I agree 100%!! People forget that Joel didn’t even know he had a child until the mom left Jesse with him... it’s different raising a child from the start, knowing what you’re getting into, than suddenly getting a grown kid (not sure how old he was but still) and having to adapt to his needs without having a clue. Also there’s the fact that they didn’t seem to talk too much about their feelings, they never really understood each other, so it’s good to see them actually talking it out.
Right, right! Who really is truly prepare to take care of living being with needs and emotions so easily? Though, he struggles to express himself properly and acts passive aggressive towards Jesse. But like humans are not pure being with no evil in our hearts, resentment and irritation are still valid human emotions despite the ugly nature it originated. You still love them, even if you find it hard. Like working 24/7 is not healthy, one needs breaks! Child development is complicated, like why do you think they are multiply studies and professionals trying to understand this topic? Being realistic may be a responsibility decision to take. It’s like having a pet, if you just choose without considering the responsibilities and your lifestyle that animal could end up in a shelter or worst case scenario dead. That’s why responsible people may take time to choose to have a pet and what kind they are able to handle emotional(/physically too?) or even not have a pet. Joel is probably still struggling to cope with the constant changes in his life... plus he probably is a closeted bisexual... so ing hell... just too much to handle all together. Ffs though Jesse is already a grown man, how long does it take? Oh well at least it’s better than abandoning Jesse as he still willing to help plus he probably haven’t encountered many LGBTQ+ people so he probably was misunderstood for a hater like a tsundere...Ffs, I like this character!
Jesse was in an orphanage and he told Joel he wanted to stay, it was Joel that stubbornly took him in even when he knew he was, is NOT, father material.
Even taking all of that in, it gives him no excuse to neglect Jesse and blame the mother. As Joel has shown time and time again he can't take ownership for his own actions. I am not sure how he is even a police officer because he sure acts like he should be on the other side tbh.
Looooooooooool, Joel is trying his best to do the right thing, witch is in the eyes of society to raise your child, “Jessi wanted to stay at the orphanage” do you even know how most orphanages work? And the adoption rate of kids 10+ years old? And do you even know how hard it is to raise a child while being a single parent who has to put food in the table? And did you missed the part where he had to do that while being in his 20’s having a job that pays you a little more than the minimum salary even tho it’s an extremely dangerous and important job?
Lol, Jessi had a roof under his head, food, was not molested/raped at “home”, was not bullied, has a name and it’s addressed by it, and believe me that’s way more than any child Raised/coming from an orphanage can ask, and that’s something most people who work with law know.
Joel isn’t playing around or drinking his problems off like a drunk men, he was working and having a hard time too, Jessi deserves better but he also needs to stop being so difficult, because his attitude doesn’t make things easy, they both need to sit down and properly convey their feelings, I don’t blame Jessi because he is still young so he doesn’t know how life goes, but Joel isn’t a monster for having flaws like a normal human, your insinuation that Joel should be on Jail is immature and clearly thoughtless
I am sure you read the recent updates, "He is not my son, he is my enemy" Joel chanted in his head as he thought about Jesse.
Joel is gone all the time anyway, as we all saw in Jesse's memories. What's the difference in Jesse choosing to stay in an orphanage? He would have others with him and it would have been his decision. IAn orphanage is not a death sentence. Also, Joel is shitting on himself, the mother and Jesse. Just because a person helped procreate, that does not make them a parent. PERIOD. Plus, Joel was at work for an entire week but didn't call to check in on his own son, yet as soon as he gets off, his first thought is to check up on and feed someone else's kid AND he had the nerve to gloat about that fact. Chase, a high schooler had to reprimand some middle aged man about his parenting. Pathetic. You and Joel are blind and backwards ass mofo's that's for sure.
From the moment you made the rhetoric question “what’s different from being on an orphanage” and that at least would be his (a child) decision, your whole input was automatically devalued, as no average adult would even say that, have a nice day.
Same with my mom, she wasn't a good mom but neither a bad mom, she was not ready to be a mom even though she always wanted to he a mom and was happy to jave us.
Is now as an adult I understand my mom, she had my sis one year after she married, she didn't do things couples did, she married her early 20s so she couldn't do a lot of stuff she wanted, she loves us but she felt we took away her best years. She disn't know how communicate hee feelings to us.
She is now an excellent mother, in fact, if she waited 5 to 10 years before having us she would have been a perfect mom, we love her and she loves us.
I had a similar experience with my mom and she cries all the time she remembers it, my mom had huge lungs problems, the doctors in my country though it was tuberculosis and refused to treat her, they gave her some tuberculosis medicine and that was it, she lived for so many of our early years yelling at us over house chores and she would hit us when we misbehaved (my siblings stole some money to buy chocolates and shit) she would leave at 7 come back at 1 to cook and eat (we where still at school) go back to work and the college and the home, she was trying so hard to join money, my father was in the military and wasn’t being paid because at the time he was very low in rank and this was in a war time, she wouldn’t really laugh with us, hug, kiss and we grow up a bit resented, I was the last child so I endured less, my older sister? She couldn’t even be around my mother for too long,
Only when I made 23 is that she told us that the reason she wouldn’t touch us is because she didn’t want us to know her, or to get sick because the doctors told her she had months to live and that she could die at any time, she didn’t want us to be attached to her so that we didn’t suffer when she was gone, she told us that the reason she was studying was to go up on the job scale and earn more money, and the reason she wanted more money was to be able to build a house and put it in our (her children) name so that in case my father remarried and got himself a bad person (like her own step mother who used to let her starve and whenever she cook she used to put a LOT of pepper so she wouldn’t eat the food) we would still have a roof that belonged to us, and the reason she was so roof on the house chores was because she didn’t want us to be lazy or unable to do these things that would let to a possible stepmother to punish us.
She later found out that she didn’t had tuberculosis but a different and also dangerous (but waaaay less of course) problem that could kill her too, but wasn’t contagious.
She was going trough all that practically alone, because she was pushing my father away too so that he didn’t get sick and he refused to leave her side (my father is a great man because he also endured a lot and never left her or us) she was alone on war times in my country thinking she was gonna die at any second, she yelled at us, beat us up too much whenever we would do stupid sheet and we resented her but now that I am an adult? Dude, that was way too much, to put up with all of that... parents are human too
LOUDER FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BACK
Like I was saying people are not all saints though. Like at least he didn’t take out on Jesse by being physically violent with him. Not gonna lie he’s still a shitty dad but at least he tried his best while still resentful for what the mother did(a woman who was older than him, coldly broke up with him then a child appears out of thin air when you already moved on with someone he loved and probably had future plans set as well. She was also a shitty person. PERIOD.) though being passive aggressive with Jesse at times or ignoring him. Is he truly pathetic? Giving up and leaving Jesse as a child alone after Jesse found out who his father is plus after he lost his mother and probably make him even more depress by thinking both his parents left him for a reason. That’s what a call pathetic and heartless man. Yes, just because you are the biological parent doesn’t make you an actual parent figure. But just because you became a parent figure doesn’t mean you immediately become a great person with no flaws/evil in you, that’s called being delusional. Acknowledging your feelings as an individual and not as your parent role is crucial to minimise unnecessary harm to your children(if even adolescent female cats can ignore their offspring and postpartum depression is a thing then why can’t him as a father feel that way?). That’s the problem with Joel, he has bad parenting skills by scolding Jesse all the time and not praising him during his achievements. But he still cares for him in his own idiotic and stubborn way through Chase(who agreed to tag along with hidden motives). He’s an idiot with good intentions but bad communication skills as well as parenting skills.
Exactly, the thing is not that he didn’t failed as a parent, the thing is he is not a monster and life is not a sitcom with a mom that cooks and a dad that plays basketball with you and kiss your head.
Joel was a child who saw himself with no other reasonable option than to be a dad, and that “he is not my son he is my enemy” did not reflect his actual feelings for Jessi, he was mad over the TOXIC environment that both he and Jessi created around themselves, Jessi difficult personality made Joel feel feel trapped and useless at home, that’s why he prefer to be with chase and Jessi is only difficult because Joel was not a good father to him.
you can see how much Joel loves his son when he saw Jessi at the hospital.
I saw someone in the comments asking why is the autor trying so much to portray Joel as a “bad dad” now let me answer to ALL of you who might share the same doubts:
The purpose is to show you that despise what it might look like to some please, PARENTS ARE HUMANS, and they don’t come with a “love me” button, Joel didn’t had any type of connection with Jessi until he was suddenly dumped into his care when he was already 10 years old, and his WHOLE life changed due to it, jessi looked at him as a stranger that hated him, he lost the love of his life (witch is very painful), he felt lost and didn’t know how to deal with a problematic child that Jessi later becomes as a response to being “ignored” by his father, and guess what??? No child comes with a manual, Joel had to deal with all that and balance his job as a police men at the same time, and thank god the author showed how dangerous is Joel’s work in the last chapter.
Guys some people on their twenties can’t barely handle the pressure of college imagine dealing with all of that baggage by himself, he is not a monster he is a human, neither he or Jessi are to blame, they need to TALK but this is easier said than done.
Don’t go so hard on Joel, Jessi wasn’t an easy child and Joel wasn’t much more than a child himself that was forever to “man up” to take care of a child he didn’t even know that existed.
I think Joel is trying his best to be a good person/father/professional, to do the right thing witch is raise and provide for Jessi, and Jessi doesn’t notice that and gets angry, witch makes things even harder for Joel and that’s why he turned to Chase quite fast, because for the first time someone was all smiles and doting him, caring for him, and he could live a little as Joel and not just as an ADULT provider/care taker for his son