If you’ve spent any time in the Supernatural fandom, I can pretty much guarantee that you’ve encountered the phenomenon that is Dean parentification, even if you’ve never seen it called that.

So what is Dean parentification? Well, broadly speaking, it’s the idea that Dean parented Sam when they were growing up, that he took care of Sam in ways that were parental rather than brotherly.

It stems from scenes/information in canon, but in this post I will argue that canon does not, in fact, support this interpretation of Sam and Dean’s childhood.

My efforts will be particularly focused on debunking the following popular forms of Dean parentification:

that Dean, despite being a child himself, shouldered the unfair responsibility put on him and was this uber-parent to Sam, providing for all Sam’s physical and emotional needs and sacrificing his own childhood in the process



that Dean shielded Sam from John’s terrible parenting/abuse, instead taking the brunt of it on himself in order to spare Sam

Before I proceed, I want to make one thing very clear: saying that Dean did not parent Sam is not a criticism of Dean. He was a child, he should not be expected to shoulder that level of responsibility, and my pointing out that he didn’t is just a statement of fact.

Dean and Sam were and are very different people, so they reacted to their awful childhood and John’s abuse (because he was at the very least emotionally abusive–his behavior in canon meets the criteria) very differently. I do not blame Dean for his coping mechanisms as a child–all I want to do here is demonstrate that, though John gave him responsibilities inappropriate for a child his age, his attempt to fulfill those responsibilities does not mean that he effectively parented Sam.

I think the best way to organize this will be thematically, with sections covering the fire (since people rightly point to Dean carrying Sam out of the burning house as very formative, but then extrapolate unreasonably from there), food (because there are a few instances of Dean “providing” food for Sam, and again, people extrapolate unreasonably), protection (as in Dean protecting Sam, or not, as the case may be), and care (sort of a catch-all for everything else).

This is really super long, so just know that going in.



The Fire



First, the events of the night Mary died. In terms of Dean and Sam, this is what happened:

John came home while Mary and Dean were putting Sam to bed and saying good night to him

John put Dean to bed

once the fire started, Dean got up and came down the hall; John came out of Sam’s nursery, handed Sam to Dean, and told Dean to “take your brother outside as fast as you can! Now, Dean, go!”

Dean carried Sam out, telling his infant brother “It’s OK, Sammy” as he stood in the yard; John came running out and carried both boys to a safe distance from the burning house

Things we know about this night/its impact on the brothers and their relationship:

discussing that night, outside of the fact that something pinned Mary to the ceiling and set her on fire, was so off limits that Sam grew up not knowing the exact date it happened (1.21), or even that Dean was the one who carried him out of the burning house (1.09)

Dean didn’t actually see Mary on the ceiling, but he saw his house burn and knew she died in the fire, which is more than enough trauma for a four-year-old (1.03, 1.09)

carrying Sam out of the fire is what instigated Dean’s intense feelings of responsibility for Sam (1.15)



However, canon just doesn’t support the leap from “Dean feels intense brotherly responsibility for Sam” to “Dean feels parental responsibility for Sam.” I think feeling responsible for our younger siblings is very nearly a universal oldest/older sibling experience. I’m the oldest of four, and my brothers are 2, 6, and 8 years younger than me. We had a pretty normal childhood, our parents are good people doing their best, and I still felt responsible for them when we were growing up, like I needed to protect them and teach them how to be good people.

I mean, I’ve never been through something as intense as carrying one of my brothers out of a fire at a very young age, but like I said, canon just doesn’t support the fanon notion that doing so gave Dean a parental, rather than intense big brotherly, sense of responsibility for Sam.



Food

This is one that people do a lot of extrapolating about. Here’s what we actually know from canon:

in 8.21, Dean references “the whole airplane thing with the spoon,” implying that he helped feed Sam when Sam was a baby/toddler



when Sam was 5 or 6 and Dean was 9 or 10, John left them alone, and Dean made Sam spaghettios for dinner one night; Sam said he wanted Lucky Charms, and gave Dean puppy eyes when Dean said he was saving those for himself because he hadn’t had any yet, at which point a frustrated Dean threw away the spaghettios and got out the box of Lucky Charms (1.18)



when Sam was 8 and Dean was 12, almost 13, Dean brought Sam two bags of processed food, one of which was Funyuns, which Dean referred to as “vegetables” (3.08)

in 5.06, Sam tells Jesse that he used to make his own food, like Jesse was doing when they went to his house



when Dean was 16, he gambled away the food money, so he stole bread and peanut butter so Sam wouldn’t go hungry (9.07)



I want to go over each of these, and what they do and do not demonstrate about Dean and Sam and food.

The Whole Airplane Thing

This one’s pretty straightforward: helping feed a sibling that young is a normal older sibling thing to do. When Sam was still young enough for this to be a thing, Dean would’ve been six years old at most, and not even John would’ve left a six-year-old alone with a two-year-old (or at the very least we have no definitive canon information that he ever did, and given that we know he was OK with leaving them with Pastor Jim or Bobby or even babysitters who didn’t know about hunting, I see no reason to think he would have left the boys alone, rather than with an adult), so this is most definitely a brotherly thing, not a parental one.



The Lucky Charms Incident

Throughout the scene, Sam and Dean pretty much act the way one would expect kids their age to act. Sam decided he wanted something other than what was being prepared for dinner, because that’s a thing 5/6-year-olds do.

Dean, at 9 or 10, is probably a couple of years too young to be left alone with Sam, but not egregiously too young, at least in terms of being able to make dinner and make sure Sam doesn’t run with scissors or whatever. He is of course frustrated by Sam changing his mind, especially since he was clearly looking forward to having those Lucky Charms.

So Dean concedes and gives Sam the Lucky Charms, after throwing away the spaghettios.

Important points to keep in mind:

throwing away perfectly good spaghettios is not the act of a hungry child, so Dean was not going hungry so Sam could eat

we don’t know why Dean caved to Sam

it was probably because that was easier than trying to out-stubborn him, but again, we don’t know



even if it was out of generosity and kindness, we know that he was also frustrated, because of the way he throws the spaghettios in the garbage–this is not an example of Dean being a perfect self-sacrificing child saint, it’s an example of Dean acting his age as he gives in to his younger brother

The Funyans

I don’t see as much made of this one. Dean returns, having stormed out earlier because Sam dared to ask questions about their strange life and their dead mother, and he brings packaged food, which he tosses to Sam with a sarcastic comment.

All perfectly in-character for a 12-year-old. Not so much for the perfect uber-parent of fanon.

Sam Cooking for Himself

I mean, this makes perfect sense, really. Once Sam officially learned about hunting, it stands to reason that John would’ve started taking Dean, who by then was a teenager, out on more hunts, leaving Sam alone to do things like make his own dinner.

Basically, this is canon evidence that Sam spent enough time preparing food for himself as a kid that he (not Dean) brought it up in an attempt to connect with Jesse.

Stealing Food

Something that seems to me to be frequently forgotten when this gets brought up is that Dean lost the food money in a card game.

Let me repeat that: Dean was gambling with their food money.

That is not the act of the all-giving uber-parent of fanon, that is the act of a sixteen-year-old who sometimes makes the kinds of bad decisions sixteen-year-olds are prone to on account of being, well sixteen and left on his own. Also, let’s note that if he was off gambling, and Sam didn’t know that’s what Dean was doing, then he left Sam alone. Granted, 12 is definitely old enough to be left alone for a while, but I mention it as yet another counter-point to the fanon narrative of super-protective-perfect-parent-brother-Dean-who-was-always-there-for-Sam.



Yes, Dean said he stole the food because he knew Sam would get hungry, but that was just him trying to make up for his mistake in yet another misguided sixteen-year-old way.

Dean was not a saint for stealing that food. He made a mistake, and he was trying to fix it. There’s really nothing parental about the situation.

Basically, what I want to emphasize with this section is that the way in which we see Dean “providing” food for Sam in canon isn’t parental in nature; it’s entirely big-brotherly.

Protection

Before I start this section, I want to reiterate something:

The expectations John put on Dean were abusive, neglectful, and not OK, and me saying that Dean did not live up to those expectations is not a criticism of Dean, because the problem was John and his expectations, not Dean, who was a child.

So.

The Shtriga



After the fire, the first canon example of Dean being expected to protect Sam is from the flashbacks in 1.18. At 9 or 10, Dean was far too young to be left alone with a loaded gun and the expectation that he would use it to protect himself and Sam if necessary. The situation becomes even more fucked up when we consider the very real possibility that John was using Sam and Dean as bait for the shtriga–because how else could he have gotten there so fast when Sam was attacked?

Sam and Dean were left alone for three days–far longer than kids that age should be left alone–and Dean reacted like you’d expect a 9-or-10-year-old to react: he started, as he put it, “climbing the walls,” so he left Sam in the motel room and went to get some air and play arcade games.

This is perfectly understandable behavior, and the way John blamed Dean for not staying with Sam and somehow driving off the shtriga is super fucked up.

But also, Dean didn’t stay with Sam at the expense of his own needs. He needed to get out of the room and have some fun by himself for a while, so that’s what he did, proving false the fanon assertion that Dean constantly sacrificed his own happiness and well-being for the sake of protecting Sam.

After School Special

In the flashbacks in this episode, we see that Sam got into a fight, and Dean has a very stereotypical older-brother reaction: he gets angry and wants to hurt the person who hurt Sam. This is yet another instance of Dean’s behavior being older-brotherly, nothing more.



Dean’s Speech to Sam’s Corpse

Dean talks about how, when Sam was about 5, he started asking questions about everything, and Dean didn’t want to answer because he wanted Sam to stay an innocent kid who didn’t know about monsters.

And while I 100% believe that this was Dean’s attitude, we know from 3.08 that at least one of Dean’s methods of protecting Sam was to yell at and/or insult him whenever Sam started asking totally understandable questions about why their lives and family were so different from the norm.

And while yelling was certainly a way to avoid answering Sam’s questions, it’s also a very immature way to deal with the situation/try to protect Sam. Which makes total sense, since Dean was a child himself.

What I’m getting at here is that, yes, Dean sees himself as Sam’s protector, and he did try to be that, as both a child and an adult, but all the examples we have definitive information about from their childhood show Dean trying to fill that role in a way that makes sense for a kid at whatever age he was making the best of a bad situation, nothing more.

John

Probably my least favorite aspect of Dean parentification is the fanon that Dean shielded Sam from John, when we have canon examples directly to the contrary.

Again, I’m not blaming Dean for the fact that his way of coping with John’s abuse and neglect was to fall in line and be the good little soldier, I’m just saying that that’s how it was, and the situation thus created did Sam absolutely no favors.

In 1.08, Sam is reminded of John when he sees Larry yelling at Matt. Then this conversation happens:

DEAN Dad never treated us like that. SAM Well, Dad never treated you like that. You were perfect. He was all over my case. You don’t remember? DEAN Well, maybe he had to raise his voice, but sometimes, you were out of line. SAM (scoffs) Right. Right, like when I said I’d rather play soccer than learn bowhunting. DEAN Bowhunting’s an important skill.

This is a clear example of how Dean’s way of coping, following John’s orders and trying to do whatever he asked, meant that he got John’s approval, while Sam, who asked a lot of questions and chafed at the way they lived, was verbally reprimanded and yelled at. And here, the adult Dean not only doesn’t try to soften the blow by saying John went too far, but actually takes John’s side, which is a far cry from protecting Sam from John’s abuse.

Another example of this is in one of the flashbacks in 7.03, when Sam is on the phone with Dean:

Yeah, so, from what I can tell, it’s something called a Kitsune. Not much. They… look human… till they sprout out claws and stab you behind your ear to get to your brain. I don’t – I don’t know yet. Yes, Dean, I realize killing ‘em’s important. Maybe if Uncle Bobby sent a book in English. I am! No, no, don’t – don’t put him on the phone. Hi, Dad. Yes, sir. I realize people are dying. Yeah, I’m on my way to the library right now.



Here we see Sam beg Dean not to put John on the phone, but Dean does anyway, and it’s clear that John is very stern with Sam, who has been researching, apparently from books that aren’t even in English, which is very impressive for a 14-or-15-year-old. So once again, Dean’s coping mechanism of following orders actually put Sam more in John’s line of fire, rather than removing him from it.

A third aspect of the Winchester family dynamics that’s worth discussing is the way John and Dean withheld information from Sam over the years.

Things Sam didn’t know until adulthood:

the date of Mary’s death (1.21)

that Dean carried him out of the burning house (1.09)

that a shtriga almost killed him when he was 5 or 6, and that John allowed/encouraged Dean to blame himself (1.18)

that Dean was in a boy’s home for several months when Sam was 12 and Dean was 16 (9.07)

None of this is an example of Dean protecting Sam: Sam’s life was not improved by not knowing this information. Instead, the fact that Dean kept this back from Sam is another example of the way Dean survived their childhood by earning John’s approval through following orders.



Care

This last section is about, well, pretty much everything else.

BatSam and SuperDean

Sam and Dean, left on their own, playing superheroes. It’s an adorably normal anecdote, really: they both do something that’s a terrible idea, jumping off a shed, but because Sam is smaller and younger, he gets hurt.

Dean taking Sam to the hospital on the handlebars of his bike is most definitely an act of brotherly, not parental, care. Dean made a mistake (setting a bad example by jumping off the shed first, and not telling Sam not to do it–nine is old enough to at least be held responsible for setting a bad example), Sam got hurt, and Dean tries to fix it the only way his nine-year-old-self can think of.

Actually, though I admit this is interpretation at this point, I suspect that Dean taking Sam to the hospital himself, rather than calling 9-1-1 or getting a neighbor, is another example of him following John’s orders to not let any strangers in where they’re staying. After all, transportation via handlebars is definitely not what was best for Sam in that moment. So once again, we have Dean acting very much his age and doing the best he can, and the best he can do does not equal parental levels of care.

Teaching Sam

One aspect of the fanon notion that Dean cared so well for Sam is the idea that Dean taught Sam most of what he knows.

Well, there’s at least one thing we know for a fact Dean didn’t teach Sam: how to drive. We know this because Dean asks Sam if Sam wants to drive in 1.02, and Sam’s response is “Dean, your whole life you never once asked me that.”

Supporting Sam’s Interests

We know from 1.16 and 10.05 that Dean saw the theater productions Sam was involved in, but that’s a pretty normal sibling thing to do. I did theater in high school, and there were people in the productions whose whole families would come.

On the other hand, we know that Dean didn’t support Sam’s magic trick phase (4.12) or Sam’s interest in academics/going to college (too many episodes to name).

Emotional Support

For the most part, Sam didn’t get this from Dean any more than he did from John (again, I’m not blaming Dean, because he was a kid, too, so it wasn’t his responsibility to provide that for Sam).

Dean tried in 3.08, telling Sam that John is a super hero and stealing the presents from the neighbors so Sam would think John came, but his efforts were those of a child, and brotherly, not parental, in nature.

In 4.13, Mr. Wyatt asks Sam if he wants to go into the family business, and Sam’s response is “No one’s ever asked me that before.“ This means that part of Dean falling in line with John is that he went with John’s insistence that of course Sam will become a hunter, and it doesn’t matter whether that’s what Sam actually wants.

Another example of Dean not taking Sam’s independent desires into account comes from 5.16, where we learn that it didn’t even occur to Dean that Sam didn’t find the way they celebrated Thanksgiving, with “a bucket of extra-crispy and Dad passed out on the couch,” fulfilling.

Being Present

It’s also important to remember that, even when John wasn’t around, Dean was far from Sam’s only caregiver: Pastor Jim, Bobby, and at least one babysitter that we know about (5.12) were all active participants in caring for, and in, Bobby’s (and probably Pastor Jim’s) case, raising, Sam.

And even when Dean was around, we know that, once he was a teenager, he often preferred to go off and do his own thing rather than actively babysit Sam, so he’d drop Sam off at Plucky’s (7.14).

We don’t know exactly how old Sam was when he ran away to Flagstaff, but we do know that he was so unhappy that being alone in a motel room, eating junk food with a stray dog, was an upgrade for him (5.16), so much so that the memory of it gets a spot in his heaven.



This is not to say that Sam and Dean never had fun together, because obviously they did. We know from 1.17 that they had some fairly epic prank wars, and of course there’s the iconic Fourth of July from 5.16. In 8.21 we learned that Dean used to read aloud to Sam. But all of this is entirely brotherly in nature, and canon gives us no reason to suppose otherwise.

The same goes for Dean’s choice to leave Sonny’s in 9.07. He missed Sam and wanted to be there for him, but there’s no reason to think of that in anything other than a brotherly light.

Conclusion

What I hope I’ve been able to show here is that, though Dean and Sam were close, and Dean did sometimes take care of Sam, all the canon examples of this show them in a brotherly relationship, not a parent/child one, and to suggest otherwise requires much more extrapolation than canon can support.

