#hahahha

/ref /j

OG Morty has a family that neglected him. Jerry, stuck in his own goofy world, Beth stuck in alcoholism and Summer doing her own teenage life thing. They all have separate lives and they know Morty is gonna be okay or somewhat comeback to life no matter what happens to their interdimensional adventures. They stick together but never really actively reach out to one another.

The Alternate Smith family however is all up on everybody's business. They all seem so hyperaware of what a family member wants or needs.

Summer knows his favorie food and is actively providing him something as an attempt for connection

Beth showing concern for his son like a normal mother, showing his love to him, actively reaching out to him and hugging him

Jerry spending time with Mort and is actively teaching him to to wood work, star gaze, cook steak and sharing stories, like a normal Father and son bonding.

This family is SO active on forming bonds and activities to each other.

I think, my hypothesis, is that. Jerry "encourages" Morty to be an athlete and a scholar–oh wait, let me check my notes–he borderline pressures Morty on doing things he doesn't want and actively overloads the boy with too much work to the point where a 14yr old boy, builds a secret tent outside their cabin so that he can run away from him.

It's like those families who put their kids to extra curricular activities, like piano and violin, knowing dam well they still go to cram school or already has a test on their school, it's like this piling up of list of expectations and activities and labor that the child had enough.

And it's a tragedy really, Morty died because of his Father's "encouragement" to go solo, El Capitan.

He dies in the hands of his father, not by a tragic accident. The boy is 14yrs old and is rock climbing alone? With no parental guidance? Actively pushing him into danger? Yah, that's abuse.

And it's hard to see this kind of abuse because kids will always want to make their parents proud, kids always want to push themselves and make their family happy and I think nobody noticed a goddamn thing about what's going on in that house.

Morty died because he didn't get the chance to runaway from his family.

Was forced to hide his awkwardness and be pressured by his family.

It kinda looks like my family, my folks want me to do stuff and it ultimately leads to nagging and then getting sign up to a choir group on a church because I was actively showing them my atheist beliefs, but it was fine, I kinda have fun in the choir, mostly because I love singing, hahahha

Maybe I am just projecting but I can totally see this Jerry just signing Morty up to any sport activities without Mort's knowledge and be like "C'mon, it would be great for you" like, good intentions mixed with authoritative play.

I also remember Jerry saying he Loved Mort because he was his. Not loving them bcs of who they are but bcs they were his, his property, an extension of himself. It kinda felt like those parents that projected his dreams or to relive his high-school glory days onto his kids.

I think the Smith family does love their Mort, but I think it was to the extreme. I mean, look at how they treat other people that wasnt part of their family. I think they have this "Them vs Us" mentality, that is obsessed of building a version of what their family should look like, I mean, look at their colors:

All of them are out their usual color schemes.

But I wanna point out to Summer cause I always love her bubblegum pink shirt, it always signifies "teenage girl" y'know hyper feminine, like mean girls. Having her so out of her usual color scheme just threw me off, makes me wonder if her wardrobe choices were influenced by her parent's opinions rather than just letting her be.