Team Kids

Whose lost children are these?!

Where there's a Mom and a Dad, there have to be kids. And if there's a Team Mom and/or a Team Dad, there have to be Team Kid(s).

Not necessarily a literal kid, and in fact more often than not are simply younger adults, the Team Kids are the ones who give the Team Mom and Team Dad their title.

Of course, in a Family of Choice, this can often result in one being The Favorite, or The Unfavorite. And in many dynamics, one of the Team Kids will be The Baby of the Bunch, even though they're all grown adults.

Maybe they even started as a Tagalong Kid years ago, but grew into an adult surrogate son or daughter. Sometimes one of the Team Kids will be a veritable Manchild / Womanchild.

From time to time "Well Done, Son" Guy can be in effect, even if the Team Dad isn't their literal father.

Among the "kids", a sibling dynamic can form, from Big Brother Bully, Cool Big Sis, and Big Brother Instinct. Woe to anyone who picks on a member of the "family", even if they'd been fighting among themselves beforehand.

Occasionally the Team Parent(s) is absent, and whoever stands in for them ends up a Badly Battered Babysitter. Often it's the Honorary Uncle, a team member who is too old and curmudgeonly to serve as one of the kids.

If the Team Mom utilizes Full-Name Ultimatum against someone, that's one of the Team Kids, even if it's at that very moment that they're forcibly inducted to the "family". Often she'll use The "Mom" Voice to chide them.

If they are a group, one will often be The Troublemaker.

This has equal play for drama or comedy.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You: Among the titular girlfriends:
  • Shizuka, who everyone else strives to protect if she's hurt physically or emotionally. One instance in which exactly happens causes everyone to become Super Saiyan or, rather, "Super Smitten".
  • Kusuri, whose attempt at an immortality drug left her in a child's body, though she can temporarily age herself up to her actual age of 18. One chapter features her happily playing pretend with toys until she ages herself up partway through and becomes embarrassed at her antics.
  • Chiyo, the youngest of Rentarou's girlfriends who occasionally struggles with being more mature than she's capable of being.
  • Kishika, who mentally regresses to infancy whenever she gets pampered by someone else. She takes great pride in being a reliable leader and caretaker, and is often embarrassed once she recovers from her bouts of Emotional Regression.
  • A moment halfway through chapter 61 features Shizuka, Kusuri, and Chiyo chatting with Rentarou watching from afar, happy that the normally rigid Chiyo can lower her guard with friends she can be a kid and act her age with... only for the narration to remind everyone that Shizuka and Kusuri are 3 and 6 years older than Chiyo, respectively.
• BanG Dream!: With seven bands of young women, there are multiple teams, multiple Team Moms, and lots and lots of kids.
  • Lisa Imai is THE Team Mom, the one even other Team Moms turn to, making almost everyone other than Yukina the kids, but in her own band, Roselia, there's Ako, Rinko, and Sayo. She also tends to look out for Afterglow's members, as they all attend her school, she works with Moca, and Afterglow doesn't actually have a Team Mom, with Tsugumi, The Reliable One, also serving as The Baby of the Bunch, though Tomoe does serve as a Cool Big Sis to her band.
  • Poppin' Party's drummer, Saaya Yamabuki, has her hands full with Tae, Kasumi, and Rimi. She also looks out for Moca of Afterglow, who's probably the best customer Yamabuki Bakery has.
  • Misaki/Michelle is less Team Mom and more Badly Battered Babysitter to an entire band of Kids, from Kokoro to Shakespeare obsessed Bifauxnen Kaoru, timid Kanon, or boisterous Hagami. There are several scenes in Garupa Pico where they realistically should not have survived, even from the viewpoint of the story itself, but are back for more antics later.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind: Narancia Ghirga, while not the youngest member of Passione (he's 17 while Giorno is 15), certainly looks and acts like he is. He chooses to vibe with a boombox on the trip to a billion lire stash, begs for Bucciarati to buy him snacks when given the chance, is the quickest to act on his rage when pissed off, and has the most emotional reaction to the death of Team Dad Leone Abbachio.
• My-HiME: Mai is a Deconstruction of the Team Mom, showing how her efforts to care for others amid the chaos are slowly wearing her down. Midori comes closest to being the Team Dad, being the boisterous go-getter who looks out for the girls in the "Hime Sentai/Rangers". Natsuki, Nao, Mikoto, Yukino, and Sister Yukariko are the Team Kids, with no shortage of in-fighting and miscommunication between them, especially when Yukariko is convinced by her lover to falsely accuse Nao of attacking her, which sparks a very deadly conflict between them, though when all is resolved, everyone is Easily Forgiven.
• My-Otome: Natsuki is the Headmaster, and Shizuru is the Team Mom, leaving Arika, Nina, Nao, Chie, Erstine, Tomoe, and other minor Otome as the Team Kids, complete with getting into mischief. Nao is a Cool Big Sis in the group, as is Chie, both wise to Tomoe's duplicity. Tragically, Erstine is The Mole, and dies as her betrayal is brought to light. And Nina goes through a Heel–Face Revolving Door.
• One Piece: The Straw Hat Pirates fully embody the Central Theme of the story, Family of Choice, with its full set of Team Dads and Moms and Kids, as designated by the author himself on a fan's prompting. The youngest three fill this trope together: the boastful slingshot-toting prankster Usopp, the adventurous and excitable Luffy, and The Baby of the Bunch, naive and scaredy and very cuddly Chopper.
• Ouran High School Host Club: Discussed. Tamaki declares himself the Team Dad while Kyoya is Team Mom, making the rest of the host club their "kids". (Often Zig-Zagged, since Tamaki often acts more childish than the rest of the group.) In particular, Tamaki insists that the reason he is so possessive of Haruhi is that she is his "daughter" and he has to protect her. Multiple characters poke holes in this narrative throughout the series, until Tamaki finally starts to recognize his feelings for Haruhi are actually romantic. Of the rest of the group, Honey (who is older than Tamaki and Kyoya but is a Token Mini-Moe) and the twins (who are mischievous and somewhat immature) play the trope mostly straight while Mori and Haruhi mostly avert it.

Comic Books

• Generation X: Banshee and White Queen are the Parents to the team, including Jubilee, M, Chamber, Husk, Skin, Synch, and, initially, Penance. The team literally being kids helps. Some issues with Penance and M and their family cause a major revelation later, and Synch is later killed, causing a rift in the team. The group eventually disbands.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The four main characters, Leonardo, Donatello, Michaelangelo, and Raphael are literal brothers, and surrogate sons to Team Dad Splinter. In most iterations, Mikey is The Baby of the Bunch, and Raphael is a hothead. They squabble from time to time, but they remain family and brothers, and heaven help the foe who harms any one of them.

Films — Animated

• Ice Age: The Meltdown: When Manny is making the herd a "family", he designates Crash and Eddie (two rambunctious possum brothers) "the kids who get on [his] nerves".

Films — Live-Action

• The Fast and the Furious: Roman Pearce, despite being a grown man, often behaves the most immaturely of Dom Toretto's entire Criminal Found Family. He's nearly always complaining and voicing doubts about their plans, thinks he could be a better leader, but always refuses to take charge when they offer it to him, gets into petty verbal sniping with Brian in the second film, takes the most Awesome, but Impractical orange Lamborghini just to look cool, and in the sixth film, he's more concerned about using the right British currency to get a snack out of a vending machine than listening in about the MacGuffin of the week and what the Big Bad wants to do with it. Hobbs offers to help Roman get his snack by just shooting the vending machine open, like an indulgent uncle.

Live-Action TV

• The Big Bang Theory: Leonard and Penny frequently take up the Team Dad and Team Mom roles in the group, especially, though not exclusively, with Sheldon. In fact, on one episode after the pair had temporarily broken up, they had arguments over Sheldon that were intended to mirror parents fighting over shared custody of a child after a divorce, including taking Sheldon to Disneyland on an outing. In an earlier instance, when Leonard and Penny are fighting over one of her friends staying at her place, Sheldon responds as though his parents were fighting (even referring to a fight between his actual parents), and Penny placates him by having Leonard buy him a toy robot and a comic book.
• In Brooklyn Nine-Nine, while Terry and Holt are the Team Mom and Team Dad respectively (with Holt's husband Kevin also being referred to as the squad's dad sometimes), the rest of the squad are collectively the Team Kids, with Jake and Amy in particular both referring to Holt as their dad on separate occasions. This dynamic is even lampshaded a couple of different times.
  (in the season 1 episode "Thanksgiving")
  Jake: So, I'd just like to say I'm happy to be here... With my family. My super-weird family, with two black dads and two Latina daughters and two white sons and... Gina, and... (to Scully) I don't know what you are... Some strange giant baby?
  
  (in the season 8 episode "Lake House")
  Jake: The point is, we can't let that [divorce] happen to Daddy Holt and Daddy Kevin.
  Rosa: So we're just dispensing with subtext now?
  Jake: Yes, this workplace is my family. Was that not clear? Holt is my dad, you're my mean older sister...
• Castle: Lampshaded in one instance by Ryan when he turns to Esposito and says of Beckett and Castle, "Mom and Dad are fighting."
• Community: Deconstructed. Initially, Jeff and Britta were portrayed as the Team Dad and Team Mom of the study group, often involving themselves in the lives of Abed, Troy, and Annie (the youngest members of the group). At the same time, Jeff had romantic feelings for Annie. This came to a head when the two tried to stop her from dating Britta's ex Vaughn. While both claim it's because they're protective of Annie, in truth it was motivated by Jeff wanting to be with Annie and Britta jealous that Annie was seeing Vaughn. This causes the group to have a realization about how unhealthy this dynamic was.
• CSI: Crime Scene Investigation: Grissom and Catherine serve as the Team Parents, with Nick, Warrick, Greg, and Sara as the Team Kids. However, Grissom vacilates between trying to be a father figure to Sara and having romantic feelings for her. Even after marrying her, he splits with her until the finale. Warrick is killed by a corrupt law enforcement officer, and Grissom takes it very hard. Greg gets roughed up by a gang, and is the subject of an inquest when he kills one of them with his vehicle to save another man, and Grissom advises him not to rely on the city to have his back. And Nick has a Dark and Troubled Past and ends up being Buried Alive in one story arc that has lasting ramifications. When he's rescued, Grissom calls him "Poncho", which was the nickname Nick's Dad used to use for him
• CSI: NY: Team Dad Mac thinks of his team as his Family of Choice, even telling his girlfriend, Christine, so in season 8. Stella is Team Mom for the first 6 seasons, followed by Jo for the last 3. During Lindsay's settling-in period in season 2, Stella has to call her out for ditching a crime scene, but later takes her under her wing when Lindsay opens up about it reminding her of a high-school tragedy. Mac has several instances of finding some of the Kids (Danny, Lindsay, Adam and to a lesser extent, Sheldon) bickering; his stern go-to phrase to stop them is "Are you two/three done?" But when any of them, especially The Baby of the Bunch Adam (whom he once catches throwing multiple paper airplanes in the Lab), are troubled, Mac will sit down and have a fatherly heart to heart with them. Notable examples are Danny struggling with feelings of inadequacy over becoming a husband/new dad, and Adam reliving past abuse from his own father.
• How I Met Your Mother: With Lily and Marshall as Team Mom and Team Dad, the rest of the group often fall into the kids' roles: Hyperactive Barney is often seen as the youngest child, as he has little impulse control and never learned certain basic skills like how to drive or use certain tools.
• Leverage: Word of God is that Sophie and Nate are the Team Mom and Team Dad respectively, and that Hardison, Eliot, and Parker are "the kids", which is demonstrated several times, but perhaps nowhere near as well as "The Ho Ho Ho Job" where Nate and Sophie got gifts for the kids, and then delighted in watching them enjoy their "toys".
• The Librarians 2014: Flynn and Baird are the Team Mom and Team Dad. (Lampshades when Flynn is under the influence of the Apple of Discord and hammily announces "Daddy's home!") This makes Stone, Ezekiel, and Cassandra the Team Kids, with Jenkins as a sort of grumpy Honorary Uncle. There's also a degree of competitiveness between the "siblings" as Ezekiel will steal Stone's wallet to prove he's not going soft, and Cassandra keeps trying to use magic, to the amusement of Ezekiel and the consternation of Stone.
• M*A*S*H: Cols. Blake and Potter are each the Team Dad for their time at the 4077th, with Potter actually acting as a surrogate for Margaret, but the biggest example of the team Kids are the denizens of "The Swamp", which always include Hawkeye, Trapper until Season 4, Burns until Season 6, BJ from Season 4 onward, and Winchester from Season 6 onward. They often prank each other, spar with one another, particularly with Burns as The Unfavorite, and have petty squabbles, such as when Hawk and BJ are in a protest against Winchester over his music, during which they refuse to bathe. Potter even once tells Hawk, after the Captain had misbehaved particularly egregiously, that if he were the man's father, he'd take him to the woodshed.
• Star Trek: The Original Series: Uhura, Checkov, and Sulu are the Team Kids to the Kirk/Spock Team Mom and Dad, with Bones and Scotty as uncles. This is made apparent in "Who Mourns For Adonis", when Checkov suggests he comfort Lt. Palamas. Kirk asks him how old he is and when Checkov tells him, Kirk says he's too young.

Video Games

• In Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, Ventus, being the youngest and most inexperienced Keyblade wielder, acts as the Team Kid with Team Mom Aqua and Team Dad Terra. When Scrooge McDuck thanks Ventus for saving him with passes to Disney Town, Ventus tells Terra and Aqua that he is told to bring "his parents" (Japanese version) or "two grown-ups" (English version).
• Octopath Traveler II: Though not the youngest of the group (that would be Agnea), Ochette is the most childlike, as well as being inexperienced in the ways of the world, such as money, due to having grown up on a secluded island. She's also particularly close to Team Mom Castti, whom she (usually affectionately, but sometimes derisively such as when the latter tells her she can't only eat meat all the time) calls Mama.
• Super Robot Wars: Played for laughs in one of the official gag manga, where Captain Bright Noa is treated as the Team Dad by the majority of the combined heroes. In one story, Tetsuya Tsurugi expresses his admiration that just about everyone views Bright as a surrogate father, to which Bright replies that as captain of the Ra Calium, he's naturally A Father to His Men. Tetsuya notes that as an orphan, he's never had a father to discipline him properly and asks him to demonstrate his legendary Bright Slap. After a brief moment of confusion, Bright obliges and knocks Tetsuya clean off his feet with a single slap. A Running Gag is how the orphans in the crew often act more childishly around him, due to seeing him as a Parental Substitute... even if, like Tetsuya, they're grown adults and veteran soldiers.

Western Animation

• Jonny Quest and The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest: Race Bannon and Dr. Quest are literal Dads, first to Jonny and Hadji, and later in "Real Adventures" to Jessie as well. The duo-turned-trio are the literal Team Kids, who serve as the focal characters of the show(s). Jonny serves as The Heart, Hadji as The Smart Guy, and Jessie as the Action Girl, until Executive Meddling in Season 2 of "Real Adventures" turns her into The Load.
• Monkie Kid: MK and Mei tend to fill this role, being the youngest and often most impulsive members of their group.
• Star Wars Rebels: Ezra, Sabine, and Zeb are the Kids to Kanan and Hera. Ezra and Zeb act like brothers, sometimes pranking each other, sometimes working together to deal with Imperial troops. They're even sent out on a Snipe Hunt by Hera to teach them to get along (and manage to return with the "snipe"). And in one episode, Sabine has a serious conversation with Hera about keeping her and the others in the dark, with Hera telling her it's to protect them, as well as the movement against the Empire. Hera also uses Full-Name Ultimatum on Zeb from time to time.

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