veneredirimmel:

i was reading this post, which has some good points, but i wanted to add something about john’s absence and didn’t want to clutter it.

something really important in the dynamic of parentification for me is the weight of john’s absence. because it’s not just that john wasn’t a good parent and dean made up for it in ways that weren’t fair, john was definitely a parent who gave orders and commands to dean in managing the things both practical and emotional that he as the parent should have managed.

in other words, in everything dean did ‘as a substitute parent’ john was very much present. he was a drill sergeant like sam reminded us of, which means that he gave detailed orders about what he wanted done and how he wanted it done. the margins in which dean could move and act both in his relationship with john and in his relationship with sam were extremely limited and micro-managed by john’s drill-sergeant orders.(the fact that sam could in some way carry on with school and extra curricula-activities was a sign that the very limited freedom he had was a) larger than dean’s and b) a result of dean’s rigidly structured life.) of course in that tug-of-war between two other people nothing remained for dean.

what i think is important to remember is that dean had to carry orders about how john wanted things to be run but he did not have any of the authority of a parent.

 it isn’t surprising that sam, who really doesn’t get all of this, often conflates dean with john because dean was the executor of john’s order. we know what happened when dean didn’t follow them strictly, but all that sam saw was the person who followed them and enforced them to sam (sometime trying to sweeten the deal sometimes i’m sure with understandable frustration and anger at the entire situation).   dean remains sam’s brother – which i will never stop repeating – but  because of the very nature of the dynamics of parentification, dean had no authority in carrying on those orders and enforcing them on sam and i imagine it was pretty frustrating for dean, considering the consequences of not doing as john said – remember something wicked one and for all – to have sam contest those orders.

 it was of course okay that sam did also because dean was the easier target and the one who allowed more space for sam in which to move versus john’s rigid structure. it’s understandable because he too was a child and that’s how he experienced those situations and dynamics, but this conflation of dean as the executor, with john, the real source of the orders, definitely added another layer of complication to the mess and another layer of distress for dean (and another for sam who probably felt that dean sided with john).

what surprises me is that sam is still unable now, in his 30s to look at their childhood and those dynamics with some kind of even partial clarity and without conflating dean with john. it seems to me that dean has done a lot of intimate work to better understand why it was wrong for himself and for sam, but when sam says that john’s drill sergeant parenting worked on dean – but didn’t work on sam –  he shows that he is still lacking any kind of understanding of the issues that color both of their personalities.