A Good Parent Is Hard to Find

o Find Flannery O’Conner shows a multitude of diverse and different themes, with a great amount of depth into each and every one. Among these themes are mortality, faith, parenting, ingratitude, and generational shifts. The most prominent of all of O’Conner’s themes is most definitely parenting. Parenting also ties into ingratitude, generational shifts, and pretty much everything else. Parenting, or bad parenting, is a strong and clearly defined theme in A Good Man is Hard to Find along with generational shifts. The grandmother wouldn’t take her “children in any direction with a criminal like” (1) The Misfit. Even with her warning bailey, as a clear example of generational shift, doesn’t “look up from his reading” (1). This showing of complete and utter disregard of his mother presents the problem of generational shifts, Bailey neither cares nor respects his old mother’s words. This horrible trait is reflected by two of his children, June Star and John Wesley. Bailey’s and his wife’s bad parenting results in snotty inconsiderate children and ultimately their demise at the hands of the misfit. For example when Red Sammy’s wife jokingly asks June Star “would you like to come be my little girl?”(3) June responds with the oh so snotty comment of “I wouldn’t live in a broken-down place like this for a minion bucks!”(3). along with terrible parenting ingratitude, as a result of bad parenting, make an appearance in this snarky comment. in gratitude plagues A Good Man is Hard to Find in the form of snarky remarks and horribly rude comments much like when John makes the comment “Tennessee is Just a Hillbilly dumping ground... and Georgia is a lousy state too”(2). remarks like this is a inconsiderate insult to the grandmother’s past and memories of her past, what makes it even worse is that June agrees with john(2). Bad parenting is the central theme simple because you can connect it back to every other theme. if everyone in