Meredith Grey's Mother Was Awful, But Her Father Might've Been Even Worse

Summary:

• - Grey's Anatomy is an ABC procedural medical drama that has been on the air since 2004.
• - The show's main character, Meredith Grey, is the daughter of the emotionally distant and neglectful genius surgeon Ellis Grey.
• - However, fans believe that Meredith's estranged father may have been an even worse influence.

If there's a Grey's Anatomy character who's suffered more than Meredith Grey, we've yet to find out who it is. She has been emotionally devastated more times than any human being could bear.

She has had to operate on a patient with a ticking bomb inside of her, she has survived a plane crash, shootings, violent attacks, and so many heartbreaks that it is hard to put them all into words.

But her suffering began much earlier, in her early childhood. Raised by an emotionally distant and neglectful single mother, Meredith had to prove herself twice as hard as other children to get any recognition. Her father wasn't even in the picture, but when he did appear, he turned out to be even worse than expected.

Why Did Thatcher Grey Leav Meredith

Not many people would blame Thatcher Grey for leaving a marriage where neither spouse was happy. Children or not, couples who don't take care of themselves and don't seek happiness end up creating an environment that is even worse than if they had separated. After divorce, they are also allowed to remarry and build their personal lives as they see fit.

The main issue fans have with Meredith's father is the way he abandoned her as soon as he left the relationship with his wife. Knowing exactly what kind of person his ex-wife was and feeling her cruelty himself, he did the worst possible thing and left his daughter to grow up in hostility while he moved on to the next one.

The hatred for Thatcher grew when he reappeared in Meredith's life when Lexie Grey, his daughter from his second marriage, began her internship at the same hospital. While the relationship seemed promising at first, his worst traits resurfaced when his second wife died of complications from surgery.

Instead of letting his daughter be a source of comfort, he pushed her further away and managed to inflict more trauma. When Meredith broke the news to Thatcher, he slapped her and then severed their newly formed bond by telling her she wasn't welcome at the funeral.

While Meredith had grown accustomed to her mother's abuse and already knew how to cope and deal with it, her father's appearance threw her back in time. What Thatcher has done, aside from the physical violence, is betray the trust his little girl has placed in him and hurt her even more.

If you need to refresh your memory on Thatcher Grey's arc and the way his relationship with Meredith went, you can stream Grey's Anatomy on Netflix and Hulu.