Family Dynamics and Bob’s Burgers

One of my favorite television shows of all time is Bob’s Burgers. There’s a number of reasons for this: the writing is consistently amazing, the characters are complex and well rounded, and the humor is a comfortable mix of sophomoric and light hearted. My absolute favorite thing about the show is how similar the Belcher’s family is to my own. People often talk about the importance of seeing yourself represented in media and I’d like to raise another concept; the idea of seeing your family represented in media. Obviously your family is a part of who you are, but I’m specifically referring here to the dynamics at play between the characters and their friends and family. In this blog, I’m going to dive into my own family’s similarities to the Belcher’s family from Bob’s Burgers, as well as highlight how this representation has given me and my family a better and more sympathetic perspective of each other’s lives.

To start off, Bob’s Burgers centers around a working class family of five as they do their best to survive whilst running their own business. While my own family is a family of four, this is the only main difference. The father of the family, Bob, runs his own business with his name attached: Bob’s Burgers. My own father runs his own law firm, also with his name attached: Law Offices of Wes Stover. The mom, Linda, doesn’t have an official job of her own (besides being a mother and a housewife, of course) but she does work as a sort of co-manager of Bob’s Burgers. My own mom has a very similar role at my dad’s office. She spends most of her day taking care of me and my sibling, but will work at my dad’s office as he needs. The Belcher’s family also has three children: the oldest daughter, Tina, a son named Gene, and the youngest, Louise. Throughout the show, Tina is portrayed as a middle schooler/eighth grader, making her about 13 years old. Gene is also a middle schooler, though younger than Tina. He’s supposed to be around 11 years old. Louise is the youngest and is meant to be about 9 years old. While my sibling and I are the only two children in our family, I think it’s pretty cool to mention that we have the same age difference as Tina and Louise: 4 ½ years. 

Bob’s Burgers gives a wonderful perspective into the struggles of owning one’s own business. It shows that, even if you are extremely talented at your craft, it is extremely difficult to compete with wealthier businesses. When I was younger, my dad briefly worked with other attorneys before starting his own business. With three head attorneys running a law firm, you can easily handle a much larger group of clients. Now, my dad is the only attorney of his firm and his office struggles to make enough to pay workers. A lot of this is because of the economic impact that COVID restrictions had on small and family owned businesses. With quarantine and other strict barriers implemented for people’s safety, it was difficult for my dad to meet with existing clients and near impossible for him to meet new clients. Because of this, my family had to rely on government checks for a while. I think that, while never directly talking about COVID,  Bob’s Burgers does a perfect job at showing how a family business can exist somewhat comfortably for years and also struggle the entire time with their income. Watching Bob’s Burgers at a young age helped me better understand my family’s situation. My parents constantly talked about money and I struggled to understand their concerns; clearly we had enough for the bare necessities so what was the big deal? 

The main issue with self-owned businesses is the unreliability of income. There’s no guaranteed amount that my dad will make in a day or a week or a year. Sure, there are rough estimates he can make based on past years income, but there are so many factors that will impact those rates. COVID is the best example of this. Before COVID, my dad had an annual income that could not only support our family of four, but could also afford him multiple employees. During and after COVID, my dad’s business has struggled to meet those past income rates. For a while, he was only able to afford 1-2 employees. Recently, his business has started to even back out and we’re finally seeing rates somewhat similar to those pre-COVID. Bob’s Burgers discusses money quite a lot, as the Belchers’ financial position is an important aspect of the show. The kids struggle to comprehend their financial standing and that is often a conflict they have to get through with their parents. Seeing that in the show really helped me put my own family’s situation into perspective. 

Besides the financial situation, the overarching family dynamics of Bob’s Burgers have also been very important in helping me understand my family. For example, Bob’s mother, who he was very close with, passed away when Bob was young. Because of this, the Belcher kids never got to know their grandma. My own father was extremely close with his mom and she passed when my sibling and I were quite young. While I was technically old enough to remember her, I don’t. I struggle with my memory and only have brief and blurry memories of my grandma. My dad really struggles with this because he loves his mom deeply and he wishes I could remember her the way he does. I struggle with comprehending death and it’s been hard for me to understand and relate to his grief. Believe it or not, the Bob’s Burgers movie helped me put things into perspective and find a way to relate to my dad. In the movie, Bob explains that Louise’s signature rabbit-ear hat is actually an homage to a hat that his mom wore all the time. Bob talks about how seeing the hat always reminds him of his mom and that Louise has a similar personality to her grandma (his mom) as well. Louise never got to know her grandmother, but she feels connected to her through the hat. My dad has mentioned many times that my hairstyle (dyed black and cut in a shag-mullet) is nearly identical to how his mom’s hair looked when he was younger. While I obviously didn’t know her back then, I feel a deep connection to her through my hair and through the photos of her I’ve seen where she has my haircut. 

Now, enough of the sappy stuff- here is a lightning round of some random similarities that my family and the Belchers’ family have. Linda bonds with the wild raccoons in the back alley behind their restaurant; my mom cares for any and every wild animal she meets. Teddy, while not directly related to the family, sort of presents as a godfather or close family friend who is always around and quiet close with Linda and Bob; my uncle Scott not only looks identical to Teddy, he also acts very similar and has a very similar habit of showing up at random times to just talk with my mom and dad about whatever is going on in his life. Linda has a sister that she only sees from time to time; my mom has the same situation with her sister. The Belcher kids help around their dad’s restaurant, even when they don’t want to; my sibling and I help my dad around his office when he truly needs us to. Tina has an obsession with this horse show that’s clearly a parody of My Little Pony; I love My Little Pony. Tina is an author who writes a lot of fan fiction- me too. Gene loves to make music on his electric keyboard; my sibling can play any instrument they put their mind to. Louise, Gene, and Tina have a tight group of friends, many of them closer to Louise and Gene’s age; my sibling and I both have tight friend groups and I am also very close with my sibling’s friends. Louise has a loft bed, I have a loft bed. Tina wears glasses and Louise sometimes picks on her for it; I wear glasses and my sibling loves to steal and hide them from me. Gene talks often about not being a boy or feeling more feminine; both my sibling and I don’t identify with our gender assigned at birth and have found comfort in dressing and acting in ways that are somewhat androgynous/ both feminine and masculine. Bob and Linda are both very open minded and accepting people who influence their kids to have a similar outlook on life; my parents gave me and my sibling the gift of knowledge and empathy. And the list goes on.

I hope you enjoyed this blog. I love Bob’s Burgers for so many reasons, but this is such an important aspect of the show for me. There are many other details that I didn’t mention or go into detail on, but I’ve already written too much. I hope you enjoy and I highly encourage you to go watch Bob’s Burgers from the beginning- it is worth it!