Young Sheldon Fans Still Not Over About Mary Being 'Bad' Parent

Young Sheldon, The Big Bang Theory's spinoff that rivals the parent show in popularity, premiered in 2017, and the two series ran concurrently for two years until TBBT ended in 2017 after twelve seasons, with viewers becoming even more invested in eccentric genius Sheldon Cooper.

The prequel follows Sheldon as a kid and his family in the 1980s in East Texas. The Coopers are a typical family, except they have a genius kid. YS does a great job of portraying them as a flawed but highly-relatable family.

Not all the Coopers are equally popular. Many view Mary, Sheldon's mother, as a bad parent, despite the fact she's obviously trying hard to raise Shelly right. Fans can't seem to stop ranting and raving about the atrocious upbringing Mary's best efforts have resulted in for Sheldon.

Many viewers argue it's because of Mary constantly indulging Sheldon and his antics that he grew up into a hopelessly maladjusted adult. The self-absorbed boy never got to learn how to properly interact with people and understand others. Sure, he is probably on the spectrum, as many people suspect, but the way his mommy made the world revolve around him to the best of her ability made things worse than they could have been in the long run.

'Mary coddled him way too much. To the point that he couldn't function without her a lot. She treated him like a "baby boy" way too long. She smothered him too much. Plus way too much pushing the religion on him. Meemaw was a better female authority figure than Mary,' a Redditor remarked.

By contrast, Sheldon's father, George, appears to be the viewers' favourite parent. Although he's emotionally unavailable most of the time and generally prefers his other kids over the difficult genius boy, he's well-intentioned and wants Sheldon to learn how to live a normal life.

Sheldon actually confronts his mother about these issues in season 6 when he realises that he's no longer a cute kid and doesn't know how to deal with people who don't like him. At the same time, he thanks his father for pushing him when needed.

Maybe we shouldn't judge Mary too harshly: she only wanted the best for her Shelly and just didn't know better. Still, she also tended to overlook her other kids, Missy and Georgie, which doesn't give her any extra parent points, either.

But then again, Mary's not all bad, and we're looking forward to seeing her again in Young Sheldon's Season 7.

Source: Reddit.