META HEADCANONS THAT NO ONE ASKED FOR: CLAIRE STANDISH’S HOME LIFE
Claire Standish is easily one of the most popular girls (if not people) at Shermer High, and why wouldn’t she be? She’s pretty, her family is rich, she’s never going to have to worry about affording anything in life, she’s got her father wrapped around her finger – she can pretty much do anything she wants and can still get away with it. You know, minus the whole detention thing. Regardless, on the surface, it looks like she has it made, and she works hard to project that image to the rest of the student body at Shermer.
As we learn in the movie with everyone, not everything is what it seems. In Claire’s case, her parents are constantly fighting (“It’s like, any minute – divorce.”) Her mother grounds her, and if she doesn’t want to stay holed up in the house, her father would let her leave and hang out with her friends because it’ll piss her mother off. It’s established that this sort of thing is pretty normal in the Standish household, because Claire recognizes it so easily being linked to the fact that her parents don’t get along anymore. If her mother says no, her father says yes, and vice versa. Given the choice, she’d rather live with her brother.
I think, deep down, it’s difficult for Claire to see her parents fighting, but she’s had time to get used to it. Because her family is so well-off and she doesn’t have a strong attachment to either parent, it wouldn’t surprise me if she and her older brother (who I headcanon to be a college student at the University of Chicago) were raised primarily by a nanny. And despite her brother being at least three or four years older than Claire, I picture them growing close at a young age because, aside from the nanny, they’re all they really had growing up. They’ve always looked out for one another, helped one another, been there for one another, etc.
And so, when Claire’s brother goes away to school, it’s difficult for her. Despite Claire and her brother being close, I don’t think he’d come home frequently – maybe once a month, and for a little bit during holiday breaks, but for the most part, he stays in the city. He focuses on his studies, keeps his nose clean, and just generally gets caught up in the excitement of college life.
Meanwhile, Claire is now the only Standish child left in the house – while her parents have always had minor spats over the years, with one of their children already have the house, more and more problems start rising to the surface. Her parents minor spats start blossoming into full-out, heated arguments that evolve into fights complete with screaming. It doesn’t help that Claire’s mother drinks to deal with her problems, while her father dives into work – some nights he doesn’t come home until after Claire’s asleep. She only knows he makes it home at all when she wakes up in the middle of the night to (you guessed it) another fight. And while things never get physical between her parents, it’s still unpleasant and jarring for her to have to hear and witness.
What’s worse is the way her parents play a sort of tug of war with Claire, throwing her into the middle of it all. She’s never explicitly forced to take a side, but her parents have different ways of trying to sway her. Claire’s mother takes the approach of being the ‘enforcer’ – she grounds Claire when she finds out that Claire cut class to go shopping and now has to serve Saturday detention. It’s not necessarily bad parenting – if anything, it shows that she actually gives a damn and wants Claire to learn something. But even then, I don’t see Claire taking her mother seriously because this is likely the first time she’s ever tried to actually be a parent and take responsibility, in some form, over her child (again, Claire was mostly raised by a nanny). On the flipside, her father dotes on her. He drives her to detention bright and early on that Saturday, makes sure she doesn’t forget her lunch (sushi, which is both her favorite food and expensive). He pretty much tells her that it’s okay that she cut class to go shopping, and it’s later revealed that despite the fact that her mother grounded her, Claire knows her father would encourage her to get out of the house that night and go to a classmate’s party.
Both tactics are emotionally manipulative and, in some ways, abusive. While Claire’s parents are there in her life on the surface level (they usually have dinner together, they go on vacations together every few months, etc.), they aren’t deeply involved in her life. It’s almost as if Claire’s mother is trying to show that she has the ability to be a ‘good’ parent by society’s standards by grounding Claire when she gets detention, all for ‘proof’ that she can be the ‘better parent’ in the event of a divorce and custody battle. Meanwhile, Claire’s father is trying to sway Claire’s loyalty in his favor by letting her do whatever she wants, when she wants, and by giving her anything her heart desires. Both parents are on either end of the spectrum and both behaviors are toxic.
The threat of divorce between her parents is what puts Claire on edge the most. She internalizes everything she hears at home, supplementing the emotional weight it puts on her through reckless behavior – parties, drinking, skipping class, etc. Part of it is to try and get her parents to give a damn about her, and part of it is to help her get through what’s bothering her, because the only person she can really talk to about it is her brother, and she doesn’t want to burden him. He has enough on his plate at UC – he doesn’t need to worry about his kid sister on top of it all.
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