steviecass:

I’m thinking a lot about John Winchester and the boys, and what it means to “raise someone right”.

We all know that John was not a good father. The boys know it too, because they’ve told themselves, they’re telling Cas, and they certainly still feel the pressure he put on them. We know that John was probably physically abusive, based on the subtext on the show; we know he left them alone, he had an alcoholism problem, he asked too much of them in ages where they couldn’t possibly manage it and blamed them for it, deprived them of their childhood, put them in constant danger around monsters and weapons, they didn’t have enough to eat, he taught them to steal and lie and never settle on a healthy lifestyle, never told them a good word (proven over and over), and disowned Sam for daring to do something HE wanted. Among other things.

Now, I’m taking a break to mention my grandmother. My grandma is a very bad person to her core. She is racist, homophobic, and judgemental of everyone that doesn’t hold up to her standards. She’s also a devoted Christian, and she keeps on saying she is going to hell because she judges people when she shouldn’t. The thing is, she’s not saying it as a consequence of her actions; she’s saying it because she wants to say whatever she wants about other people without them being able to tell her anything; she can call people slurs and when they complain she’ll be like, “yeah, I know I’m going to Hell”, so they can’t tell her anything more.

And I come back to John Winchester. He knew he was a shitty father. He knew his sons didn’t see him as a father but as an ultimate force of strict righteousness, which isn’t what a father should be. And knowing that, he refused to make up for it, and instead owned up to it unapologetically. Like my grandma, he decided to say, “you’re not supposed to like me, I’m supposed to raise you right.” Because obviously his way is right, and the children that are suffering in his hands must be wrong for not liking him, and he’s not going to change his ways even though they’re obviously not working. And by that he’s causing his sons even more guilt, by making them unable to even complain about their abuse and neglect. Because if John knew, what kind of person would blame him even more?

But John didn’t own up to guilt; he only said he was doing a bad job so that the guilt would be his sons’ job and not his own.

Jimmy Novak, in his single forty minutes of screentime, cared for his daughter enough to come back to her after disappearing on her, because he knew she needed him. He sacrificed not his life, but his lifetime so that she wouldn’t have to.

Castiel, not even being a father himself, realised the need of a girl for her father. He realised how shitty he had been towards her (even though it wasn’t his fault that he wasn’t programmed for emotion back then), he knew a part of her still saw him as her dad, and he tried to give her back the best he could manage. He stood by her and tried to earn her trust not with threats but with care, even if awkward and maybe a little misplaced. He didn’t give her a gun and told her to deal with it, he stopped her from using it because she is still young and doesn’t need to go down that road. And he’s not even an actual father. He just has the right instinct for it.

John is still a shitty father, and the fact that he hasn’t allowed Dean and Sam to even blame him for it makes him even shittier. “Raising someone right” doesn’t mean making them to blindly follow your rules without letting them a shred of free will. You show them the way, and you leave them the choice of wanting to follow it or not, because you don’t own your kids, and they have the right to judge you for your mistakes and choose their own path. Saving them from situations they wouldn’t have been in if you had been better at your job doesn’t equal good parenting. Good parentling would have been not letting your child get roofied and your other child go hungry and then blaming them for not acting right.

TL;DR: If John Winchester had done a good job as a parent, it wouldn’t have taken them ten years to start talking about him again.

Rest in pieces, you fucker.

elizabethrobertajones:

iwatchthepie:

campchitaquamemories:

secretlymisha:

rowena tried to sell her son for three pigs, abandoned him, and manipulated crowley into trusting her

randy tried to sell claire to pay a debt, used and endangered her, and manipulated claire into defending him

sam and dean talked about john winchester being a great dad

Wasn’t there some meta last season (from 9x06 I think) about the rule of 3 in parallels and how the first two prove the second?
I can’t look it up right this second but can someone do that and tell me if it’s relevant at all to this discusssion?

obsessionisaperfume did this one.

I think John would have probably asked for at least 5 pigs, Dean could definitely do more than juggle and look pretty - OH WAIT was that useless résumé Crowley offered an allusion to what Dean’s apparently only good for as well?

*gives up at goes to bed at 6am*

JOHN WINCHESTER AND ABUSE

pathsofpassion:

ameliapond124:

yellow-turtle:

I really need to let all that shit about John go, and I can’t. I just can’t.

John Winchester was a child abuser. John Winchester was a child abuser.

And I know people sometimes don’t acknowledge this because of a lack of information on abuse, and that’s no one’s fault, and there’s no shame in that. We all have our lapses. Abuse is confusing and complicated. But a lot of people treat his abuse as a headcanon, as a debate, as an argument easily disproved, and it isn’t. IT. IS. A. FACT. John was a child abuser, legally and canonically.

It doesn’t matter if the writers pretend otherwise (like I said, abuse is complex and full of misinterpretations, and some of the writers don’t know shit about it either because they’re only human). It doesn’t matter if John loved his children or went to hell for Dean or had crippling PTSD. One of the things that some people aren’t aware of, and that’s okay but seriously I really really need everyone to understand this, is that child abandonment is 100% a form of child abuse. Even if you try to disprove other aspects of John’s emotional abuse (yeah, good luck with that), even if you don’t think John was physically abusive (I personally don’t believe he was), there is absolutely no way of denying John’s neglect. He is literally never fucking there. Leaving a ten year old alone in a motel room with his five year old brother for three days straight is UNDENIABLY child neglect, regardless of whether or not the ten year old is given a fucking a shotgun or any access to proper food. You can’t disprove events that happened. It’s like trying to disprove that Sam and Dean stab a lot of demons. There’s nothing to argue here, nothing to over-analyze or to debate. It IS possible to argue about John’s motivations, just like it’s possible to argue the brochesters’, but at the end of the day the demons are still dead and John Winchester is still a child abuser.

This has no bearing on your appreciation of the character of course, and loving a character definitely isn’t the same as condoning their actions. BUT JOHN WINCHESTER IS A CHILD ABUSER AND I REALLY NEED EVERYONE TO UNDERSTAND THAT THIS IS A VERIFIABLE, RESEARCHED, CANONICALLY PROVEN FACT, NOT A HEADCANON.

ALSO!!!! This was found on one of the legal websites linked above. Now let’s think- who do we know that exactly fits all of these descriptions?

Also, from one of the websites above, definitions of emotional abuse:

• Ignoring. Either physically or psychologically, the parent or caregiver is not present to respond to the child. He or she may not look at the child and may not call the child by name.
• Rejecting. This is an active refusal to respond to a child’s needs (e.g., refusing to touch a child, denying the needs of a child, ridiculing a child).
• Isolating. The parent or caregiver consistently prevents the child from having normal social interactions with peers, family members and adults. This also may include confining the child or limiting the child’s freedom of movement.
• Exploiting or corrupting. In this kind of abuse, a child is taught, encouraged or forced to develop inappropriate or illegal behaviors. It may involve self-destructive or antisocial acts of the parent or caregiver, such as teaching a child how to steal or forcing a child into prostitution.
• Verbally assaulting. This involves constantly belittling, shaming, ridiculing or verbally threatening the child.
• Terrorizing. Here, the parent or caregiver threatens or bullies the child and creates a climate of fear for the child. Terrorizing can include placing the child or the child’s loved one (such as a sibling, pet or toy) in a dangerous or chaotic situation, or placing rigid or unrealistic expectations on the child with threats of harm if they are not met.
• Neglecting the child. This abuse may include educational neglect, where a parent or caregiver fails or refuses to provide the child with necessary educational services; mental health neglect, where the parent or caregiver denies or ignores a child’s need for treatment for psychological problems; or medical neglect, where a parent or caregiver denies or ignores a child’s need for treatment for medical problems.

John’s particular abuses in italics.