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⇱ Friend to All Children - TV Tropes

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Friend to All Children

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Man of Steel, Heart of Gold.
"The minute they offered him the job as director of an orphanage, he resigned from the Jewish Children's Hospital in which he worked and he closed his private practice. [...] He had a doctrine: the child is a person. He has the same rights as an adult, and all the rights that adults have must also be given to children."
β€” Itzchak Belfer onπŸ‘ Image
Yanusz Korczak

Describing a character as being fond of and having a soft spot for children is an automatic Pet the Dog since Children Are Innocent with bonus points if the kids like the character back. (Double bonus points if the character is normally a hard-ass around adults or people around their age.) Characters who don't like kids are usually villains or anti-heroic. Note that this trope doesn't apply if it is a disguise put on to avoid suspicion for something else entirely...

This is mainly a trait of the Gentle Giant, the Emotional Bruiser, All-Loving Hero, and a requirement for Purity Personifiednote Though not every friend to all children is Purity Personified unless Pure Is Not Good is in play, and a redeeming trait for many antiheroes and jerks. Overlaps with Wouldn't Hurt a Child, as characters who fit this trope not only refuse to injure children, but would go out of their way to protect children if it was necessary.

If a character is dumb enough to harm a child in the presence of another with this character trait, the child abuser will not be forgiven, ever (although this trope is a trait of many deities, so the abuser may not get that help and may suffer even more for it in the next life).

Being a Consummate Storyteller is often a part of their skill set. They can have others Won Over by Earnestness.

Compare Friend to All Living Things. Big Brother Instinct is similar, but applies more for older children/adolescents than adults. Often the driving force behind Mama Wolf and Papa Bear or Parental Substitute cases of the two tropes. Can overlap with One of the Kids if the character occasionally joins in on the children's antics, though Friend to All Children first and foremost establishes a character's power and mentorship over the children, whereas One of the Kids usually has a Kiddie Kid or Manchild character hanging out with kids to signify that character's immaturity and lack of evolution past childhood or adolescence. See also Intergenerational Friendship. Contrast Child Hater.

Example Subpages:

Other Examples:

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    Advertising 
  • Ronald McDonald of McDonald's fame, naturally, not only in the fantasy world of the commercials he appears in but in spirit in Real Life, via Ronald McDonald House, the charity named after him, which provides accommodation for the parents of seriously ill children so they can stay near them at the hospital.
    Comic Books 
  • The Authority: Midnighter has a surprising knack with children, and kids in return think he's pretty cool. Not bad for a Sociopathic Hero.
  • Batman: Batman's not the touchy-feely sort that usually dominates this trope, but he definitely seems to have shades of it β€” possibly because his own childhood was cut off in such a nightmarish manner. Look at Robin, whom Bats adopted solely because he needed it.
    • He shows similar tendencies in the graphic novel Batman: The Dark Knight Returns and several other sources, most likely due to his orphaning at such a young age. He does NOT like people to mess with kids.
    • In the No Man's Land novel, he tells Gordon that he won't interfere if he kills Joker, Joker having just shot Sarah, Gordon's wife. However, he also just kidnapped and violently endangered 30-something babies. In that same arc, Poison Ivy also fulfills this trope. She takes over the Gotham City Park but winds up making it a refuge for all the children orphaned in the earthquake. When the police try to force her out and are willing to destroy the whole place if they have to in order to defeat her monstrous plants, she eventually turns herself in without a fight so that one of the children can get urgently needed medical attention.
    • Batman practically runs an orphanage with the way he keeps taking on kids under his wing. The list includes: Dick/Robin/Nightwing, Barbara/Batgirl/Oracle, Jason/Robin II/Red Hood, Tim/Robin III/Red Robin, Damian/Robin V, Cassandra/Batgirl II/Orphan II, and Stephanie/Spoiler/Robin IV/Batgirl III. Even in the world of The Dark Knight Returns, where it got worse with Dick, Batman still has Carrie Kelly as Robin "DKR". Cynics might point out that all of the aforementioned kids Batman takes in become Robin or/and Batgirl at some point, but Batman has fostered kids temporarily and returned them to normal life. Possibly the best-known example of this is in the "You Should've Seen Him" story (Batman #423). Batman finds a brother and sister orphan pair dumpster diving to survive and works as Bruce to reunite them with a surviving relative. In most cases, the kids insist on joining Batman's crimefighting crusade over his protests. He provides them training, support, and equipment to maximize their chances of survival.
    • One of the most recurring things about Batman is the fact that he's never scary to children, despite being downright blood-chilling to criminals. "The Batman Nobody Knows" (Batman #250) takes this to its logical conclusion. Bruce takes some inner-city kids camping. Naturally they swap scary stories around a campfire, and this being Gotham, all the kids talk about Batman. Their exaggeration makes Bats seem like part demon, part giant, and also "Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown, Shaft, and Superfly all rolled into one!" Finally, having slipped away during the last story, THE Batman leaps into the firelight. Not only are the kids not scared, they recognize him as Bruce!
    • Alex Ross' Justice shows what the superheroes would do if the world was ending. Batman would round up as many children as he can and take them to the Batcave for shelter.
    • DC: The New Frontier used this as an explanation as to why Batman adopted a friendlier look and took in Robin during the Silver Age. He didn't like it when a child he tried to rescue ended up being even more scared of him than the thugs who kidnapped him. When Superman asked him about the changes, all he would tell him is that he intends to scare criminals, not children.
    • Subverted for most of All-Star Batman & Robin, the Boy Wonder, in which he abducts the orphaned Dick Grayson and places the already-traumatized boy through a Training from Hell regimen that includes, among other things, being forced to hunt and eat rats in the Batcave.
    • As Red from Overly Sarcastic Productions puts it, "Could you picture this Batman comforting a scared child? If yes, congratulations! This a certified Batman. If not, I'm afraid you instead have The Punisher in a silly hat.” note Funnily enough, as mentioned elsewhere on this page, The Punisher actually has a soft spot for children and treats them with kindness.
  • Batwoman: Like her cousin Bruce, Kate Kane also loves kids. She's rescued groups of them on different occasions as Batwoman, and they always willingly follow her, so they clearly don't find her scary. She's even been attacked by brainwashed children a few times and has never fought back when it happened, instead electing to evade them.
  • Deadpool: Deadpool is usually a Deadpan Snarker and Cloudcuckoolander violent killer. But due to the fact that Deadpool has the mentality of a child, he often gets along well with children. In fact, most of his heartwarming and Pet the Dog moments usually involve children (even though some children may be uncomfortable near him for good reasons). Try to hurt children in his presence, and he'll come after you like a deadly serious violent killer.
  • Ghost Rider: The series has two notable examples with the titular skeletal Anti-Heroes despite their terrifying looks and often brutal methods in vanquishing evil.
    • The Johnny Blaze version is very protective of children and it remains one of his most enduring traits, having once been a loving father himself before he lost his family due to the machinations of Mephisto and The Legions of Hell. Notably, even at his darkest, most selfish phase during the final years of his '90s Anti-Hero characterization, he was still capable of genuinely courageous and heroic deeds whenever a child needed saving, and would never even consider putting them in harm's way for his own benefit. One such example was during the "Heaven's on Fire" story arc from the mid-2000s run, which saw Johnny meeting Baron Skullfire and other Ghost Riders for the first time as they were gearing up to save both themselves and the world from the corrupted archangel Zadkiel's army. Johnny made it clear that he couldn't care less for the Riders' cause and almost left them to fend for themselves, but changed his mind as soon as he saw young children among those helping Baron Skullfire's resistance movement, having realized that to abandon the other Riders meant he would've condemned those children too. As of his modern day Older and Wiser portrayals, just seeing kids smile and being happy is enough to keep Johnny motivated to continue his role as a Ghost Rider no matter how harsh and grueling the lifestyle can be.
    • The Danny Ketch/Noble Kale version also exhibits this trait. Like Johnny Blaze, innocent little children are never victims of his wrath and he deems them worthy of his protection. One time, he saved a little blind boy (who thought he was Santa) from human traffickers and burned the kidnappers alive before returning the boy home to his parents.
    • Subverted by a one-off villain. She had a good reputation with children and many of them came over to her house to play. How she kept this reputation when kids kept disappearing isn't explained. After being crippled, she sells her soul to a demon that she uses to hunt down more children.
  • Hellboy: Hellboy loves babies and kittens. This is exaggerated in the movies, but he's just a squishy Nice Guy. Who doesn't see many children and is adorably awkward when he does interact with them; usually along the lines of "hey, kid, don't do that, you'll die".
  • The Incredible Hulk: The Hulk, when enraged, is an unstoppable force ready to wreak havoc on anyone who gets in his way... unless you're a kid who's lost, afraid, or needing help. He'll stop in his tracks to save the poor urchin's day. Justified, as the version of the Hulk most people are familiar with is a manifestation of Bruce's childhood desire for protection from his abusive father. The Hulk literally exists to protect children.
    "Hulk not smash kids. Hulk never smash kids."
  • Johnny the Homicidal Maniac: Johnny makes a point of not murdering kids, and has "Little Chubby Babies" listed under things he likes (in the Directors Cut). If someone tries to harm a child in his presence, he gets angry. With knives. That said, kids tend to be terrified of him. This is not unjustified.
  • Knights of the Dinner Table: Sara Felton has always gotten along well with children (well, except the two horny teenagers at Gary Con), such as Timmy Jackson and the Pee Wee Hackmaster League.
  • Dragon Age: In the supplemental comic Magekiller, Marius initially refuses to take on a mission in the Tevinter Imperium because he refuses to do work in Tevinter. However, once Marius learns that his target is sacrificing children, he changes his tune.
  • The Punisher: The Punisher usually gets along pretty well with children, Molly Hayes kicking him in the nuts notwithstanding. Having lost his own kids in his tragic backstory probably has something to do with that.
    • It usually involves his seeing them as his own kids that he was unable to protect. In one of his more awesome moments, he's tasked with retrieving a little girl in Russia whose blood contains an experimental supervirus along with another Special Forces guy, slaughtering the Russians sent to prevent that from happening. After he escapes (in a nuclear missile), he boards the pickup submarine and refuses to let anyone approach her, resulting in the virus decaying until it's unusable. When Frank is greeted by a large army unit and the general behind the operation, the soldiers are rather iffy about shooting him. Then Nick Fury (who gave him the mission in the first place) stands next to Frank, and the soldiers give up.
      • While not often shown, Nick Fury can be this trope as well. He tends to be a Reasonable Authority Figure who dislikes kids being in danger. In Ultimate Spider-Man (2000), despite some tension at first him and the titular web-slinger, Fury quickly becomes fond of the teenager and becomes an ally to him.note This makes sense when you remember that Fury knew Spider-Man's parents Despite his initial dislike of him later in the series, he eventually develops the same relationship with Miles Morales.
    • In another story, Frank is just getting ready to snipe a crime boss from a shooter's nest he'd set up in an alley off Times Square when he hears a noise and turns around to see a little girl asking if he can please help her find her dad. Frank's on a tight schedule because the crime boss won't be in the open for long, but stows his gun immediately and helps the girl. While walking through Times Square he holds her hand, lets her ride on his shoulders, buys her a doll, and keeps her very close. Even when he has to take his eyes off her in order to check his target, he always asks her a question to get her talking so that her voice will let him know where she is. This whole time, he is having very strong flashback memories to being with his own daughter before she died. When they finally find her father in an area that's a little off the beaten path, they run to each other. The dad looks up to Frank, thanking him profusely and saying that he'd just looked away from her for a minute, then just about shits his pants when he realizes he's looking at a scarred, heavily muscled and grim-faced man who's wearing a skull t-shirt and unslinging a sniper rifle. Frank tells the man to stand up and hold still, then uses his shoulder to rest his rifle in order to get a better shot at the crime boss. Frank shoots the crime boss while the man tightly hugs his daughter in order to keep her from seeing what is going on. His mission accomplished and the girl safe, he stows his rifle back under his coat and starts to walk away. Then he pauses, turns around, and tells her father one last thing: "Never look away, not even for a minute."
  • Runaways: Karolina Dean. She was the one who came up with the idea of rescuing 12-year-old Klara Prast from her abusive husband. It's also pretty clear that Molly and Klara love her. Victor Mancha might also count; when he and Nico were still a couple, he expressed a desire to one day have kids, and in the alternate future of Age of Ultron, he's seen taking care of a group of orphans.
  • The Sandman (1989): It doesn't come up often but Dream gets along with children better than with most adults. He once has a polite conversation with a young girl on an airplane while traveling through the waking world in the Brief Lives storyline; later in The Kindly Ones, Dream entertains and helps some siblings who are looking for their mother as one of many things he has to do during a busy week.
  • Sin City: The short story, Silent Night, definitely showcases Marv's soft spot for kids. This soft spot also seems to override his chivalry toward women as shown when he executes a female slave trader in order to save a little girl from sexual slavery.
  • Spider-Man: Spider-Man has to deal with a lot of crap from adults, but not kids. Kids love their Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man. One Christmas Special has Spider-Man making his regular visit to the sick children's ward in hospital to the utter jubilation of the kids. Unfortunately, J. Jonah Jameson is also there and angrily tells Spider-Man to buzz off. However, every single boy and girl, as well as the nurse, vetoes this, demanding that "Spidey" can stay, and the kids even rip into Jameson, pointing out all the times Spider-Man has selflessly saved and cared for them. At the end of the issue, armed criminals burst into the hospital and threaten the children, triggering an Unstoppable Rage from Spidey.
  • Superman: Superman, in spades. Kid heroes, like the first three Robins, think Superman is extremely cool because he never talks down to them the way many heroes do to their grown-up pals' "sidekicks". Pre-Crisis (and in a few of the myriad of Post-Crisis retcons), it might stem from Superman having once been a Kid Hero himself (as Superboy).
  • Thor (Marvel Comics): The Asgardian Volstagg of the Warriors Three loves kids; he and his wife have seven of their own, including two boys from Earth that they adopted. (When those two first met him, they mistook him for Santa Claus.) This is played utterly tragically when he takes a whole bunch of orphaned Light Elf refugees under his wing, giving them everything he has to feed them, and trying to protect them from a Muspelheim bombing raid. Unfortunately, he is a great deal more durable than they are, meaning that they burned to ash in his arms. This utterly breaks him resulting in him picking up the hammer of the Ultimate Thor, full of the pain and rage of a dead universe, becoming 'the War Thor' and making a very spirited attempt at destroying Muspelheim.
  • Transmetropolitan: One of the only things Spider Jerusalem actually likes is kids.
    • When a bunch of political bloggers start following him around asking who he's endorsing in an upcoming election, he tricks them into coming to the poorest part of the City. There, he finds a boy suffering from "The Graze," a flesh eating disease that's been exterminated everywhere...except this extremely impoverished neighborhood. He then yells at all of the gathered pundits about their desire for a "scoop" at the expense of people's lives, and says he's endorsing anyone who will fix "This," pointing to the boy and the neighborhood he lives in.
    • At one of his more annoyed moments, he ends up accosted by a noisy (and overly cheerful) street musician and his son β€” Spider performs a Groin Attack on the musician and does some rather unpleasant things to his instrument, and then tips the kid with a hundred dollars before storming off.
    • Another time, a little girl has to pawn her teddy bear to pay for her medicine, then loses track of her mother. Spider happens to bump into her crying on the street, and in one of his most handsome depictions, he offers her help. Then, when he finds her mother and catches a glimpse of her staring at her teddy bear in a pawn shop window, he silently goes in and buys it for her.
    Spider: "Of course I'll help you, sweetheart. Why do you think I've stuck around all these years?"
  • Watchmen:
    • Rorschach is a clear-cut Anti-Hero and also one of the main prototypes of the '90s Anti-Hero. Nevertheless, he's got a soft spot for kids. For example, he'll call his former landlady a whore to her face... but not in front of her children. (Though that's tied up with his own childhood trauma and the assholes who called him 'whoreson' β€” and the fact that he hadn't realized until that moment that, unlike his mother, she cared about them.) Indeed his Start of Darkness was a Freudian Excuse combined with what he did when he realized just what one perp had done to the kidnapped little girl he was trying to rescue.
    • In the prequel mini-series Before Watchmen: Minutemen, there's Silhouette, a badass lesbian vigilante whose mission in life is protecting children β€” and destroying all those who exploit and abuse them.
  • Wonder Woman: Wonder Woman adores children, partially because she was raised on an island where she was the only one and had never seen one outside of pictures prior to leaving the island. If a child is threatened, she can be scarier than Batman and this was true even back when she was the only member of DC's big three with a true no-killing ruleβ€”Bats and Supes were reluctant to kill but did not have an outright rule against it at their start like Wondy did. An example of her caring for children is Donna Troy's most familiar origin story; she was a lone undocumented child Diana rescued from a fire, and then took to Paradise Island for treatment. As there were no records of the toddler and no one to claim her Diana's mother adopted her and Donna became Diana's little sister and eventual sidekick.
    • In Wonder Woman (1942), the "Wonder Woman of History" feature for Annie Jump Cannon presents her love of children as the only thing to overtake her love of her astronomy work, with her allowing any kid who asked to treat her as an honorary aunt.
    • In Wonder Woman: Tempest Tossed, Diana argues with her mother about the refugees still in the water until she realizes some of them are children. At that point, she unhesitatingly disobeys the queen and in so doing forever loses her home as she leaves the barrier to rescue them. Once she's at the refugee camp, she spends much of her time playing with the children and continues to be protective of and friendly with kids in New York. She gives a nice summary of her mindset:
    When the rules are wrong you have to break them. Especially when little ones are in trouble.
  • X-Men:
    • Wolverine has a tendency to take on a mentor/big-brother role to the younger members of the team. Starting with Kitty Pryde, then Jubilee, and then X-23 and Armor, as well as a team up with the Power Pack and 5-year-old Katie Power. All his mentoring storylines were combined into Rogue for X-Men 1. Case in point, when his rivalry with Cyclops boiled over in Schism and they came to blows, it was over the issue of getting the younger X-Men involved in combat (most specifically, involving Laura and Elixir in X-Force); with Cyclops willing to allow it but Wolverine dead-set against it. In the wake of the event, Wolverine took his half of the X-Men and re-established the school for young mutants that the group originally had been.
    • Emma Frost was a villain for years. The main thing that led to her Heel–Face Turn, and her chief saving grace, is that she cares deeply about any children placed in her care β€” partly because her own childhood was lousy, but mainly because she feels overwhelming guilt for the death of the Hellions, the Hellfire Club's answer to the New Mutants, who were under her command when they died. She even snapped and killed her older sister, Adrienne, after she caused the death of Synch, one of Emma's students from Generation X.
    • X-Men (2019) revealed Exodus to be one of these in a bit of Character Development that made a lot of his actions in earlier stories (rescuing Luna Maximoff in Blood Tiesnote before succumbing to With Great Power Comes Great Insanity and trying to kill her, attempting to abduct the infant Hope Summers in Messiah Complex, attempting to convert a S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier into an "ark" for newborn mutants right before that) make a lot more sense. As a seat holder on Krakoa's governing Quiet Council, he seems to hold a role roughly analogous to Minister of Education for the island's younger mutants.
    • Cable and his younger half-brother Nate Grey are both toweringly tall, and muscular to degrees varying from lean to absurd, and immensely powerful psychics. They cut often intimidating figures, being perhaps the only two mutants who Apocalypse fears and/or respects, having been raised in dystopias that he ruled. It leaves both of them a bit gruff, and in Nate's case, downright weird at times, to the point where everyone is a bit scared of them (except their mother, sister, and daughter/niece, Hope). However, even at their most stand-offish and scary, they are very fond of children and very good with them - and more to the point, incredibly protective of them.
  • Yoko Tsuno: Pol Pitron makes an excellent babysitter. Just ask Poky, to start.
    Comic Strips 
  • Baby Blues: Protagonist Wanda MacPherson, being a mother of three, is extremely patient and friendly to children, both her own and others. One story arc from the mid-90s has her face-off with a mother who began to hit her child in a grocery store; while it's not seen, we're told that Wanda got physical with the other woman. And won.
    Films β€” Animation 
  • Aladdin (1992, Disney): Right after having risked his life and evaded all the royal guards in order to steal a loaf of bread, he sees a pair of starving orphans. Without a moment's hesitation, he goes over and hands them the loaf, likely the only food he was going to get that day. Then he steps in to defend them from a boorish and arrogant prince about to whip them. These moments establish that even if he is a thief, he really is only doing it to survive and actually has a kind and brave heart. Aladdin: The Series continues to demonstrate that both he and Jasmine have a clear soft spot for, and a protective streak towards children.
  • The Book of Life:
    • Jorge stated that Manolo will often give a lot of his things/donate to kids at the orphanage.
    • After returning to San Angel, Maria is helping the orphanage.
    • La Muerte is fond of all beings, especially children. Then there's her scenes with the detention kids as Mary Beth.
  • Filk in A Bug's Life. This isn't surprising, seeing how strong his friendship with Dot is. Flik is the one who speaks up for her when Hopper tries to feed her to Thumper, and later on, he rallies up the Blueberries to all use the fake bird to drive out the grasshoppers.
  • Subversion in Cats Don't Dance; while Darla Dimple's PR machine touts her as a lover of children and animals, the real Darla is anything but.
  • Kronk from The Emperor's New Groove. This could be partially attributed to the fact that he's really a child at both heart and mind. He's also a Gentle Giant and a chipmunk scout leader.
  • In Hoodwinked!, Kirk is this sort of guy. He drives a truck around, selling schnitzel on a stick, and leads several children in a big singing number, cut off by his truck being discovered vandalized.
  • The Hunchback of Notre Dame opens with Clopin entertaining some children with the story of Quasimodo's backstory, and at the end of the film, he is seen carrying a little girl as he reprises the opening song.
  • The Incredibles 1:
    • In his glory days, Mr. Incredible had a fan club consisting of kids, of which Buddy was a member, and tried to let Buddy down easy that he didn't want him as his Kid Sidekick, only flat-out rejecting him when Buddy wouldn't take no for an answer and then inadvertently aided in Bomb Voyage's escape.
    • Thunderhead, Edna points out, was also good with kids. He, along with a male roommate, was a foster parent for five children.
  • Wonder Woman in Justice League: War robbed an ice cream manπŸ‘ Image
    to make a child happier.
  • Kitarō Birth: The Mystery of GeGeGe: Despite his cold attitude earlier, when introducing himself to Sayo and Tokiya, Mizuki quickly befriends them. Gegero also proves himself a nice guy by cheering up Tokiya.
  • In Monster Mash (2000), Frank is shown to be fond of kids. The opening narration shows him befriending a little girl, he smiles when a human baby kisses him during the monsters' trial and he enjoys playing with Stella and Spike Tinklemeister when he's trying to scare them.
  • Monsters University: Frank McCay, a Scarer at Monsters Inc., takes a moment before starting work to greet the children visiting on a field trip. He's the one who inspired young Mike Wazowski to become a Scarer and attend Monsters University by giving him the iconic 'MU' hat.
  • Mulan proves to be good with children in Mulan II when she interacts with young girls. Surprisingly, she does not agree with Shang when he says that the more children they will have, the better.
  • Rise of the Guardians:
    • Deconstructed with the Guardians. It is their duty to protect and bring happiness to children (which they do), but they all have such busy lifestyles (especially Toothiana and Sandman, who are working every day constantly) that they struggle to relate to children as individuals, as shown when a young girl accidentally ends up in the Easter Bunny's base.
    North: We are always working on bringing joy to children. We have no time for... children!
    • Played straighter in regards to Jack. He might be invisible to all children, but he still spends a lot of time around them and, aside from a few moments of Angst, seems to truly like them.
  • Trolls:
    • Poppy is friends with the young Trolls at her home and Tiny Diamond. She also befriends Spruce's children, even having them help her motivate Spruce and Branch into singing a song on Vacay Island.
    • Queen Barb gives some attention to a Rock Troll child (named Amp in supplementary material); when Barb's guitar creates huge red fireworks, the delighted child's creates tiny lightning bolts.
    • Spruce gets along well with children, especially Tiny Diamond, due to being a father.
  • Zootopia (2016): Judy has a soft spot for kids as she quickly falls for Nick's scam at the ice cream shop when she sees his elephant-loving "son" with dreams of becoming one (actually a disguised Finnick) that she not only buys the Jumbo Pop for Finnick but also takes him by the hand and gives him a ZPD sticker while encouraging him to pursue his dream. This even causes her to discover that she was scammed when she sees Finnick later on her shift and excitedly goes to greet him. Much later on in the film, what inspires her to take the case of Emmitt Otterton is seeing his wife pulling out a picture of their two kids.
    Music 
  • The Billy Joel song "Leningrad" tells the story of Viktor (an actual person whom Joel met while touring the Soviet Union in 1987), a former member of the Red Army who, after seeing the horrors of war, became a clown, and found happiness bringing joy to children.
  • Roger Miller's "King of the Road":
    I know every engineer on every train,
    All of the children and all of their names
  • A significant part of Eminem's persona is his love of children, due to experiencing child abuse growing up (which is usually made in his music into a Hilariously Abusive Childhood). He's a Papa Wolf to his own children, often expresses protectiveness towards child fans in his songs (such as telling them not to fight in the War On Terror in "Square Dance"), and intends for his Slim Shady character to be escapism for kids going through what he went through. Note that his work averts Children Are Innocent, instead arguing that kids are just as exposed to all of the horrors of the world as adults, and should have the power to use Vulgar Humor, swear and fight back against bullies and abusive adults.
  • One major factor in Devin Millar's persona is that he loves his younger fans. He makes them the focus of his music. Also his mascot is a crossdressing teenage boy named Jack.
    Myths & Religion 
  • The AlanπŸ‘ Image
    , a birdlike trickster spirit from the Philippines, is said to be a Friend to All Children; they oftentimes take in lost or abandoned children and raise them as their own. Other times, they turn reproductive waste into children and then raise them as their own. Our Monsters Are Weird...
  • Buddhism:
    • Budai or Hotei, the fat, laughing Buddha, favors children and is always followed by a gang of them.
    • There is also the bodhisattva Ksitigarbha, known as Jizo in Japan, where he is the protector of the souls of children, including even stillborn ones.
  • Christianity:
    • Jesus was both Messianic Archetype (he's the Trope Namer) and a Friend to All Living Things. He preached that Children Are Innocent. In one story used in many churches to warn against the risk of corruption by self-righteousness, several children joyfully greet Christ with cries of "Hosanna! Hosanna!" (savior), only to be reprimanded by their parents not to bother Him. Jesus rejoices with the children and firmly reminds the adults that they have attacked what is good and right in humanity. Many English speakers first hear of this story - and this trope - as part of his life.
    • St. Nicholas of Myra, the Patron Saint of Children. Santa Claus was based on him originally.
  • In Classical Mythology, the twins Artemis/Diana and Apollo are the protectors of young girls and boys, respectively. The epithet ("Kourotrophos", "child nurturer) both shared was also presentπŸ‘ Image
    in other deities as Athena, Hermes, Asclepius, and Hekate.
    • Heracles was also said to have a soft spot for children. Which adds a bit of fridge sadness when one thinks about what happened to his children by Megara, but can also be heartwarming when one remembers all the other kids he fathered.
    Podcasts 
  • Hero Club: All members of Alpha Team Tinsel from Santa's Little Helpers qualify. While they're not human, Cuthbert, Helga, Tubs, and S.W.A.P.R. are all toys made to love children due to being made as gifts by Santa's elves. They're also searching to find a lost child on Christmas, and the plot revolves around their quest.
    Pro Wrestling 
  • A stereotypical trait of masked luchadors, thanks to Fray Tormenta, who wrestled matches to make money for an orphanage and, to a lesser extent, Atlantis, who remained a friend of los ninos even after becoming a rudo.
  • El Generico, being a luchador parody. In an inversion to Fray Tormenta, he left pro wrestling to take care of orphans in Mexico, even though the cartel wanted him dead.
  • Johnny Magnum on the Funkin Conservatory's !Bang! TV, being that he's a children's and youth minister (among other things) when not wrestling and kids go to see his matches.
  • Hulk Hogan, the most requested person from the Make-A-Wish foundation during the 1980s. And following in his footsteps, John Cena, who has a record for filling Make-A-Wish requests that may never be topped.
  • Tigre MetΓ‘lico proves this is not limited to tecnico luchadors, being somewhat of an oddball among the rudos for his efforts to make children smile, before the match starts at least.
  • CHIKARA 2007: Incoherence after Delirious and Hallowicked defeated Team F.I.S.T. (Icarus and Gran Akuma) to become CHIKARA Campeones de ParejasπŸ‘ Image
    starting with children from the audience coming to the ring to celebrate with them.
  • Jorge Alonso of Caged Heat Radio loves kids. In keeping with his Butt-Monkey status, kids don't always love him back, but he doesn't let it discourage him.
  • Bray Wyatt played with this trope for Nightmare Fuel - very effectively - in his feud with John Cena. When you consider Cena's main target demographic, it's probable that Bray did this just because he knew it would mess with Cena's head.
    Roleplay 
  • In Embers in the Dusk, Seamus Lin, the Last Saint of the Emperor, spent as much time as possible in orphanages, and even his tomb had been placed in a psyker city to allow children a relatively safe haven where they can have a relative reprieve from the risks of Chaos.
    Tabletop Games 
  • In Crimestrikers, Arcana the Draconic Humanoid is a Jerk with a Heart of Gold whose gentle, compassionate side always emerges whenever she interacts with kids (or as she calls them, "wee ones").
  • Dungeons & Dragons:
    • Tinker gnomes build auto-gnomes, Clockwork Creatures resembling gnomes which have three directives, one of which is to protect children. While whoever thought this up had good intentions, the species of the children was never specified, which can cause problems when the tinkers have to deal with races they regard as enemies. (Especially since an auto-gnome's first directive is to defend gnomes from assault by non-gnomes, and tends to malfunction if it has to deal with a situation where its directives contradict.)
    • Very little is known of the mysterious Zaphkiel, the mightiest of the Hebdomad and one of the most powerful of celestial beings. One thing that is known about him is that he takes custody of the souls of murdered infants and those that died as a result of miscarriage, faithfully protecting what he sees as innocence in purest form.
    • Kharash, one of the Five Companions (the more-or-less leaders of the guardinals of Elysium) and paragon of the lupinals (basically celestial humanoid wolves) is mentioned to be very fond of children but also uncharacteristically awkward around them.
  • Pathfinder: Auwaz couatls are extremely fond of children, going to great lengths to help lost kids return home or to help them escape abusive households.
    Theatre 
  • Jerusalem gives us Johnny Byron, a former daredevil and local legend who lives in a trailer in the local woods, and is seen as a sort of modern-day Pied Piper. Local teenagers spend most of their free time hanging out at his place, getting drunk, doing drugs, and generally having fun; he regales them with mad stories of his former exploits and supposed encounters with real-life giants. This is portrayed as being a sort of tradition, with several characters in their late twenties and early thirties discussing how they used to be the kids who hung out at Johnny's place. Subverted in two ways, though: firstly in that Johnny's sheltering of the kids is not always seen as wholesome (naturally); and secondly in that it is revealed the kids don't really care about him as a person and mock him behind his back for being a crazy loner unable to pay taxes.
    Theme Parks 
  • Weeki Wachee Springs is a Florida Theme Park famous for its mermaid show. Their YouTube channel includes a series called "Tail Mail," which encourages young children to hand-write letters to the mermaids, who then read them.
    Web Animation 
    Webcomics 
  • Dee and Dum from Alice and the Nightmare claim that working with kids is the best part of their job, although Alt Text suggests that it's not entirely true. Their students certainly like them, though.
  • Batman: Wayne Family Adventures: Every member of the Bat family is shown to be good with kids, and anyone who targets kids or teenagers instantly earns their rage. Even the more abrasive members like Red Hood can't stand to see kids scared or hurt, and do all they can to make sure they're safe.
  • Merlow from Court of Roses is very good with the children at the Bardic Festival, easily capturing their attention with stories and fart jokesπŸ‘ Image
    .
  • Rolan from Ears for Elves is adored by Donny and many other kids and greatly enjoys talking with any child around (possibly because he can act like a child himself), though some adult elves are prejudiced against him and don't want him near their childrenπŸ‘ Image
    .
  • Five Nights at Freddy's: Lost Souls: The animatronics were built to be this, having originally been entertainers at a children's restaurant. This is partially why they resent their current life so much, as they have to actively keep children from going near them and why the younger ones, especially Chica, cling to Bridget and Cody's visits so much. All they want is to be near and play with children again.
  • Von Pinn from Girl Genius isn't necessarily fond of kids, but as a completely frightening construct designed to protect her charges, she cannot bring herself to harm children, even if they stand in the way of her duty. When Bangladesh Dupree tries to get around this and kills the girl standing in the way of their pursuit of Agatha, Von Pinn nearly takes her head off.
    • Oh, she's fond of kids. Monster Nanny terrifies the living daylights out of them, but all of them know she loves them. Tarvek and Gil are particularly volubleπŸ‘ Image
      on the subject.
    • The reason she is so unhinged in the first place is that she failed to save Agatha's brother when Castle Heterodyne was attacked.
    • Moloch Von Zinzer is amazingly really good with kids, for all that he's a grumpy curmudgeon who's really, really tired of living in a world of Mad Science. This might also be one reason why he's such a valuable chief minion, for all his protestations to the contrary β€” a lot of the townsfolk, sparks, and monsters in Mechanicsburg are ultimately children at heart, too.
  • Anya, the Children's Librarian in Groovy, Kinda is a legend with her storytimes. The children love her so much that their parents (and the folks who run the orphanage) are willing to overlook her 15-year-old boyfriend, Jacob.
  • Grrl Power: Deus is a mildly creepy version. He's not a pedophile or anything, it's just the violent glee with which he is happy to help children.
    Galatean Girl: My mom says you killed the evil tyrant and now we have food and houses and television, so I made this for you! [offers him a clay bowl]
    Deus: Angel, I would kill a thousand tyrants for you.
  • Cale in Looking for Group used to be this, up to a particular Sadistic Choice. And although no more a friend to children than any other living being, Richard's rare, curse-breaking Pet the Dog was a self-sacrifice in defense of a child.
  • Manly Guys Doing Manly Things:
    • One of the Big Daddies from BioShock is presented this way.πŸ‘ Image
      He applies for a job at a daycare center, happily plays with the children, and is clearly upset to see them go when their parents come. It's rather adorable, up to a point.
    • Also, Commander Badass himself. Great with kids of all ages, including Manchild Jared.
  • Marilith:
    • Marilith when she started out in her less than lawful career, used to pay to feed an African child every time she killed someone. Eventually she could no longer afford to; now the kids are banded together into something of a war group to find out what happened to her. She also arranged the capture, and suggested rape, of a date rapist. The girl he hurt is not all that old. It's also one of the few times she negotiates on prices. She is also partnered with her possibly Stockholm Syndromed ex-mark, who is either young or has fantastic genes.
    • Christi is also intent on saving Marilith's partner; being an orphan, she is sensitive to the plights of children.
  • Adrestia in morphE would rather have her throat slit than attack a child. Her character profile makes specific mention of her soft spot for kids.
  • This is very, very, very averted with Nixvir's Erik, who may be friendly as they come, but even he has sufficiently little patience with Yi-Yi the Tyrant to slam his arm into a wall, all while blood pours out of the gaping wound! This is done as part of the deconstruction of the tropes surrounding Snowlems, namely the idea that they would spend time buggering around with regular human kids, by showing that Erik does not have patience for Yi-Yi's tomfoolery.
  • In No Rest for the Wicked, Red. She has a Slasher Smile and is Ax-Crazy, but her reaction to a woman being burned to death for killing children is "Not cruel enough.πŸ‘ Image
    " Later, when they track down the actual killer, she disposes of her.
  • In Pacificators, we have Daryl Smithson and Muneca Powell. The latter one, despite being an Ice Queen, really does care a lot about children, so much that she turns into a Mama Bear if you ever threaten a child (it doesn't matter whether the said child is bratty or evil).
  • Stand Still, Stay Silent: Emil, who has more than a few traits of Jerk with a Heart of Gold, is quite doting towards his three Bratty Half-Pint younger cousins. In return, his cousins are very happy to get a surprise visit from him and very disappointed when he has to leave almost as soon as he came.
  • Quentyn of Tales of the Questor is particularly sweet and tolerant of a very young child who pulls on his whiskers and twists his tail, thinking him a cat. (he quickly makes her a harmless toy that occupies her hands)
  • Unsounded: Duane is protective of children and tries to keep them happy when they're around him. In his living days, he was extremely protective of his squad of Child Mage soldiers and was a devoted dad. He is even kind to two-toe children when most people see two-toes and less than human pests.
  • Vampire Girl: The jobs that Levana has held down have included babysitting, and presently working as a hospital orderly tending to sick children; clearly, she enjoys what she does, and appears to enjoy caring for children.
    Web Original 
  • Two examples from Felarya:
    • The naga Fiona loves children and is often seen venturing to jungle villages to play with the local kids. In fact, she's earned the in-universe nickname of "The Kind Naga". Felaryan nagas are typically man-eaters.
    • Katrika (also a naga) is far more predatory than Fiona, but children and their families are completely off the menu. She'll even comfort children who've lost their families to predators.
  • SCP-1810πŸ‘ Image
    of the SCP Foundation loves children and will take care of any distressed or lost child it comes across. Which would be heart-warming, except its flawed understanding of humans and the fact that it will do horrific things to non-children if it thinks it will make a child happy renders it creepy.
    Web Videos 
  • Linkara of Atop the Fourth Wall always welcomes the idea of children and families being portrayed positively in comic books, and one of his BIGGEST peeves is a child character being killed or otherwise endangered solely for the sake of shock value or plot contrivance.
  • The Autobiography of Jane Eyre: Jane, who finds kids "a gazillion times better than most adults".
  • Dr. Glaucomflecken: the Pediatrician (and all the pediatric specialist physicians) are naturally this, doing immense amounts of work on behalf of their patients because of the joy they get from working with kids, even as they're (often) paid less than their adult-medicine counterparts.
  • In Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, one of Dr. Horrible's reasons for refusing to fight a self-proclaimed nemesis in the City Park is that "there's kids in that park." Also, when told he has to kill someone to enter the Evil League of Evil, he's offered the suggestion of a child who is destined to become President of the United States. Dr. Horrible replies that he's not going to kill a kid.
  • Doctor Steel loves children (he's a toymaker, after all). He even created a theme song for a fictional kid's show called "Smokey, The Kid-Loving Trout" (Smokey's Theme), and his episodes of The Dr. Steel Show are modeled after children's television shows.
  • Harley Morenstein, of Epic Meal Time fame, draws the line at dead baby comedy and gives apple pies to kids when he was shopping at McDonald's.
  • In Longbox of the Damned, Moarte has a special fondness towards children, as he likes to share scary stories with the "children" in his audience. Some of Moarte's possible origin stories tend to depict him as a former children's entertainer who met some tragic fate, but one story suggests that he may be playing up the act so he can lure in children to eat them.
  • The Nostalgia Critic has declared himself the defender of all children. He even gets along with Enfant Terrible Evilina, who he's been known to babysit. Santa Christ seems to qualify as well, being a blending of the two biggest examples of this Trope possible.
  • Superman: Solar (Fan Film): When he's not committing heroic acts, Superman takes time out of the day to do things play ball with children or fix their bikes.
  • In TableTop, Wil is shown to be one. He was much more chill when playing with the kids in the Catan Jr. episode at least, no salt at all.
  • Matt, Pat, and Woolie of Two Best Friends Play like to claim that they're not fond of children, but often end up becoming attached to younger characters in the games they play. Matt and Pat ended up becoming protective of both Clementine and Ellie, and during their playthrough of Beyond: Two Souls (which they made no secret about their disdain for), all three of them proceeded to freak out when it looked like a homeless Jodie was about to give a man a blowjob for $10.
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Mia And The Children

Princess Mia invites a group of orphans to partake in the Genovian Independence Day parade.

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Princess Mia invites a group of orphans to partake in the Genovian Independence Day parade.

How well does it match the trope?

4.88 (8 votes)

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Main / FriendToAllChildren

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