Basic Trope: A parent is alive at the time their child dies.
- Straight: Alice and Bob outlive their son, Ben.
- Exaggerated:
- Alice and Bob outlive their grandchildren.
- Alice and Bob had 12 children, and outlived them all — even their youngest, who lived to the age of 75
- Alice and Bob's son, Ben, is Really 700 Years Old. However, they somehow still outlive him.
- Downplayed:
- Alice died a few years ago, while Bob and Ben are both critically ill and on their deathbeds. Ben succumbs to his illness mere moments before Bob.
- Ben's mother, but not his father, survives him (or vice versa).
- Alice is 90 years old when her 70 year old son Ben dies.
- Justified:
- Ben died of disease.
- Ben was murdered.
- Ben serves in the Military, and got KIA during the wartime.
- Alice and Bob are Long-Lived, possibly even being The Ageless, while Ben had a normal lifespan.
- Ben was stillborn.
- Inverted: Ben's parents died when Ben was a child
- Subverted: Ben turns out to be alive, or is resurrected moments after his death.
- Double Subverted:
- But the returned Ben is an impostor.
- Ben dies again after he is resurrected, and Bob and Alice are still alive at the same time.
- Parodied: Alice breaks one of her dolls, and wails melodramatically about losing her child, even holding a mock-funeral service for Teddy.
- Zig-Zagged: Alice and Bob's son Ben is apparently killed during an accident while on a trip abroad, but he returns alive and well a few months after he is declared dead. Alice and Bob are overjoyed, until they find out that this "Ben" is an impostor trying to gain inheritance. The one who tipped them off turns out to be the real Ben, but he's a ghost, and disappears for good shortly after a brief reunion with his parents.
- Averted:
- Ben outlives his parents.
- Ben and his parents are all alive throughout the story.
- Enforced: It's a biopic of either Alice, Ben, or Bob.
- Lampshaded: "The thing I fear the most is my son dying before me."
- Invoked:
- Offing the Offspring
- Ben is killed off by a villain who wants to spite Bob.
- Defied: Bob fears outliving his son, so he raises Ben to stay as healthy, competent, and safe as possible.
- Exploited: Charlie tries to replace Ben in Bob's eyes.
- Implied: Alice and Bob are raising their grandson, John. Ben is nowhere to be seen.
- Discussed:
- Conversed: "Did you hear that Ben died yesterday?" "WHAT?? Aren't his parents still alive?!"
- Deconstructed:
- Alice and Bob's poor parenting skills were the proximate cause of Ben's early death.
- Alice and Bob become depressed, believing themselves to be failures as parents. They eventually take their own lives out of guilt.
- Reconstructed: Alice and Bob learn from their mistakes with Ben and successfully raise another child, Adam.
- Played for Laughs: Alice and Bob outliving their children becomes a Running Gag, as their children keep dying in humorous ways, and they get increasingly frustrated.
- Played for Drama:
- Bob could have saved Ben but didn't, which he regards as My Greatest Failure.
- Ben had children before his death, so his parents have to go through the trouble of raising his children while attempting to console them over their father's abrupt death.
Back to Outliving One's Offspring.
