When I say emotional abuse I mean outright berating, though -- "You worthless piece of shit," that kind of thing.

His expectations for Dean were completely unrealistic and way more than any child should have to carry, it's true. But I do think he loved them. And I do think he wanted more for them. I also think the drinking may have been as much about hiding from his own guilt about the life he'd led them into as grief for Mary or horror at the things he hunted.

I thought one weird moment in PoNR was when Dean wanted a beer and had to ask Sam to get out of the way of the fridge to get one. Sam doesn't actually say anything, but after the number of shots of him in the hotel room drinking while he writing the letter, it seemed pointed. In other words, I think Sam and probably Bobby would agree that Dean is a functioning alcoholic at this point, too.

That's not John Hate. That's rational thinking. I wouldn't have John over to babysit, but I'd sure let him protect my kid if we were facing monsters.

His expectations for Dean were completely unrealistic and way more than any child should have to carry, it's true.

Here I think extreme situation calling for extreme measures.

Is it from fan fic that he checked up on Sam while Sam was at school or was that said in an episode?

When I say emotional abuse I mean outright berating, though -- "You worthless piece of shit," that kind of thing.

Well, it's still up in the air what he did to Dean when Sam ran in Flagstaff, but as highly sensitised as Dean was, it could have been an arched eyebrow. I just think there's a lot of room for interpretation, and raising your kids as soldiers probably has berating in there.

Here I think extreme situation calling for extreme measures.

Giving up his kids would be an alternate extreme measure that I don't think he considered for a second. He certainly didn't take the only way, and he didn't know that Sammy was YED's pet kid until later, did he?

was that said in an episode?

That was said in an ep in S1, but I couldn't tell you which one.

Protecting his little brother with a shotgun? Giving a 9 year old a .45 to calm his fear? That's not benign neglect. That's not good parenting at all.

When I say emotional abuse I mean outright berating, though -- "You worthless piece of shit," that kind of thing.

I am pretty sure that if, in this world, if a kid Dean's age were "protecting" his little brother with a shotgun on orders from his father who was missing for days and days? We'd all say it was abusive. Or I certainly would. Now, SPN is a 'verse onto itself and there are certainly things that need to be protected from, but I think it's partially blinding to have John portrayed by someone as charming as JDM. Because I like John Winchester. I do. But he wasn't a good parent. I know he had reasons and I know he wasn't in this life and then chose to have kids that would have to grow up in it, but he wasn't an ideal dad in my eyes.

And it's not a conversation I'd get into really any place but here likely because I'd be shredded as anti-John, but I think it's so much more complicated than that. And it's fiction, it should be complicated.

Is it from fan fic that he checked up on Sam while Sam was at school or was that said in an episode?

Definitely canon, from the episode Bugs.

Just the absences alone would get the kids taken away from John. Just because Dean was good at it, doesn't make it good decision-making.

I think it's partially blinding to have John portrayed by someone as charming as JDM.

This is probably very true, especially for me.

I have my irrational spots, I admit. I'm way too willing to see his love for them with a wink in one episode, but objectively I know what happened in ... Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things? The one with the shtriga. Leaving a four-year-old (five? unclear) with a nine-year-old with hardly any food and expecting the nine-year-old to stay in that room and act as a guard, more or less, *is* insane. And wrong. And that's just one example out of many, even only implied. A Very SPN Christmas breaks my heart.

I just have to step back and think about it, because my initial reaction to John was colored by Dean's loyalty, and then bearded, older JDM showed up in Home and it was all over for me.

I'm sort of with Cass. I understand his reasons, and I'm not sure he wasn't actually correct in the way he raised them, because they actually did make it to adulthood so they could be warped and bitter about their terrible childhoods. I think leaving them with ordinary people might have put them in danger from the things that came after them later. So I'm not ready to say John was a bad father to these kids under those circumstances.

Sure, by ordinary standards he was a wackaloon, to quote the Terminator shrink. But none of them were dealing with ordinary circumstances, and if John had done what the scolds would have had him do, odds are the boys would have had happy, normal, short childhoods.

Bugs was the ep. One of the few redeeming facets of that ep. That and the fanny slap and the steam shower.

It's a sickness, I tell you. I tracked the vidder from YT to LJ and found the dl for What About Everything. It's here, if anyone besides me wants to add it to their library.

Thanks ita and Marcia. I was thinking that was the case but I didn't trust my memory.

Cass I agree with what you are saying in that if any of us saw this going on with a neighbor, we couldn't be silent, but in this particular verse, I think he did about as well as anyone could.

and he didn't know that Sammy was YED's pet kid until later, did he?

Again, I'm not trusting my memory, but I thought he didn't find out about what exactly killed Mary until later. There was some discussion when the boys talked to the owner of the gas station that had worked with John about early child care and Social Services being called. Seems like he tried to make a go of it there in Lawrence for awhile, until maybe he realized the magnitude of the lifestyle. Everything is bleeding together in my mind tonight.

eta: and what Bev said.

eta2: The striga episode is what makes me think there wasn't physical violence. Dean was devastated by John's reaction to not guarding Sam. This is how I picture him getting upset.

if John had done what the scolds would have had him do, odds are the boys would have had happy, normal, short childhoods

Why? What ongoing danger were they in? The YED didn't resurface in Sam's life until after he left for university, and until then, all the jeopardy we heard about was hunting-related, if any.

I keep reading people saying that Dean swore fealty to heaven in S4, but he didn't--they just had the audio in that S4 trailer (thanks for that DL link for the other vid, Bev), he swore to God and his angels. It may never come back, but he certainly wasn't talking about Zachariah or Michael in honest truth. Which he wasn't to know, but God would, right?