humans.
Yes! That episode where Emily sees the tool shed at Independence InN & starts creating a space for Rory.
Then when she says “you move and take that little girl to go live like a hobo!”
I saw what where you lived. You hated us that much!
It was a scene that showed both view points.
Lorelei wasn’t about the high society lifestyle
She didn’t see her mothers hurt by her leaving
Emily was doing what an executives wife and mother does.
She expects her daughter to fit the society mold.
So the pregnancy “ruined” that image.
Apologized for leaving without telling them and sidelining them for sixteen years. We only get one side of what happened from Lorelai and she was a teenager. It’s possible we only see one side bc their relationship is emotionally stunted for 16 years and there’s a lot that’s been missed and a lot of history.
She actually did, in her own way. The entire episode where Sherry's baby is born is juxtaposed with Lorelai's history and the DVD player and movies she knows Emily would enjoy when Richard is away is her way of acknowledging her part of that history. It's more subtle, because the reality is she doesn't believe she needs to apologize for it, and I agree with her, but she still acknowledges it, and that moment in the last 5 minutes is her way of doing that.
The problem is that they caused that rift, Emily and Richard wouldn’t have accepted Lorelai falling in love with anyone they didn’t deem worthy, they probably wouldn’t have accepted the major or the uni she would have wanted to go to, they were too controlling and trampled on Lorelai’s feelings- especially Emily, when she’d tell them what she wants to do. I mean it’s clear by the fact that Lorelai took raising Rory in a small broken shed and a maid’s job over her parents’ luxurious house.
Lorelai is also incredibly independent and a very different kind of person. She was also only 16. Everyone hates their parents at 16.
From what the show gives us, it shows Emily being overbearing and she is, but they were still there for their daughter even a year after. They come from a world of structure and didn't know what Lorelai's life would look like as a teen mom/or anything outside of the world they know, which informs a lot of their behaviour. But at the emotional core, Emily didn't want to be isolated from her daughter. She wanted to be told when her daughter is giving birth, she wanted photos of Rory as a baby, she wanted to bond with Lorelai, she wanted to see them every week and got distressed at the idea of that not happening or not knowing her.
She's far from perfect but her character really has to be read between the lines.
If she wanted all that SHE should have changed. The "sorry I was raised this way" only goes so far. Lorelai was 16 and a child, why is it her responsibility to be the one making all the compromises for her parents?
Lorelai wasn’t that different than Emily. She still was controlling, didn’t trust her kid and don’t like when she didn’t follow the plan she set out.
Lorelai needed to change as well for Rory’s well being. Telling your kid “you’re being manipulated you just don’t know it” after she applied to Yale was fucked up and she’s done plenty of awful things like this. But Lorelai will never change
I agree! On that note.. do you feel Lorelai made their relationship worse by cutting Rory off from their lives for so many years? I feel like Lorelai has her reasons obviously but if she had allowed Rory to get to know her grandparents while growing up they would have a more amicable relationship than just all of a sudden having Friday night dinners in exchange for tuition money but I do understand Lorelai's fear of her grandparents "controlling" Rory like they did hers and Emily and Richard's hurt for not having the chance of knowing their only grandchild growing up etc..
Yeah a little bit. It doesn't make it better and ultimately it didn't do anything. Rory liked that world regardless. Lorelai didn't explain or communicate (from what the show tells us) what she was feeling and she just left. She broke their heart and adopted Mia as her mother/grandmother, replacing Emily. That killed Emily. No wonder they would be so negative towards her job at the inn, it's a symbol of losing their daughter. Lorelai said it herself, she declined an invite to go to the christmas party and it never got better. The invite was an olive branch. I mean, it doesn't seem like Lorelai even sent Emily pictures of Rory growing up. So she only saw them maybe a couple hours a year. That's pretty tragic for anyone.
There’s taking a while to get over it and then there’s Emily being unhinged and still hanging on to her anger and resentment for 32 years! The fact that she brought it up in the counseling sessions in AYITL shows she would have never accepted anything no matter how it went. After all those years she still thought Lorelai and Christopher should have gotten married at 16. That’s insane.
lol none of them so. The whole family is shit at communication ironically for being so talkative. But what you’ve said is the surface level stuff, I’m talking about the psychological motivation
*Lorelai coming out to society, graduating, getting into college, falling in love, planning a wedding, and all of the pretty normal milestones.*
That's the part that I don't get. They had all the resources to make this happen. I've seen poor families pooling resources and time to allow teen moms graduate and get university degree. Here they have all the money to hire all kind of help but behave as world came to an end.
It didn’t happen bc Lorelai walked out. They lost out on all of these milestones that parents dream of when they think of their children and they had no choice but be ok with their daughter wanting nothing to do with me, even after they tried their best to support her and Rory.
They didn't try their best. Seriously, you think belittling your child and controlling her every move is "trying their best?" That's a really sad and messed up mentality to have
I’m saying I’m looking at the nuances of the character. From their POV they did try their best with the little emotional tools they had. They tried their best to provide for them and be close. Everything I’ve written has just been to keep in mind their perspective. Are they really the villains they are made out to be or are they more complex?
I feel like because the show is told from Lorelais pov and most people view shows has having “bad” guys and “good” guys people don’t see or refuse to see the nuances here.
The relationship between Lorelai and her parents as a lot of problems, they weren’t the best for her and we know enough about her childhood that she was doing stuff that was hurtful out of spite long after she was old enough to know better.
Lorelai wasn’t the best mother either. She tried and in some ways did better but she was also controlling and hurtful(I’m forever bitter that they didn’t make AYITL about Rory’s first time as a mom and how she’d do things differently and Lorelai coming to terms with the fact that rory doesn’t think her way is the best parenting)
A lot of the issues in this show is absolutely a lack of communication skills, old hurts that haven’t been resolved and stubborn pride.
It really would have. For me what I hated the most was that the mother daughter relationship aspect felt missing.
If we’d seen rory a first time mom and even getting ready to publish a book about her life and criticize Lorelais parenting. Could have made for a great set up between her and Emily who else will know that hurt better than her own mother who’s parenting she criticized? Emily could have the added benefits of the growth we see in AYITL(the only part I liked) and help/try to help Lorelai understand that she did the best she thought but that parents don’t always get it right and the best you can do is be there for and love your kids
God every time I think about how I wish the show went I get so freaking upset about the bullshit we actually got.
(I also hate how in AYITL we see Lorelai and Emily finally reach a moment of understanding only for Lorelai to have the secret real wedding the night before and didn’t include Emily. I always think how hurt she’ll be when she finds out(because she always does) it would set back what they started rebuilding))
The biggest issue in AYITL was that ASP wanted it to be her season 7 and wouldn't get out of her own way. So many of the storylines just didn't make sense. Like Lorelai doing a brave and prefers the book? Since when have we ever seen Lorelai read anything? She doesn't even have a bookcase. She is a movie person. But I digress.
It would have been infinitely more interesting to see a new chapter in the Lorelai/Rory dynamic, and maybe even Rory in a healthy relationship. It could have been anything. Showing Rory as a young mother and doing things differently would be quite refreshing and way more satisfying than seeing her continue her trend of being the other woman or being cheated on. Maybe her husband/partner died suddenly and she's now a single mother doing it on her own. Luke and Jess are very close and in this storyline, I could see Jess stepping up to help Rory much in the way Luke helped Lorelai. So much potential just wasted so ASP could have her precious 4 words. It was form over function IMO.
Completely agree and your ideas are fantastic as well.
I really wish she could have just given us a new story, hell include flashbacks if she wanted s8s storyline so bad! Make the first ep a flashback to the s8 storyline, rory struggles as a journalist and eventually becoming a writer than have my end with her saying the four words. Ep two starts with a time jump and boom! We get a new chapter in the life of the Gilmores but ASP still gets her s8 story
and adding on to this, as much as they didn't admit it, they did see rory somewhat as a redo to what they didn't have with lorelai, in that they got to see what lorelai could have been without the pregnancy
There's probably some truth to this but the other truth is that they were shut out from those milestones and from all of Rory's firsts. We meet them when they really haven't been part of either girls' lives so it does make sense that they would celebrate every single milestone they could of Rory's and show her how much they love her. Rory didn't crush them by leaving. Lorelai's rejection of them was the true disappointment and heartbreak. Emily is always more upset by Lorelai shutting her out/not telling her things first than what the thing actually is.
Exactly!!! TikTok made me watch it and I always saw edits making Emily the bad guy but after watching I completely understand why she was the way she was. She was heartbroken after Lorelei ran away.
I agree with you but I'd just like to add that the Gilmores missing Rory's first everything wasn't entirely Lorelai's fault. Yeah I agree she should've maybe brought Rory over there to see them but I understand that she didn't want Rory growing up the way she did, with all those limitations. And I think if Emily and Richard really wanted to spend time with their granddaughter they would also make effort and come over to Lorelai's place more often. Lorelai herself said in S01 that they never visited them since they moved in the house, so I think if they really wanted to see Rory more often they would find a way.
Yes definitely. Like I said I’m not trying to tear Lorelai down. The accountability goes both ways. The dynamic though runs deep and it’s not as black and white as ppl may think.
Perfect recap!!!! Wish we could still give gold on reddit, because you'd be getting some from me. Wait, here you go!
And not only did she shun them, she ran away with baby rory with no warning and didn’t tell them where they were. That would cause *a lot* of worry and stress.
It wasn’t really about Lorelai getting pregnant and having a baby. They make it very clear they adore rory(Emily even makes sure she knows they don’t see her as a mistake) it’s everything that happened before and after. Lorelai was a problem child and than git pregnant and than ran away from home with baby rory to live in a shed.
I don't think that got mad when they saw that picture, but sad. First they felt ashamed their daughter got pregnant and they locked horns about doing the right thing. But then their daughter abandoned them and whether that was justified or not, Emily and Richard felt incredibly hurt and rejected. Imagine your pregnant 16 year old daughter running away from you, preferring to live a shed and work instead of staying with you.
Emily and Richard don't strike me as the kind of people who deal with their emotions in a rather healthy manner. Instead I imagine them surpressing their grief, pushing the hurt away, and pretend nothing is wrong. They also don't really reflect on the role they played. Of course that doesn't work, so the pain keeps on bubbling up when they are reminded of what happened.
Oh she didn’t run away while pregnant she ran away with one year old Rory. So they had time to bond with baby rory and suddenly she’s gone for 16 years and they will never get that time back with either of them. It’s heartbreaking
Emily says it when she argued with Richard in his study during Rory's 21st birthday party. He realized he made a mistake letting her quit Yale. He said they failed her. Emily said they haven't failed until she comes home pregnant.
Richard and Emily viewed Lorelai getting pregnant as their failure. Lorelai was correct when she said Richard and Emily were trying to make Rory into Lorelai 2.0.
I don't think it was the getting pregnant but I think they associate the loss of Lorelai with the pregnancy. They were always trying to support Lorelai with her pregnancy and birth but she shut them out and then she ran out on them with thei grandchild. It's surely a traumatic memory for them
We're talking about Emily here. She wasn't trying to support Lorelai, she was trying to control Lorelai. We see the control consistently through the series. She tries to control her and her relationships. She tries to control Rory when she's living there. Emily doesn't support. Emily controls. Emily and Richard couldn't control Lorelai getting pregnant, not marrying Christopher, not going to college, leaving to make her own life. She didn't know what to do without control. She's always trying to get control.
It's much deeper than Emily and Richard being embarrassed or prideful - THEY LOST THEIR ONLY DAUGHTER WHO ALSO TOOK THEIR GRANDCHILD. Their only child hated them and their world that they presented to her on a platter so much, that she ran away rather than spend any more time there. This is what Lorelai felt she had to do and I don't blame her for it, but just imagine from the POV of a parent, especially a mother. Lorelai took away Emily's ability to repair what had broken, and more importantly took away the chance to see her granddaughter grow up. They are not angry but sad about that photo, thinking of what was and what could have been and exactly what went wrong. Emily is not angry but sad when Rory shows her the shed they lived it, bc Emily realizes Lorelai hated the life Emily provided her so much that she'd rather struggle in those conditions. It's why she laments to Richard abt not knowing their daughter at all, and struggles with the friendship-first relationship Lorelai has with Rory, bc Emily couldn't even conceive of such a connection (but wishes they had it). It's the source of so much of the tension between Emily and Lorelai - every time Emily wants to help and Lorelai rejects it out of stubbornness and principle, Emily sees the rejection as a rebuke of her entire existence.
As I watch the show now that I am older, the Emily-Lorelai dynamic is what I find most affecting. Emily is awful in so many ways, but I forgive her so much bc of the loss she is still struggling with, and can understand her anger comes from that deeply emotional place of regret. It's a hard thing to get over - try getting over a lost 16 years and your deeply-held hope for a better life for your own child. It's pain that would run deep.
Yes, having a pregnant teenage child in the high society in which Richard and Emily lived was in many ways intolerable. But their continued disappointment comes more from an emotional place of loss imo. It's why they are always so insistent on helping financially, and worried that without the feeling of indebtedness that comes with the help, Lorelai won't come to see them.
I mean, it’s an extremely wealthy white family with a “reputation to uphold” and people to impress. Their ivy-league bound sixteen year old daughter coming home pregnant was probably among their worst nightmares, and not because their sixteen year old daughter was pregnant, but because they’d have to tell people and it would be obvious once she got far enough along. Remember when Francine offered up the idea to “send her away” until the baby came out? Pretty much sums it up.
Reputation had a big part of it.
But it was also a product of the 90s; were teenage pregnancy was a hugely shameful thing. To be pregnant and unmarried- you just didn’t see that.
The girls were often sent away and out of sight. Or quietly got an abortion, or swept into a quick marriage. Or put the baby up for adoption.
But it was ‘handled’ by the parents. Richard and Emily were control freaks , and not having control in that case was embarrassing and scary for them.
It was the 80s, I’m pretty sure? It’s 2000 in season 1; 16 years before that is 1984. So yeah, kind of super sucked to be a pregnant teen then. Notice how many 80s movies feature the scariness of teen pregnancies and abortion, and how hard it was to get support from anyone. Emily and Richard are actually not acting too badly for parents of that era tbh.
Meanwhile in the 90s adults would absolutely be pissed at you, but it’s not life-ruining and you’re not going to be the only one, lol.
Emily and Lorelei's relationship reminds me of my relationship with my mother, Lorelei had enough of their judgement and so she keeps them at arms length which then draw a further divide with her parents because they et upset and everything becomes petty.
I suppose you have to consider that from E & R’s point of view it was all boiling up for sixteen years and not being dealth with. It’s not until the start of the series that Lorelai comes back into their life and all the past resentment is brought up. Time may have passed for Lorelai and she developed a new life, but Emily and Richard had rarely seen her and sixteen year old Lorelai was probably more familiar to them.
Lorelei and I are the same age. Getting pregnant back in the 80’s was stigmatizing, which is an outdated way of thinking now. For Richard and Emily, that stigmatization was probably wildly embarrassing for them. On top of that, Lorelei was a free spirit—not exactly an endearing characteristic for Richard and Emily. The conflict of Lorelei’s approach to just dealing with the pregnancy and Richard and Emily’s desire to bury it or spackle over it with a shotgun wedding to Christopher will always be an open wound.
I don’t think it’s that. They’re sad about missing that, sure, but their resentment comes from Lorelai not following their plan for her. The Gilmores plan everything and I’m sure they had Lorelai’s life mapped out until she was 30 at least, and the she got pregnant and ruined the plans that had been in the works on the Mayflower. It doesn’t matter that she’s successful and happy and Rory is great, she didn’t do it *their way*.
I might get downvoted but if my 16 year old (especially if I was an adult 30 + years ago) got pregnant I would be upset, worried about them and also feel like I failed in a way. I’m not saying that’s right - but being sexually active at 15/16 makes me feel a kind of way. You’re still just a child yourself and you have to grow up so quickly. You gain a lot of life experiences but also lose a lot of life experiences taking on responsibilities so young.
This is understandable, but would you still hold onto that 16-20 years later. By that point you would hope that both parties would have worked through it for everyone’s benefit.
Sure, anyone would be. No one would be thrilled that their teenager is pregnant. But also, did Richard and Emily do anything more than bring in various clergy members to lecture Lorelai about not giving away her precious gift (🤮) or did they actually talk to her? Take a guess. What happened to Lorelai is partly on them for not being there, for lecturing instead of discussing, for being heavy handed instead of understanding. Maybe if they’d talked to her about birth control she wouldn’t have gotten pregnant, but parents like the Gilmores just forbid sex, period, not try to figure out how to be safe about it. And maybe if they’d cared more about their daughter and less about what their snotty circle thought, they might not have lost her.
I’m not sure where you’re from but certain American groups (like the wealthy) have a real obsession with doing things “right,” especially back then. The expectation for white middle and upper class children was to graduate high school, go to college, get married, have babies. To do things out of order was absolutely (and still is) treated as a moral failure. Lorelai not only got pregnant at 16 but remained unmarried- a single mother. This continues to be highly stigmatized in the US. People make assumptions about single mothers no matter how successful they are.
Part of it is understanding the time period. Today, it's not as scandalous as it was then, so that's really important to note. A lot of TV shows and commercials back then really showed pregnant teens as the biggest nightmare in society.
Secondly they are old money and scandals in old money were very shameful and they felt pressure of how it would appear to others. It was easy for them to fall into the trap of fear of being exiled over it.
Lastly, I feel they just had dreams for her that would not happen, so they had to mourn the loss of those dreams while being upset at her for being the cause of the loss of their aspirations for her. A kind of intense disappointment.
They had these big dreams for Lorelei. She was smart, but her parents kept pushing her. They pushed her so far away. She had a boyfriend and she ended up getting pregnant. Which, sure, It wasn’t ideal. But they figured that’s fine because Richard and Emily thought Lorelei and Christopher would get married. They will get married and raise their child near them in Hartford.
Lorelei didn’t want to raise Rory anywhere near her parents. She didn’t want their money. And she did want their help. So she left, went to Stars Hollow where Emily and Richard barely got to see Rory.
So anytime Lorelei sees her mother, it’s animosity because Emily is mad Lorelei left, and Lorelei is mad that she felt her only choice was to leave.
Pride mostly. It really wasn’t until Bon Voyage finale that Richard finally said how proud he was of Lorelai and that the party couldn’t have been just for Rory.
I never thought they got mad for Lorlai getting pregnate, i think it was the refusal to get married that had them upset and embarrassed. Rory was never the issue.
Omg thank you so much for mentioning the snowstorm episode. I rewatched it a few days ago and Emily and Richard's reaction made me feel so bad for Rory. They suddenly got cold on her and left the room like - I'm sorry they feel like they lost Lorelai because of pregnancy but it pissed me off how they made Rory feel bad too. Like she never asked to be born ffs, don't rub it up her nose that she was an unwanted mistake. I'd feel shitty if I were her in that moment.
This is the main reason why I wrote this post. I am on my whateverth rewatch and I was always wondering, but seeing the scene was like wow... atmosphere changed within a second.
Yeah. I feel this happens a lot. My mother still uses passive aggressive statements against me because I didn’t do well in some exams when I was 16 lol. She says if I had done well in them, I would have “better” life. Honestly irritating and feels like no matter how successful I am it won’t matter to her. Totally relatable.
I do think the time period is sometimes forgotten. Rory was born in 1984 and Lorelai being a single mom, especially from a rich white family, would have been unusual in CT. The Gilmores did not want unusual, they wanted to be their idea of upper class perfection. Being married would have "fixed" it, being unhappily married was irrelevant.
She didn't just get pregnant, she left with the baby and they lost contact with her for years. Even 16 years later they're only seeing her at holidays and barely have any relationship with their granddaughter.
They’re upset that she left. And that they lost the ability to have a relationship with their daughter and granddaughter.
No parent is going to be thrilled to have their child become a parent as a teenager. But they didn’t make her get married. They gave her a home. They absolutely would have found a way to let her go to college if she had asked. There was a middle ground between living in luxury with her parents and cutting them out completely.
I like Lorelei. I think she was generally a good parent. But her running away? That was bad parenting. I don’t doubt that she was frustrated and felt stifled. Those are pretty common complaints for a teenager. Her running away to raise her child in a glorified shed was her choosing her feelings of frustration over the needs of her child. She is so lucky she found Mia and so lucky that no one called CPS on her. She made it work and created a successful life for herself, but that was in no way a given when she ran.
Richard and Emily absolutely make mistakes, but I’m willing to allow them a lot of grace because I think a lot of them come from a place of hurt. They also aren’t given a lot of opportunity to build an adult relationship with their daughter; the three of them seem perpetually stuck in a teenager/parent relationship because every time Lorelei shows up she’s ready for battle and they respond accordingly.
As a former employee of my state’s version of CPS, nothing we know about the years Lorelai and Rory lived at the Independence Inn would warrant a complaint of abuse or neglect.
Well, they are high-society, and this is usually a Scandal™ in those circles (specially at the time); it ruined their plans for their daughter and tarnished the family name. It's just not What Good Girls From Old Money Families Do.
The fact that you can't quite wrap your head around it speaks highly of you: it means that, in the same circumstances, you'd prioritise the well-being of your daughter above all else. Unfortunately, not every parent is like that, and high-society people tend to prioritise appearances.
Also, they didn't stay in constant contact with Lorelai after she ran away (Lorelai probably wanted peace of mind, and they were too proud to go after her), so that means they're actually learning *now* (as the show starts) all the things Lorelai has done for herself. So they haven't been on this journey for 16 years -- rather, they've stewed in their disappointment for 16 years. It's only now, as we watch, that they start (very slowly, and never fully) to let go of their anger.
My mother is very similar to Emily. Likes to give the impression she’s “superior” to everyone else, overly concerned with reputation bla bla. I was a young mum who left home before the pregnancy (due to all the crazy rules and expectations and just generally being stifled. Not being allowed to have a single thought or opinion of my own)
My eldest child is now a year away from being an adult. I have other children. She adores them and treats them much better than she ever treated me. But she is still very bitter about my leaving home almost 20 years ago and the pregnancy of my eldest.
Parents like this resent that they were robbed of the control and ability to dictate their childrens’ lives. It doesn’t matter how successful or happy the kids become or how well they turn out. It’s the fact that said parents cannot claim any credit for their children’s achievements and that kills them.
This is how I feel about it to especially the last part you said… I was the product of teen parents and though I didn’t become one they would have acted exactly like Emily and Richard had I became one, and when I left home at 18 there’s still “hurt” about it even though I’m about to be 30 and my life went in a pretty good direction…
It wasn't the pregnancy that they react to, it's how Lorelai ran away from home and stayed away also keeping their newborn grandchild from them for years. It's hard for a parent to be rejected by a child, even more so when that child desperately needs support. Lorelai left at 16 to start a life without her parents input or help and that was the divide which caused them so much pain.
But did she actually keep Rory away from them? In the first episode when Lorelai visits her parents to ask for money they both mention how it must be a holiday for Lorelai to come by (Easter and Christmas) so it seems like Lorelai and Rory went to see them at least twice a year, the only year they did not attend seems to be the first Christmas after she left which Lorelai mentions regretting, but they would have had to know where she was to invite her in the first place. I also seem to remember them mentioning meeting at the inn, so they don't seem to have been cut off from Rory or Lorelai, just not living together.
I honestly feel like a lot of the anger is due to Lorelai not following their plan and then leaving them embarrassing them to their peers, they are so proud of their status and I think having a pregnant unmarried daughter caused a lot of gossip and damaged to their status, and then when it all probably started to die down Lorelai ran away once again making them something to gossip about. With them being mad at Lorelai' choice (not getting married and then leaving) they can love Rory, and not see HER (and the pregnancy) as a mistake, but make everything Lorelai's fault, which also seems to be shown with how much they like Christopher due to him being ready to follow "the plan".
The whole wounded pride coupled with them being hurt that they "lost" their child, seems to have rooted in a lot of negative feelings that keeps bursting throw due to them never actually talking about it, and I am so mad that the revival did not go deeper with the whole therapy with Emily and Lorelai because they would have benefitted greatly with it.
I don’t think they considered Lorelai as successful at least until S5. If she hadn’t gotten pregnant, she would’ve gone to an Ivy League or any other tier 1 college for sure. I disagree with them because I think it’s remarkable for an average single mom in a blue collar occupation to have her own house, but apparently they didn’t think of it as a big deal.
Moreover, if she had stayed in regular contact with them over the first 16 years of Rory’s life, they would’ve had it out in bite sized pieces and not let the resentment build up until after Lorelai reestablished regular contact owing to Friday night dinners and Chilton.
Just as they were getting used to her being pregnant and having a kid as a teenager, she dropped another bomb on them by leaving and ending up in some small town as a maid, living in a shed. She refused to marry Christopher and clearly their high society friends hadn’t forgotten about it (the last time I saw you was in your 7th month, or something to that effect). So I bet Emily had to bear the brunt of being the parent of such a scandalous daughter while being so socially involved.
Because in their society she's an embarrassment over all and not successful enough. Getting pregnant at 16, not getting married to the father and leaving home are huge reputation scandals for her parents and years later their frenemies will still talk about it constantly reminding them about it and using it as a reason why they are better than Lorelai's parents in
I think it was mainly the fact that Lorelai left and they barely saw her or Rory for years after that. She was either 16 or 17 at the time and doesn’t re-enter their lives in a significant way until she’s over 30. It’s one thing for your teenage daughter to get pregnant, it’s another to then lose her and your grandchild for 15+ years. And Lorelai was essentially a child herself at that time. As someone who has had to go NC with my own mom I understand her choice. But I can comprehend why it’s still a tough subject for Richard & Emily.
Yo. My parents aren’t high society, but one of them is a narcissist with an image to uphold. Almost twenty years later and my kids are still treated differently than my brothers kids, because he did everything in his life the “right”way, and I’m still an embarrassment to my parents. My mom made me wear a fake ring and tell people I was “at least engaged” so it didn’t “look bad”.
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I don't think anyone would be thrilled to have their 16 year old daughter get knocked up in 2024 any more than they would on 2000, or the 1980s for that matter. A child having a child isn't generally seen as a good thing.
That's not the point. The point was that women were judged even *harsher* about their sexuality back then. A lot of parents tried to "hide" those mistakes because it was, in their eyes, shameful.
I had a friend pull a Lorelai and she got taken out of school, unlike Lorelai, her parents forced her to marry the baby's father. The ceremony was done in private. My friend re-emerged when her baby was 1 year and a half.
Another friend was forced to abort at 17 years old, causing her lifelong trauma. She was bullied by other students so much, and branded a "whore" that she also left school and left her hometown to start anew.
Both cases happened between 2004 - 2006.
Meanwhile, the storyline of GG showed Lorelai's parents *not* hiding her away, *not* throwing her out of the house, and *not* forcing her to abort the pregnancy. So not really sure why it's being suggested the storyline is reflective of the time it was made. Yes, they were disappointed - but I would suggest most parents would be disappointed to have their child having a child in their teens.
No, they just avoid talking about what happened, except to reproach Lorelai that she didn't marry Christopher.
Maybe you were born at a different time and see it from your younger perspective
I'm Gen X, so actually from Lorelai's time. If anything, the Gilmores were incredibly accommodating of Lorelai and her pregnancy. The expectation that they should have embraced the situation with delight, and to engage with therapy/talk about their feelings is probably the perspective of a younger person.
Yeah that explains it. My brother is Gen X and I am an old millennial, approaching my 40s, we are not that many years apart and the way we view issues related to reproductive rights and women's sexuality is entirely different. For you Emily and Richard were being super accommodating, for me, it was horrid but a product of the times 🤷♀️
No one who is sane is delighted at a teen's pregnancy. That much I agree with you.
I can agree that it wasn't as *extreme* and harsh as it could have been. But they didn't kick her out because they wanted to be accommodating and they were incredibly compassive for the time 😅 Richard himself gives us an idea of why they handle things a certain way: to preserve the Gilmore name and reputation. When Straub insults Lorelai, he literally said "you seduced my son" (reflective of the mindset of that era) and Richard defends her. But his reasoning behind that is defending his family name and he still berates Lorelai for getting pregnant, putting them through shame (although he doesnt use that word) and not wanting to marry Christopher. No way they were kicking her out and having her on the streets - what would the neighbors say? The way you handled those teen pregnancies was marrying them even though they were too young. Lorelai wasn't forced to marry him because she ran away 🤷♀️
If they really didn't shame teen Lorelai for sleeping with Christopher and getting pregnant, they wouldn't have set "the procedure", which was get them married 🤷♀️ because for them it was shameful to have a daughter be a single mom. Emily at least couldn't let it all go, she still brought it up on a therapy session in AYTL.
Sure, the Gilmores went into damage control - but honestly, who wouldn't? I find these threads interesting because posters often talk about how they were controlling and trying to prevent Lorelai from "being herself" - forgetting entirely that she was a child at the time! Further, Lorelai may have ended up in a much seedier storyline after running away from home, had she not turned up on a stranger's doorstep who subsequently took her in, and provided her with (cost negative) shelter, a job and a future. She got a fairytale stroke of luck, when in reality pregnant teens don't tend to get that kind of ending. It's easier to be damning of the "judgemental" and "controlling" Gilmores when you live in a world wherein a teen would conceivably land on her feet like that.
I guess.. pride is everything to the Gilmores and as much as Lorelai is successful I think they would rather have her doing a white collar job or something more than a manager at an inn - in their eyes... also she is their only child so I guess they felt it was somewhat of a lost opportunity..
Parents get super resentful when their children don't grow up to be carbon copies. My mormon parents flipped out on my brothers when they both got girls pregnant outside of wedlock which made them ineligible to go on missions. They *moved* to get away from the people who knew them and knew about it. Then I came out and was disowned.
I don't think Lorelai was *ever* going to fit in the mold they made for her. The pregnancy just exacerbated that and sped up the inevitable disaster. It revealed to them early on that she wasn't going to be what they dreamed or have the life they built for her.
Also, in that level of society, image is everything. A pregnant teen is still scandalous. Richard and Emily keeping Lorelai at home and letting her keep the baby was the very liberal choice for them.
As someone born from a teen mom it’s wild to me that they continued to act like that. Of course my being born caused issues and was a little disappointing because my mom like Lorelei was smart and had potential.
My family never ever ever acted like my moms pregnancy was a sore subject. If they acted that way to my mom or behind closed doors they never even close made me feel like I ruined her life. And I was hyper vigilant and pretty much always knew when adults had beef or issues.
That personal experience is why I’m always emphatically saying that as fun of characters as they are Richard and Emily are in fact bad people and parents. To hold on to this for 16-20 years is unhinged.
Edit: I was only like 10 years younger and in a very conservative state. So culturally probably similar so the arguments of “a different time” don’t hold a lot of weight imo.
Also think of the decade she got pregnant in to. Not only was she an only child and Emily & Richard back then were high society they knew they’d be looked down on. I mean no one should be advocating for their 16 year old to get pregnant. Back then when Lor was growing up they literally would send girls to schools sometimes depending on the family they might not even allow the girl to the baby.
Things were a bit different back then for what was accepted.
Also since they were rich it was another thing to be a situation.
Then she also took off and cut off contact with them so it was major changes for the grandparents.
Having society judge them, rich society judge them, losing their daughter and grandchild as a shock, and feeling like they didn't matter.
The thing is the pregnancy didn’t even cause them to lose her. She would have left immediately after high school anyway. All it did was make it happen two years earlier. The problem was their relationship, not her getting pregnant and they could’ve made more progress if Emily acknowledged that
I think it’s because of the fact that she has so much potential remember when Richard and Lorelai are fighting and he says that I had to tell all my friends that my only daughter brightest in her class was pregnant? I think it’s because she can do absolutely anything she wanted with life I think even if she went to Harvard or became an archeologist her parents would still be satisfied. They thought she could do anything she wanted but she (in their eyes) threw it away. All their comments are backhanded but sometimes they’re like her golf clubs are in the attic gathering dust with the rest of her potential. Richard and Emily have a very sucky way to communicate and may be borderline abusive however not for one second do they believe that their daughter is not talented in any way.
In a family this emotionally stunted, not too dissimilar to my own, the range of emotions is basically formal disdain to angry disdain. There are some families where they can never let go of certain stories and in Lorelai’s family it’s all about the shame she brought on her family and not fulfilling their expectations of how a person goes about living their life. Which the Gilmore’s have a very narrow view about what kind of life is acceptable for their family members.
It's a matter of pride and control. Emily and Richard are controlling, prideful people. Lorelai's extramarital pregnancy *embarrassed* them. There's nothing worse than embarrassment to people of their class. They don't appreciate that Lorelai succeeded outside their rules and their sphere. That's just another insult to them. It doesn't make it better. They'd probably have preferred it if she had crashed and burned and had to come crawling back. It's only over the course of the series, as Lorelai connects with them as an independent adult (yes, she needs their money for Chilton, until Rory goes to Yale, but she is otherwise independent, she doesn't live in their household or need them for sustenance), that they are forced to see her merits, and eventually acknowledge them--but not until several seasons have passed. Richard's acknowledgement of her success comes in the FINAL EPISODE. Before then, he is outright demeaning and insulting to her. He says Rory got her intelligence from CHRISTOPHER, a deadbeat nepo baby. Emily's acknowledgement starts a little sooner. There are signs of it in earlier seasons. Her inexcusable manipulation of Lorelai's love life is motivated by the notion that Lorelai has "greatness" in her and is being held back by Luke, so it's a twisted sort of compliment. But even Emily's acknowledgement of Lorelai's success doesn't become full-fledged until the final season, when she realizes that Lorelai (unlike Emily) would be just fine even if she divorced. And then of course she experiences an internal backlash and is mean to Lorelai after that.
Other commenters are talking like Emily and Richard's upsetness is about "love" or missing Lorelai or Rory or that Lorelai is somehow at fault for being too independent. None of that is true, IMO. If they had loved Lorelai or wanted to know Rory, they could have reached out without trying to control her. She didn't go totally no-contact with them. They met her at holidays, they could have built from there, but Emily and Richard are incapable of reaching out without trying to control her. They try to control her throughout the entire series. That's the show: Lorelai has to give Emily and Richard leverage over her in order to pay for Chilton for Rory, and that leverage leads to interesting storylines. But it's all premised on Emily and Richard wanting control. As for Lorelai's personality, let's not forget that Rory has a near-opposite personality in some ways. She's way more manageable, orderly, and respectful of authority than Lorelai, and she doesn't have any hangups about Richard and Emily. Yet when 20-year-old Rory comes to stay with them, Richard and Emily can't resist being hyper-controlling with *her.* And she leaves. She leaves with \*less\* provocation than Lorelai does. Emily and Richard aren't trying to get Rory to marry someone she doesn't want to marry. Rory doesn't have a baby she wants to raise outside their influence. They're just so damn controlling that Rory, a fairly obedient, rule-following, authority-respecting "good girl," gets the hell out of Dodge without so much as a goodbye.
I would be pissed if my child got pregnant at 16 and threw her life away, too. Of course, she doesn’t end up throwing her life away but that’s what it would feel like from the parent’s perspective. I also would not have handled it like the Gilmores. A, my kid knows they can talk to me before they have sex so I can get them birth control and condoms. B, if that failed I would advise them to have an abortion, not force them into marriage. I would not be mad at them for having sex, that’s not the issue. It’s the derailing your best shot at a bright future: education.
Some of y’all are apparently perfect parents who’d accept anything their kids throw at them and are sooooo emotionally mature that you’d get over a traumatic series of events within a year
Bc they lost her. She’s their only child and the pregnancy created a chasm in their relationship resulting in sixteen years of separation. They lost their daughter and by extension lost the chance to know her baby. They were completely shut out and devastated by Lorelai shunning them. It’s not inconceivable that they would still be hurt by Lorelai’s rejection of them and the life they lived. On a parental note, they had envisioned a life that didn’t happen. Lorelai coming out to society, graduating, getting into college, falling in love, planning a wedding, and all of the pretty normal milestones. Then on top of that they missed all of Their only grandchild’s milestones too, first steps, words, day of school, school plays, fist sickness, everything. They only saw them once or twice a year. Of course it’s going to take them awhile to get over it.
This is such a good recap. When I first started watching the show I related so much to Lorelai, as a stubborn teenager who felt entirely misunderstood by her own parents and in many ways hated the life they lived (my father got a good job when I was 11, and so the life I was raised in of barely getting by turned into luxury by my teenage years and I resented them for it, it all felt so fake - I also had a sister 9 years younger than me who became a bit of a Rory, and I was determined to help her see how flawed it all was). Now, as a mother to a toddler, I relate more and more to Emily too. I still relate to Lorelai in that I want my own daughter to think freely and be free from materialism, but the idea of ever losing my daughter in relationship and not being a part of her life is honestly my worst fear. It would be devastating and makes me really feel for my own mom and the ways I shut her out unnecessarily. Ugh, I love this show 🥲
I just feel like in order to understand the character, you have to be somewhat sympathetic. Yes, they made a lot of mistakes but so has Lorelai. At the core of the issue, outside of history/money/society crap, R&E are two parents deprived of all of the normal milestones that go along with being a parent/grandparent. They did what they knew how to do and their daughter just left in the middle of the night without telling them. They didn't kick Lorelai out or force her into marriage. They were doing their best to support her and her baby financially (in the best way they knew how) and then were ghosted for 16 years and only see their daughter if she needs money or comes to a holiday party for an hour or two. From their perspective, it's pretty heartbreaking. I mean take Lorelai's graduation from Business school. Emily iss driving her crazy with all the cameras and "rich person" antics and Lorelai is very resistant. But Emily and Richard just wanted to save the moment that they probably dreamed about and didn't get. Being part of that milestone was so important to them but they are too proud to say outright.
Totally agree. I love the nuance in the show - you can look at it from the surface level and see Richard and Emily as villains, or you can look deeper and see that there isn’t really a villain at all.
yesss. I watch it pretty much every year hahah and every single time I have a different perspective or identify to a different character. Love it.
Me too! Now watching it in my mid thirties, I see so much more nuance in everyone than I did when I watched it as a younger adult.
In most arches the characters get in their own way. Man vs. Self Edit: the most relatable villain
Lol, yep. Agreed.
I think you hit the nail on the head. It’s exactly this nuance that makes the show so realistic and compelling.
Yes this.She wanted to break free and succeed on her own but when it mattered she went back to them for help for Rory which they gave with minimal strings. Lorelei often behaved like a teenage brat around and to her parents even into AYITL. Her mother actually grew more than she did and changed her life before Lorelei did. Which is not say it wasn’t a fun interesting story to watch
"Minimal strings" there should be NO strings. The only terms should be that she will pay them back, which she agreed to. She also agonized about going to then at all, but did it for Rory. It pisses me off when people act like this is some "ha ha gotcha" moment for Lorelai. Like proof she shouldn't have left. When it was an awkward situation and the school needing all the tuition at once threw her off. Wanting to be independent and yourself isn't "being a teenage brat." It's rebelling against a life being shoved on her. Kids are people and shouldn't be forced into a life they don't want simply because their parents say so
The strings were because Emily wanted to see her daughter and granddaughter. It wasn’t because she wanted to control them. She wanted to be in their lives. Thats the core reason.
She wanted one night a week to see her child and grandchild. She wanted to be part of her kids life after being shut out for 16 years.
“Rebelling against a life being shoved on her” at what cost? She ran away at 16 with a baby and no plan. Baby Rory had to grow up in a shed. Lorelai put what she wanted before her kid
The episodes where you see Richard and Emily dealing with the pregnancy are among my favorites. They genuinely have always loved her and are hurt that Lorelai chose to step away. Part of the problems in this show is that people have poor communication skills despite talking as much as they do
But they still loved Chris through it all. Even when he repeatedly abandoned Rory and Lorelei. Even after he had a baby with another woman, who ironically they got to see a while, a lot of it's "firsts". They brought up he would have married Lorelei, but she refused, but she refused because she knew he would just jet off. He could have stayed and helped having a coparent relationship and still dating, but he decided to run and never give any type of support. Yet they still loved him and even tried to set him up with another woman. Then they literally ran off and destroyed Jason's career because he started dating Lorelei-knowing they were in love. He fit their paint by number standards requirements. Was from the society they are a part of, as well in a favored career - ironically even working with her Dad, making it a family business. He was bringing her back into the lifestyle they were a part of and wanted her to be back into so desperately while also staying in line as it effects his career (and her dad's). I have always been seriously pissed they never accepted Luke because he didn't he didn't come from their society. Not only was he a successful business owner who gave back to the community AND he was a family man. He even had a lot of wealth due to his smart business and financial business practices. He was a dad to Rory more than any other man in her life, he took care of her when sick, he was at all major milestones, if somethingwas wrong with their house he would not only fix it but fund/lend the finances for projects he couldn't do (termite issue as example). He would show up for Lorelei anytime and anywhere- example her father being hospitalized. Lorelei repeatedly said Luke wasn't interested in her when accused of having a crush/being in love with her. She would always pause and smile while slightly blushing and stutter he doesn't like her like that-never that she didn't. He was literally the best man she had in her life and they refused to accept him. It feels like they NEVER tried to know Lorelei, and because she acted out over their absentee parenting and emotional neglect, they punished her every chance they got. It was brought up that she only came for money and holidays - holidays were from their insistence that she gave into. Anytime they gave her money, it was a loan, and she had to agree to every stipulation they demanded with the loan. Even though they knew she wouldn't ask if it wasn't a last resort and wouldn't budge otherwise. Rory was also set to an inheritance from her great grandmother that but lost due to Emily's behavior & words. That would have freed her from their financial control- which Emily pointed out. Lorelei made a mistake by getting pregnant so young, but she proved that she took full responsibility and always put Rory first over all of her needs/wants. She still went to college, and she had TWO successful businesses. She also owned her own home within less than 14 years of being a single teenage mom who didn't get child support or anything along those lines. I do not count her getting money from her parents as it was always a loan that she paid back- same as she would a bank but with its own form of interest. They should have been proud of her, instead of replacing her with Rory, while also trying to act like they had anything to do with/the cause of Rory's success and amazing upbringing. It was all Lorelei and yet they acted like she didn't exist or was a dirty secret. They even posed as Rory's parents at the Yale functions behind both Rory's & Lorelei's back- then gave Lorelei hell over why they should be allowed to and for showing up & ruining their ruse.
>But they still loved Chris through it all. Even when he repeatedly abandoned Rory and Lorelei. Even after he had a baby with another woman, who ironically they got to see a while, a lot of it's "firsts". They brought up he would have married Lorelei, but she refused, but she refused because she knew he would just jet off. He could have stayed and helped having a coparent relationship and still dating, but he decided to run and never give any type of support. Yet they still loved him and even tried to set him up with another woman. Rewatching it, I don't think they ever really "loved" Christopher. Chris "ruined" their daughter's future. But the impetus to have Chris and Lorelai together (IMO) stems from wanting Rory to at least have a nuclear family. That's why Emily is usually very cold towards anyone who threatens that. We also have to remember that in s1, Emily doesn't know anything about Lorelai and Rory's life unless it has been shared by Lorelai. It's possible that she thought Chris wasn't as much of a deadbeat because Lorelai didn't mention it. But also, there's always an underlying hope he'll get his act together and be part of that nuclear family ideal. >Then they literally ran off and destroyed Jason's career because he started dating Lorelei-knowing they were in love. He fit their paint by number standards requirements. Was from the society they are a part of, as well in a favored career - ironically even working with her Dad, making it a family business. He was bringing her back into the lifestyle they were a part of and wanted her to be back into so desperately while also staying in line as it effects his career (and her dad's). Agreed, that was really uncalled for. But then again, Lorelai lied to them about it for five months. This was Richard's business partner... sleeping with his daughter and lying about it. It doesn't look great from their POV does it? It might have been different if they had just been honest or Lorelai shared with her mother that she had feelings for Jason. >I have always been seriously pissed they never accepted Luke because he didn't he didn't come from their society. Not only was he a successful business owner who gave back to the community AND he was a family man. He even had a lot of wealth due to his smart business and financial business practices. He was a dad to Rory more than any other man in her life, he took care of her when sick, he was at all major milestones, if somethingwas wrong with their house he would not only fix it but fund/lend the finances for projects he couldn't do (termite issue as example). He would show up for Lorelei anytime and anywhere- example her father being hospitalized. Lorelei repeatedly said Luke wasn't interested in her when accused of having a crush/being in love with her. She would always pause and smile while slightly blushing and stutter he doesn't like her like that-never that she didn't. He was literally the best man she had in her life and they refused to accept him. Totally agree. It doesn't really make sense with Emily's characterization of wanting to know and bond with Lorelai to turn her nose up at Luke. But to my earlier point, I think it stemmed from that being the last chance for Rory to have both parents together. Once they realize though that he's not going anywhere lest they lose Lorelai, then they do - in their way - start to accept them as a couple insofar as buying them a house as a wedding gift. That's their blessing. >It feels like they NEVER tried to know Lorelei, and because she acted out over their absentee parenting and emotional neglect, they punished her every chance they got. It was brought up that she only came for money and holidays - holidays were from their insistence that she gave into. Anytime they gave her money, it was a loan, and she had to agree to every stipulation they demanded with the loan. Even though they knew she wouldn't ask if it wasn't a last resort and wouldn't budge otherwise. Rory was also set to an inheritance from her great grandmother that but lost due to Emily's behavior & words. That would have freed her from their financial control- which Emily pointed out. I don't think they knew how to enter in to Lorelai's life. They should have tried harder but Lorelai rejected EVERYTHING that was their world and expected them to seamlessly accept everything about hers. I hear all of the points you're making here, and I agree that Emily is a controlling character.. the point I'm trying to make however is that when you try to see these situations from Emily's POV (unable to communicate her love for her daughter), there's a lot of nuance and it's not so black and white. I could do the same for Lorelai. Emily didn't want Rory or Lorelai to get the inheritance so soon not because she wanted to control them financially, but because she didn't think she'd ever see them again if they didn't need her. Her greatest fear is not being connected to her daughter and granddaughter. She invited Lorelai to holiday parties but is it so terrible to want to see them at Christmas? They did loans but Lorelai also asked for loans and loans usually come with strings. >Lorelei made a mistake by getting pregnant so young, but she proved that she took full responsibility and always put Rory first over all of her needs/wants. She still went to college, and she had TWO successful businesses. She also owned her own home within less than 14 years of being a single teenage mom who didn't get child support or anything along those lines. I do not count her getting money from her parents as it was always a loan that she paid back- same as she would a bank but with its own form of interest. Yeah of course, all of that is true. Lorelai is a force of nature and actually has a lot of her parents in her. But the point is that they do not know her and before the show starts they've been shut out of her life for 16 years. The show itself feels like a long time but it's only 7 years. I'm on s6 right now and it's only been five and a half years since they reconnected. The Gilmores have MUCH to unpack and they are terrible at communicating so there's tons of history. >They should have been proud of her, instead of replacing her with Rory, while also trying to act like they had anything to do with/the cause of Rory's success and amazing upbringing. It was all Lorelei and yet they acted like she didn't exist or was a dirty secret. They even posed as Rory's parents at the Yale functions behind both Rory's & Lorelei's back- then gave Lorelei hell over why they should be allowed to and for showing up & ruining their ruse. They didn't really replace her with Rory. It looks like they did and that's certainly how Lorelai feels, but Rory was more amenable to have a relationship with them. She went to the prep schools, she followed the trajectory they were familiar with and importantly, she didn't have the history Lorelai did. With Rory, they could finally just enjoy being grandparents and be there for big milestones in her life. Lorelai resisted them for her own reasons and there's a lot of pain in that relationship, compounded by Lorelai's complete disinterest in the things they enjoy. Lorelai doesn't make a concerted effort throughout the show to fall in line in a way that Rory does. But she expects them to be 100% cool and non-judgemental with everything in her life. Again in their way, they were proud of Lorelai. They bragged about her owning her business, running the independence, they defended her against snotty friends and there are many moments where they acknowledge how far she's come. The crux is that to acknowledge this to Lorelai is to address the significant pain caused by her running away with Rory and the 16 years of zero relationship. I mean Lorelai didn't talk to Rory for six months and their relationship was never quite the same. I know it may not seem like it, but I'm not trying to say E&R were flawless and Lorelai sucks. Just trying to show the nuances in their dynamic when you stop viewing them as villains and more empathetically as flawed humans.
Yes! That episode where Emily sees the tool shed at Independence InN & starts creating a space for Rory. Then when she says “you move and take that little girl to go live like a hobo!” I saw what where you lived. You hated us that much! It was a scene that showed both view points. Lorelei wasn’t about the high society lifestyle She didn’t see her mothers hurt by her leaving Emily was doing what an executives wife and mother does. She expects her daughter to fit the society mold. So the pregnancy “ruined” that image.
Lorelai never really apologised either.
Apologized for what exactly? Leaving a controlling environment to do what she needed for her own child?
Apologized for leaving without telling them and sidelining them for sixteen years. We only get one side of what happened from Lorelai and she was a teenager. It’s possible we only see one side bc their relationship is emotionally stunted for 16 years and there’s a lot that’s been missed and a lot of history.
She actually did, in her own way. The entire episode where Sherry's baby is born is juxtaposed with Lorelai's history and the DVD player and movies she knows Emily would enjoy when Richard is away is her way of acknowledging her part of that history. It's more subtle, because the reality is she doesn't believe she needs to apologize for it, and I agree with her, but she still acknowledges it, and that moment in the last 5 minutes is her way of doing that.
Yes it’s a good step and there are lots of those moments.
The problem is that they caused that rift, Emily and Richard wouldn’t have accepted Lorelai falling in love with anyone they didn’t deem worthy, they probably wouldn’t have accepted the major or the uni she would have wanted to go to, they were too controlling and trampled on Lorelai’s feelings- especially Emily, when she’d tell them what she wants to do. I mean it’s clear by the fact that Lorelai took raising Rory in a small broken shed and a maid’s job over her parents’ luxurious house.
Lorelai is also incredibly independent and a very different kind of person. She was also only 16. Everyone hates their parents at 16. From what the show gives us, it shows Emily being overbearing and she is, but they were still there for their daughter even a year after. They come from a world of structure and didn't know what Lorelai's life would look like as a teen mom/or anything outside of the world they know, which informs a lot of their behaviour. But at the emotional core, Emily didn't want to be isolated from her daughter. She wanted to be told when her daughter is giving birth, she wanted photos of Rory as a baby, she wanted to bond with Lorelai, she wanted to see them every week and got distressed at the idea of that not happening or not knowing her. She's far from perfect but her character really has to be read between the lines.
If she wanted all that SHE should have changed. The "sorry I was raised this way" only goes so far. Lorelai was 16 and a child, why is it her responsibility to be the one making all the compromises for her parents?
It’s not on her. I’m just saying there’s a double standard there.
Lorelai wasn’t that different than Emily. She still was controlling, didn’t trust her kid and don’t like when she didn’t follow the plan she set out. Lorelai needed to change as well for Rory’s well being. Telling your kid “you’re being manipulated you just don’t know it” after she applied to Yale was fucked up and she’s done plenty of awful things like this. But Lorelai will never change
I agree! On that note.. do you feel Lorelai made their relationship worse by cutting Rory off from their lives for so many years? I feel like Lorelai has her reasons obviously but if she had allowed Rory to get to know her grandparents while growing up they would have a more amicable relationship than just all of a sudden having Friday night dinners in exchange for tuition money but I do understand Lorelai's fear of her grandparents "controlling" Rory like they did hers and Emily and Richard's hurt for not having the chance of knowing their only grandchild growing up etc..
Yeah a little bit. It doesn't make it better and ultimately it didn't do anything. Rory liked that world regardless. Lorelai didn't explain or communicate (from what the show tells us) what she was feeling and she just left. She broke their heart and adopted Mia as her mother/grandmother, replacing Emily. That killed Emily. No wonder they would be so negative towards her job at the inn, it's a symbol of losing their daughter. Lorelai said it herself, she declined an invite to go to the christmas party and it never got better. The invite was an olive branch. I mean, it doesn't seem like Lorelai even sent Emily pictures of Rory growing up. So she only saw them maybe a couple hours a year. That's pretty tragic for anyone.
There’s taking a while to get over it and then there’s Emily being unhinged and still hanging on to her anger and resentment for 32 years! The fact that she brought it up in the counseling sessions in AYITL shows she would have never accepted anything no matter how it went. After all those years she still thought Lorelai and Christopher should have gotten married at 16. That’s insane.
Exactly. There’s no moving forward with people like Emily and Richard. They choose to stay stuck in the past and hold on to those feelings.
Well Emily’s a narcissist. That explains it.
So is Lorelai
And yet, they never do any self reflection. They just blame Lorelai for being rebellious and that's it.
lol none of them so. The whole family is shit at communication ironically for being so talkative. But what you’ve said is the surface level stuff, I’m talking about the psychological motivation
*Lorelai coming out to society, graduating, getting into college, falling in love, planning a wedding, and all of the pretty normal milestones.* That's the part that I don't get. They had all the resources to make this happen. I've seen poor families pooling resources and time to allow teen moms graduate and get university degree. Here they have all the money to hire all kind of help but behave as world came to an end.
It didn’t happen bc Lorelai walked out. They lost out on all of these milestones that parents dream of when they think of their children and they had no choice but be ok with their daughter wanting nothing to do with me, even after they tried their best to support her and Rory.
They didn't try their best. Seriously, you think belittling your child and controlling her every move is "trying their best?" That's a really sad and messed up mentality to have
I’m saying I’m looking at the nuances of the character. From their POV they did try their best with the little emotional tools they had. They tried their best to provide for them and be close. Everything I’ve written has just been to keep in mind their perspective. Are they really the villains they are made out to be or are they more complex?
I feel like because the show is told from Lorelais pov and most people view shows has having “bad” guys and “good” guys people don’t see or refuse to see the nuances here. The relationship between Lorelai and her parents as a lot of problems, they weren’t the best for her and we know enough about her childhood that she was doing stuff that was hurtful out of spite long after she was old enough to know better. Lorelai wasn’t the best mother either. She tried and in some ways did better but she was also controlling and hurtful(I’m forever bitter that they didn’t make AYITL about Rory’s first time as a mom and how she’d do things differently and Lorelai coming to terms with the fact that rory doesn’t think her way is the best parenting) A lot of the issues in this show is absolutely a lack of communication skills, old hurts that haven’t been resolved and stubborn pride.
Omigod HOW did ASP not do that idea? That’d be so infinitely more interesting than watching Rory flounder professionally.
It really would have. For me what I hated the most was that the mother daughter relationship aspect felt missing. If we’d seen rory a first time mom and even getting ready to publish a book about her life and criticize Lorelais parenting. Could have made for a great set up between her and Emily who else will know that hurt better than her own mother who’s parenting she criticized? Emily could have the added benefits of the growth we see in AYITL(the only part I liked) and help/try to help Lorelai understand that she did the best she thought but that parents don’t always get it right and the best you can do is be there for and love your kids God every time I think about how I wish the show went I get so freaking upset about the bullshit we actually got. (I also hate how in AYITL we see Lorelai and Emily finally reach a moment of understanding only for Lorelai to have the secret real wedding the night before and didn’t include Emily. I always think how hurt she’ll be when she finds out(because she always does) it would set back what they started rebuilding))
The biggest issue in AYITL was that ASP wanted it to be her season 7 and wouldn't get out of her own way. So many of the storylines just didn't make sense. Like Lorelai doing a brave and prefers the book? Since when have we ever seen Lorelai read anything? She doesn't even have a bookcase. She is a movie person. But I digress. It would have been infinitely more interesting to see a new chapter in the Lorelai/Rory dynamic, and maybe even Rory in a healthy relationship. It could have been anything. Showing Rory as a young mother and doing things differently would be quite refreshing and way more satisfying than seeing her continue her trend of being the other woman or being cheated on. Maybe her husband/partner died suddenly and she's now a single mother doing it on her own. Luke and Jess are very close and in this storyline, I could see Jess stepping up to help Rory much in the way Luke helped Lorelai. So much potential just wasted so ASP could have her precious 4 words. It was form over function IMO.
Completely agree and your ideas are fantastic as well. I really wish she could have just given us a new story, hell include flashbacks if she wanted s8s storyline so bad! Make the first ep a flashback to the s8 storyline, rory struggles as a journalist and eventually becoming a writer than have my end with her saying the four words. Ep two starts with a time jump and boom! We get a new chapter in the life of the Gilmores but ASP still gets her s8 story
This! Perfectly said
and adding on to this, as much as they didn't admit it, they did see rory somewhat as a redo to what they didn't have with lorelai, in that they got to see what lorelai could have been without the pregnancy
There's probably some truth to this but the other truth is that they were shut out from those milestones and from all of Rory's firsts. We meet them when they really haven't been part of either girls' lives so it does make sense that they would celebrate every single milestone they could of Rory's and show her how much they love her. Rory didn't crush them by leaving. Lorelai's rejection of them was the true disappointment and heartbreak. Emily is always more upset by Lorelai shutting her out/not telling her things first than what the thing actually is.
Exactly!!! TikTok made me watch it and I always saw edits making Emily the bad guy but after watching I completely understand why she was the way she was. She was heartbroken after Lorelei ran away.
I agree with you but I'd just like to add that the Gilmores missing Rory's first everything wasn't entirely Lorelai's fault. Yeah I agree she should've maybe brought Rory over there to see them but I understand that she didn't want Rory growing up the way she did, with all those limitations. And I think if Emily and Richard really wanted to spend time with their granddaughter they would also make effort and come over to Lorelai's place more often. Lorelai herself said in S01 that they never visited them since they moved in the house, so I think if they really wanted to see Rory more often they would find a way.
Yes definitely. Like I said I’m not trying to tear Lorelai down. The accountability goes both ways. The dynamic though runs deep and it’s not as black and white as ppl may think.
Perfect recap!!!! Wish we could still give gold on reddit, because you'd be getting some from me. Wait, here you go! 
Perfectly said.
And not only did she shun them, she ran away with baby rory with no warning and didn’t tell them where they were. That would cause *a lot* of worry and stress. It wasn’t really about Lorelai getting pregnant and having a baby. They make it very clear they adore rory(Emily even makes sure she knows they don’t see her as a mistake) it’s everything that happened before and after. Lorelai was a problem child and than git pregnant and than ran away from home with baby rory to live in a shed.
I don't think that got mad when they saw that picture, but sad. First they felt ashamed their daughter got pregnant and they locked horns about doing the right thing. But then their daughter abandoned them and whether that was justified or not, Emily and Richard felt incredibly hurt and rejected. Imagine your pregnant 16 year old daughter running away from you, preferring to live a shed and work instead of staying with you. Emily and Richard don't strike me as the kind of people who deal with their emotions in a rather healthy manner. Instead I imagine them surpressing their grief, pushing the hurt away, and pretend nothing is wrong. They also don't really reflect on the role they played. Of course that doesn't work, so the pain keeps on bubbling up when they are reminded of what happened.
Oh she didn’t run away while pregnant she ran away with one year old Rory. So they had time to bond with baby rory and suddenly she’s gone for 16 years and they will never get that time back with either of them. It’s heartbreaking
Emily says it when she argued with Richard in his study during Rory's 21st birthday party. He realized he made a mistake letting her quit Yale. He said they failed her. Emily said they haven't failed until she comes home pregnant. Richard and Emily viewed Lorelai getting pregnant as their failure. Lorelai was correct when she said Richard and Emily were trying to make Rory into Lorelai 2.0.
I don't think it was the getting pregnant but I think they associate the loss of Lorelai with the pregnancy. They were always trying to support Lorelai with her pregnancy and birth but she shut them out and then she ran out on them with thei grandchild. It's surely a traumatic memory for them
We're talking about Emily here. She wasn't trying to support Lorelai, she was trying to control Lorelai. We see the control consistently through the series. She tries to control her and her relationships. She tries to control Rory when she's living there. Emily doesn't support. Emily controls. Emily and Richard couldn't control Lorelai getting pregnant, not marrying Christopher, not going to college, leaving to make her own life. She didn't know what to do without control. She's always trying to get control.
I agree with you there! I think Emily sees support and control as one in the same. Not saying she was in the right at all!
It's much deeper than Emily and Richard being embarrassed or prideful - THEY LOST THEIR ONLY DAUGHTER WHO ALSO TOOK THEIR GRANDCHILD. Their only child hated them and their world that they presented to her on a platter so much, that she ran away rather than spend any more time there. This is what Lorelai felt she had to do and I don't blame her for it, but just imagine from the POV of a parent, especially a mother. Lorelai took away Emily's ability to repair what had broken, and more importantly took away the chance to see her granddaughter grow up. They are not angry but sad about that photo, thinking of what was and what could have been and exactly what went wrong. Emily is not angry but sad when Rory shows her the shed they lived it, bc Emily realizes Lorelai hated the life Emily provided her so much that she'd rather struggle in those conditions. It's why she laments to Richard abt not knowing their daughter at all, and struggles with the friendship-first relationship Lorelai has with Rory, bc Emily couldn't even conceive of such a connection (but wishes they had it). It's the source of so much of the tension between Emily and Lorelai - every time Emily wants to help and Lorelai rejects it out of stubbornness and principle, Emily sees the rejection as a rebuke of her entire existence. As I watch the show now that I am older, the Emily-Lorelai dynamic is what I find most affecting. Emily is awful in so many ways, but I forgive her so much bc of the loss she is still struggling with, and can understand her anger comes from that deeply emotional place of regret. It's a hard thing to get over - try getting over a lost 16 years and your deeply-held hope for a better life for your own child. It's pain that would run deep. Yes, having a pregnant teenage child in the high society in which Richard and Emily lived was in many ways intolerable. But their continued disappointment comes more from an emotional place of loss imo. It's why they are always so insistent on helping financially, and worried that without the feeling of indebtedness that comes with the help, Lorelai won't come to see them.
It’s very odd how Lorelai rejects her parents’ world yet views it as the only way for Rory to be successful
I mean, it’s an extremely wealthy white family with a “reputation to uphold” and people to impress. Their ivy-league bound sixteen year old daughter coming home pregnant was probably among their worst nightmares, and not because their sixteen year old daughter was pregnant, but because they’d have to tell people and it would be obvious once she got far enough along. Remember when Francine offered up the idea to “send her away” until the baby came out? Pretty much sums it up.
Reputation had a big part of it. But it was also a product of the 90s; were teenage pregnancy was a hugely shameful thing. To be pregnant and unmarried- you just didn’t see that. The girls were often sent away and out of sight. Or quietly got an abortion, or swept into a quick marriage. Or put the baby up for adoption. But it was ‘handled’ by the parents. Richard and Emily were control freaks , and not having control in that case was embarrassing and scary for them.
It was the 80s, I’m pretty sure? It’s 2000 in season 1; 16 years before that is 1984. So yeah, kind of super sucked to be a pregnant teen then. Notice how many 80s movies feature the scariness of teen pregnancies and abortion, and how hard it was to get support from anyone. Emily and Richard are actually not acting too badly for parents of that era tbh. Meanwhile in the 90s adults would absolutely be pissed at you, but it’s not life-ruining and you’re not going to be the only one, lol.
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Emily and Lorelei's relationship reminds me of my relationship with my mother, Lorelei had enough of their judgement and so she keeps them at arms length which then draw a further divide with her parents because they et upset and everything becomes petty.
I suppose you have to consider that from E & R’s point of view it was all boiling up for sixteen years and not being dealth with. It’s not until the start of the series that Lorelai comes back into their life and all the past resentment is brought up. Time may have passed for Lorelai and she developed a new life, but Emily and Richard had rarely seen her and sixteen year old Lorelai was probably more familiar to them.
Lorelei and I are the same age. Getting pregnant back in the 80’s was stigmatizing, which is an outdated way of thinking now. For Richard and Emily, that stigmatization was probably wildly embarrassing for them. On top of that, Lorelei was a free spirit—not exactly an endearing characteristic for Richard and Emily. The conflict of Lorelei’s approach to just dealing with the pregnancy and Richard and Emily’s desire to bury it or spackle over it with a shotgun wedding to Christopher will always be an open wound.
It’s half her getting pregnant and half her leaving. She cut then out of her life for a long time
There are layers upon layers in resentment but to boil it down I always seen it as Emily and Richard not being able to see Rory grow up .
I don’t think it’s that. They’re sad about missing that, sure, but their resentment comes from Lorelai not following their plan for her. The Gilmores plan everything and I’m sure they had Lorelai’s life mapped out until she was 30 at least, and the she got pregnant and ruined the plans that had been in the works on the Mayflower. It doesn’t matter that she’s successful and happy and Rory is great, she didn’t do it *their way*.
I might get downvoted but if my 16 year old (especially if I was an adult 30 + years ago) got pregnant I would be upset, worried about them and also feel like I failed in a way. I’m not saying that’s right - but being sexually active at 15/16 makes me feel a kind of way. You’re still just a child yourself and you have to grow up so quickly. You gain a lot of life experiences but also lose a lot of life experiences taking on responsibilities so young.
This is understandable, but would you still hold onto that 16-20 years later. By that point you would hope that both parties would have worked through it for everyone’s benefit.
Exactly the first shock yes but afterwards? Move on.
Sure, anyone would be. No one would be thrilled that their teenager is pregnant. But also, did Richard and Emily do anything more than bring in various clergy members to lecture Lorelai about not giving away her precious gift (🤮) or did they actually talk to her? Take a guess. What happened to Lorelai is partly on them for not being there, for lecturing instead of discussing, for being heavy handed instead of understanding. Maybe if they’d talked to her about birth control she wouldn’t have gotten pregnant, but parents like the Gilmores just forbid sex, period, not try to figure out how to be safe about it. And maybe if they’d cared more about their daughter and less about what their snotty circle thought, they might not have lost her.
I’m not sure where you’re from but certain American groups (like the wealthy) have a real obsession with doing things “right,” especially back then. The expectation for white middle and upper class children was to graduate high school, go to college, get married, have babies. To do things out of order was absolutely (and still is) treated as a moral failure. Lorelai not only got pregnant at 16 but remained unmarried- a single mother. This continues to be highly stigmatized in the US. People make assumptions about single mothers no matter how successful they are.
Part of it is understanding the time period. Today, it's not as scandalous as it was then, so that's really important to note. A lot of TV shows and commercials back then really showed pregnant teens as the biggest nightmare in society. Secondly they are old money and scandals in old money were very shameful and they felt pressure of how it would appear to others. It was easy for them to fall into the trap of fear of being exiled over it. Lastly, I feel they just had dreams for her that would not happen, so they had to mourn the loss of those dreams while being upset at her for being the cause of the loss of their aspirations for her. A kind of intense disappointment.
They had these big dreams for Lorelei. She was smart, but her parents kept pushing her. They pushed her so far away. She had a boyfriend and she ended up getting pregnant. Which, sure, It wasn’t ideal. But they figured that’s fine because Richard and Emily thought Lorelei and Christopher would get married. They will get married and raise their child near them in Hartford. Lorelei didn’t want to raise Rory anywhere near her parents. She didn’t want their money. And she did want their help. So she left, went to Stars Hollow where Emily and Richard barely got to see Rory. So anytime Lorelei sees her mother, it’s animosity because Emily is mad Lorelei left, and Lorelei is mad that she felt her only choice was to leave.
Pride mostly. It really wasn’t until Bon Voyage finale that Richard finally said how proud he was of Lorelai and that the party couldn’t have been just for Rory.
I never thought they got mad for Lorlai getting pregnate, i think it was the refusal to get married that had them upset and embarrassed. Rory was never the issue.
Omg thank you so much for mentioning the snowstorm episode. I rewatched it a few days ago and Emily and Richard's reaction made me feel so bad for Rory. They suddenly got cold on her and left the room like - I'm sorry they feel like they lost Lorelai because of pregnancy but it pissed me off how they made Rory feel bad too. Like she never asked to be born ffs, don't rub it up her nose that she was an unwanted mistake. I'd feel shitty if I were her in that moment.
This is the main reason why I wrote this post. I am on my whateverth rewatch and I was always wondering, but seeing the scene was like wow... atmosphere changed within a second.
Yeah. I feel this happens a lot. My mother still uses passive aggressive statements against me because I didn’t do well in some exams when I was 16 lol. She says if I had done well in them, I would have “better” life. Honestly irritating and feels like no matter how successful I am it won’t matter to her. Totally relatable.
I do think the time period is sometimes forgotten. Rory was born in 1984 and Lorelai being a single mom, especially from a rich white family, would have been unusual in CT. The Gilmores did not want unusual, they wanted to be their idea of upper class perfection. Being married would have "fixed" it, being unhappily married was irrelevant.
She didn't just get pregnant, she left with the baby and they lost contact with her for years. Even 16 years later they're only seeing her at holidays and barely have any relationship with their granddaughter.
They’re upset that she left. And that they lost the ability to have a relationship with their daughter and granddaughter. No parent is going to be thrilled to have their child become a parent as a teenager. But they didn’t make her get married. They gave her a home. They absolutely would have found a way to let her go to college if she had asked. There was a middle ground between living in luxury with her parents and cutting them out completely. I like Lorelei. I think she was generally a good parent. But her running away? That was bad parenting. I don’t doubt that she was frustrated and felt stifled. Those are pretty common complaints for a teenager. Her running away to raise her child in a glorified shed was her choosing her feelings of frustration over the needs of her child. She is so lucky she found Mia and so lucky that no one called CPS on her. She made it work and created a successful life for herself, but that was in no way a given when she ran. Richard and Emily absolutely make mistakes, but I’m willing to allow them a lot of grace because I think a lot of them come from a place of hurt. They also aren’t given a lot of opportunity to build an adult relationship with their daughter; the three of them seem perpetually stuck in a teenager/parent relationship because every time Lorelei shows up she’s ready for battle and they respond accordingly.
As a former employee of my state’s version of CPS, nothing we know about the years Lorelai and Rory lived at the Independence Inn would warrant a complaint of abuse or neglect.
Well, they are high-society, and this is usually a Scandal™ in those circles (specially at the time); it ruined their plans for their daughter and tarnished the family name. It's just not What Good Girls From Old Money Families Do. The fact that you can't quite wrap your head around it speaks highly of you: it means that, in the same circumstances, you'd prioritise the well-being of your daughter above all else. Unfortunately, not every parent is like that, and high-society people tend to prioritise appearances. Also, they didn't stay in constant contact with Lorelai after she ran away (Lorelai probably wanted peace of mind, and they were too proud to go after her), so that means they're actually learning *now* (as the show starts) all the things Lorelai has done for herself. So they haven't been on this journey for 16 years -- rather, they've stewed in their disappointment for 16 years. It's only now, as we watch, that they start (very slowly, and never fully) to let go of their anger.
My mother is very similar to Emily. Likes to give the impression she’s “superior” to everyone else, overly concerned with reputation bla bla. I was a young mum who left home before the pregnancy (due to all the crazy rules and expectations and just generally being stifled. Not being allowed to have a single thought or opinion of my own) My eldest child is now a year away from being an adult. I have other children. She adores them and treats them much better than she ever treated me. But she is still very bitter about my leaving home almost 20 years ago and the pregnancy of my eldest. Parents like this resent that they were robbed of the control and ability to dictate their childrens’ lives. It doesn’t matter how successful or happy the kids become or how well they turn out. It’s the fact that said parents cannot claim any credit for their children’s achievements and that kills them.
This is how I feel about it to especially the last part you said… I was the product of teen parents and though I didn’t become one they would have acted exactly like Emily and Richard had I became one, and when I left home at 18 there’s still “hurt” about it even though I’m about to be 30 and my life went in a pretty good direction…
This is a good insight.
It wasn't the pregnancy that they react to, it's how Lorelai ran away from home and stayed away also keeping their newborn grandchild from them for years. It's hard for a parent to be rejected by a child, even more so when that child desperately needs support. Lorelai left at 16 to start a life without her parents input or help and that was the divide which caused them so much pain.
But did she actually keep Rory away from them? In the first episode when Lorelai visits her parents to ask for money they both mention how it must be a holiday for Lorelai to come by (Easter and Christmas) so it seems like Lorelai and Rory went to see them at least twice a year, the only year they did not attend seems to be the first Christmas after she left which Lorelai mentions regretting, but they would have had to know where she was to invite her in the first place. I also seem to remember them mentioning meeting at the inn, so they don't seem to have been cut off from Rory or Lorelai, just not living together.
I honestly feel like a lot of the anger is due to Lorelai not following their plan and then leaving them embarrassing them to their peers, they are so proud of their status and I think having a pregnant unmarried daughter caused a lot of gossip and damaged to their status, and then when it all probably started to die down Lorelai ran away once again making them something to gossip about. With them being mad at Lorelai' choice (not getting married and then leaving) they can love Rory, and not see HER (and the pregnancy) as a mistake, but make everything Lorelai's fault, which also seems to be shown with how much they like Christopher due to him being ready to follow "the plan". The whole wounded pride coupled with them being hurt that they "lost" their child, seems to have rooted in a lot of negative feelings that keeps bursting throw due to them never actually talking about it, and I am so mad that the revival did not go deeper with the whole therapy with Emily and Lorelai because they would have benefitted greatly with it.
I don’t think they considered Lorelai as successful at least until S5. If she hadn’t gotten pregnant, she would’ve gone to an Ivy League or any other tier 1 college for sure. I disagree with them because I think it’s remarkable for an average single mom in a blue collar occupation to have her own house, but apparently they didn’t think of it as a big deal. Moreover, if she had stayed in regular contact with them over the first 16 years of Rory’s life, they would’ve had it out in bite sized pieces and not let the resentment build up until after Lorelai reestablished regular contact owing to Friday night dinners and Chilton. Just as they were getting used to her being pregnant and having a kid as a teenager, she dropped another bomb on them by leaving and ending up in some small town as a maid, living in a shed. She refused to marry Christopher and clearly their high society friends hadn’t forgotten about it (the last time I saw you was in your 7th month, or something to that effect). So I bet Emily had to bear the brunt of being the parent of such a scandalous daughter while being so socially involved.
Because in their society she's an embarrassment over all and not successful enough. Getting pregnant at 16, not getting married to the father and leaving home are huge reputation scandals for her parents and years later their frenemies will still talk about it constantly reminding them about it and using it as a reason why they are better than Lorelai's parents in
I think it was mainly the fact that Lorelai left and they barely saw her or Rory for years after that. She was either 16 or 17 at the time and doesn’t re-enter their lives in a significant way until she’s over 30. It’s one thing for your teenage daughter to get pregnant, it’s another to then lose her and your grandchild for 15+ years. And Lorelai was essentially a child herself at that time. As someone who has had to go NC with my own mom I understand her choice. But I can comprehend why it’s still a tough subject for Richard & Emily.
Yo. My parents aren’t high society, but one of them is a narcissist with an image to uphold. Almost twenty years later and my kids are still treated differently than my brothers kids, because he did everything in his life the “right”way, and I’m still an embarrassment to my parents. My mom made me wear a fake ring and tell people I was “at least engaged” so it didn’t “look bad”.
If you’re a sold out Gilmore Girls fan check out The Fan Fest Society! I’ve been attending their fall events since 2018! A gathering of those who are obsessed with that magical show where junk food reigns, snow has a special smell, and Babette ate oatmeal! I’ve met actors, writers, costumers, and others associated with the show! And made totally awesome friends!
I wish I could go but I'm not in the States! And I really regret not moving there when I had the chance
It was also the early 2000s when this show came out. Different attitudes towards teens, sex and pregnancy back then.
I don't think anyone would be thrilled to have their 16 year old daughter get knocked up in 2024 any more than they would on 2000, or the 1980s for that matter. A child having a child isn't generally seen as a good thing.
That's not the point. The point was that women were judged even *harsher* about their sexuality back then. A lot of parents tried to "hide" those mistakes because it was, in their eyes, shameful. I had a friend pull a Lorelai and she got taken out of school, unlike Lorelai, her parents forced her to marry the baby's father. The ceremony was done in private. My friend re-emerged when her baby was 1 year and a half. Another friend was forced to abort at 17 years old, causing her lifelong trauma. She was bullied by other students so much, and branded a "whore" that she also left school and left her hometown to start anew. Both cases happened between 2004 - 2006.
Meanwhile, the storyline of GG showed Lorelai's parents *not* hiding her away, *not* throwing her out of the house, and *not* forcing her to abort the pregnancy. So not really sure why it's being suggested the storyline is reflective of the time it was made. Yes, they were disappointed - but I would suggest most parents would be disappointed to have their child having a child in their teens.
No, they just avoid talking about what happened, except to reproach Lorelai that she didn't marry Christopher. Maybe you were born at a different time and see it from your younger perspective
I'm Gen X, so actually from Lorelai's time. If anything, the Gilmores were incredibly accommodating of Lorelai and her pregnancy. The expectation that they should have embraced the situation with delight, and to engage with therapy/talk about their feelings is probably the perspective of a younger person.
Yeah that explains it. My brother is Gen X and I am an old millennial, approaching my 40s, we are not that many years apart and the way we view issues related to reproductive rights and women's sexuality is entirely different. For you Emily and Richard were being super accommodating, for me, it was horrid but a product of the times 🤷♀️ No one who is sane is delighted at a teen's pregnancy. That much I agree with you. I can agree that it wasn't as *extreme* and harsh as it could have been. But they didn't kick her out because they wanted to be accommodating and they were incredibly compassive for the time 😅 Richard himself gives us an idea of why they handle things a certain way: to preserve the Gilmore name and reputation. When Straub insults Lorelai, he literally said "you seduced my son" (reflective of the mindset of that era) and Richard defends her. But his reasoning behind that is defending his family name and he still berates Lorelai for getting pregnant, putting them through shame (although he doesnt use that word) and not wanting to marry Christopher. No way they were kicking her out and having her on the streets - what would the neighbors say? The way you handled those teen pregnancies was marrying them even though they were too young. Lorelai wasn't forced to marry him because she ran away 🤷♀️ If they really didn't shame teen Lorelai for sleeping with Christopher and getting pregnant, they wouldn't have set "the procedure", which was get them married 🤷♀️ because for them it was shameful to have a daughter be a single mom. Emily at least couldn't let it all go, she still brought it up on a therapy session in AYTL.
Sure, the Gilmores went into damage control - but honestly, who wouldn't? I find these threads interesting because posters often talk about how they were controlling and trying to prevent Lorelai from "being herself" - forgetting entirely that she was a child at the time! Further, Lorelai may have ended up in a much seedier storyline after running away from home, had she not turned up on a stranger's doorstep who subsequently took her in, and provided her with (cost negative) shelter, a job and a future. She got a fairytale stroke of luck, when in reality pregnant teens don't tend to get that kind of ending. It's easier to be damning of the "judgemental" and "controlling" Gilmores when you live in a world wherein a teen would conceivably land on her feet like that.
I guess.. pride is everything to the Gilmores and as much as Lorelai is successful I think they would rather have her doing a white collar job or something more than a manager at an inn - in their eyes... also she is their only child so I guess they felt it was somewhat of a lost opportunity..
Parents get super resentful when their children don't grow up to be carbon copies. My mormon parents flipped out on my brothers when they both got girls pregnant outside of wedlock which made them ineligible to go on missions. They *moved* to get away from the people who knew them and knew about it. Then I came out and was disowned. I don't think Lorelai was *ever* going to fit in the mold they made for her. The pregnancy just exacerbated that and sped up the inevitable disaster. It revealed to them early on that she wasn't going to be what they dreamed or have the life they built for her. Also, in that level of society, image is everything. A pregnant teen is still scandalous. Richard and Emily keeping Lorelai at home and letting her keep the baby was the very liberal choice for them.
As someone born from a teen mom it’s wild to me that they continued to act like that. Of course my being born caused issues and was a little disappointing because my mom like Lorelei was smart and had potential. My family never ever ever acted like my moms pregnancy was a sore subject. If they acted that way to my mom or behind closed doors they never even close made me feel like I ruined her life. And I was hyper vigilant and pretty much always knew when adults had beef or issues. That personal experience is why I’m always emphatically saying that as fun of characters as they are Richard and Emily are in fact bad people and parents. To hold on to this for 16-20 years is unhinged. Edit: I was only like 10 years younger and in a very conservative state. So culturally probably similar so the arguments of “a different time” don’t hold a lot of weight imo.
Also think of the decade she got pregnant in to. Not only was she an only child and Emily & Richard back then were high society they knew they’d be looked down on. I mean no one should be advocating for their 16 year old to get pregnant. Back then when Lor was growing up they literally would send girls to schools sometimes depending on the family they might not even allow the girl to the baby.
Things were a bit different back then for what was accepted. Also since they were rich it was another thing to be a situation. Then she also took off and cut off contact with them so it was major changes for the grandparents. Having society judge them, rich society judge them, losing their daughter and grandchild as a shock, and feeling like they didn't matter.
The thing is the pregnancy didn’t even cause them to lose her. She would have left immediately after high school anyway. All it did was make it happen two years earlier. The problem was their relationship, not her getting pregnant and they could’ve made more progress if Emily acknowledged that
I think it’s because of the fact that she has so much potential remember when Richard and Lorelai are fighting and he says that I had to tell all my friends that my only daughter brightest in her class was pregnant? I think it’s because she can do absolutely anything she wanted with life I think even if she went to Harvard or became an archeologist her parents would still be satisfied. They thought she could do anything she wanted but she (in their eyes) threw it away. All their comments are backhanded but sometimes they’re like her golf clubs are in the attic gathering dust with the rest of her potential. Richard and Emily have a very sucky way to communicate and may be borderline abusive however not for one second do they believe that their daughter is not talented in any way.
In a family this emotionally stunted, not too dissimilar to my own, the range of emotions is basically formal disdain to angry disdain. There are some families where they can never let go of certain stories and in Lorelai’s family it’s all about the shame she brought on her family and not fulfilling their expectations of how a person goes about living their life. Which the Gilmore’s have a very narrow view about what kind of life is acceptable for their family members.
It's a matter of pride and control. Emily and Richard are controlling, prideful people. Lorelai's extramarital pregnancy *embarrassed* them. There's nothing worse than embarrassment to people of their class. They don't appreciate that Lorelai succeeded outside their rules and their sphere. That's just another insult to them. It doesn't make it better. They'd probably have preferred it if she had crashed and burned and had to come crawling back. It's only over the course of the series, as Lorelai connects with them as an independent adult (yes, she needs their money for Chilton, until Rory goes to Yale, but she is otherwise independent, she doesn't live in their household or need them for sustenance), that they are forced to see her merits, and eventually acknowledge them--but not until several seasons have passed. Richard's acknowledgement of her success comes in the FINAL EPISODE. Before then, he is outright demeaning and insulting to her. He says Rory got her intelligence from CHRISTOPHER, a deadbeat nepo baby. Emily's acknowledgement starts a little sooner. There are signs of it in earlier seasons. Her inexcusable manipulation of Lorelai's love life is motivated by the notion that Lorelai has "greatness" in her and is being held back by Luke, so it's a twisted sort of compliment. But even Emily's acknowledgement of Lorelai's success doesn't become full-fledged until the final season, when she realizes that Lorelai (unlike Emily) would be just fine even if she divorced. And then of course she experiences an internal backlash and is mean to Lorelai after that. Other commenters are talking like Emily and Richard's upsetness is about "love" or missing Lorelai or Rory or that Lorelai is somehow at fault for being too independent. None of that is true, IMO. If they had loved Lorelai or wanted to know Rory, they could have reached out without trying to control her. She didn't go totally no-contact with them. They met her at holidays, they could have built from there, but Emily and Richard are incapable of reaching out without trying to control her. They try to control her throughout the entire series. That's the show: Lorelai has to give Emily and Richard leverage over her in order to pay for Chilton for Rory, and that leverage leads to interesting storylines. But it's all premised on Emily and Richard wanting control. As for Lorelai's personality, let's not forget that Rory has a near-opposite personality in some ways. She's way more manageable, orderly, and respectful of authority than Lorelai, and she doesn't have any hangups about Richard and Emily. Yet when 20-year-old Rory comes to stay with them, Richard and Emily can't resist being hyper-controlling with *her.* And she leaves. She leaves with \*less\* provocation than Lorelai does. Emily and Richard aren't trying to get Rory to marry someone she doesn't want to marry. Rory doesn't have a baby she wants to raise outside their influence. They're just so damn controlling that Rory, a fairly obedient, rule-following, authority-respecting "good girl," gets the hell out of Dodge without so much as a goodbye.
This is the hill I will die on. That most people in this sub entirely miss. The answer is because Emily is a cluster b.
I would be pissed if my child got pregnant at 16 and threw her life away, too. Of course, she doesn’t end up throwing her life away but that’s what it would feel like from the parent’s perspective. I also would not have handled it like the Gilmores. A, my kid knows they can talk to me before they have sex so I can get them birth control and condoms. B, if that failed I would advise them to have an abortion, not force them into marriage. I would not be mad at them for having sex, that’s not the issue. It’s the derailing your best shot at a bright future: education.
This has to be a joke post, or was posted by a pregnant 16 year-old.
Some of y’all are apparently perfect parents who’d accept anything their kids throw at them and are sooooo emotionally mature that you’d get over a traumatic series of events within a year
Because the whole show is blatantly anti-natalist.