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Jo is such a cool mom!!! Imagine the older sister that lets you do stuff you're not supposed to do and introduces you to indie music and lets you watch PG-13 or scary movies and lets you look at her knife collection and even shows you how to do a sick knife trick (don't tell dad though). That's the vibe of Jo as a mom and we love to see it!!!

Dean is the goofiest dorkiest most fun dad ever and we love to see it!! He builds forts, he gives book characters funny voices, he makes everything into a game, he watches cartoons with them, and makes pancakes with gummy bears in them. He brings so much sunshine into their childhoods 😭😭😭 I'm so emotional about it. And when they're getting into their teen years he's embarrassing on purpose (it's the older brother in him lol) and also sometimes not on purpose, cause he's just a big dork.

Jo has a much easier time with the "cry it out" phase as babies than Dean does. He's a mother hen, it's hard for him not to nurture 😭 In a similar vein, Dean lets their kids sleep in their bed some nights longer than Jo thinks they should cause he's suchhh a softie. He can't help it. At a certain point, Jo has to be the one to put her foot down about it lol

We've seen it in canon but it's so important to me so I'm mentioning it anyway, Dean is so so gentle with kids 😭😭😭

An important quality Dean and Jo share as parents is they really listen to their kids. They don't do the whole "because I said so" thing, they don't don't talk down to them, they talk things out and respect and validate their emotions, autonomy, and boundaries.

Dean has never thrown away a drawing or handmade thing they've ever made. There's drawings on the fridge, a handmade leaky mug turned pencil cup on his nightstand, clay handprints, popsicle stick ornaments on the tree, etc etc etc. The most sentimental dad ever

Jo is not a fan whatsoever of playing princess (or super girly girl stuff in general) but Dean takes his princess/mermaid pretend playtime and tea party duties incredibly seriously. He gets very into character he is literally Andy Dwyer

In general Dean loves dressing up and Committing to the Bit. We know this and it's one of his strongsuits as a dad for sure and the kids love it so much

Not to get sad but I think Jo's dad would play pretend with her and she would beg him to play when he got home and they had so much fun together 😭 but anyways 🥲

Board games!!! Omg Dean and Jo are so competitive I can only imagine their kids would be too and family board game nights would be intense and sometimes it ends in fights and Dean and Jo start to think that maybe they should set a better example and not be so competitive with each other because it is just a game after all... but also they can't help themselves 😂 they're not perfect lol

In general though, I don't think they ever fight in front of their kids. They definitely bicker and tease each other but that's just their dynamic lol.

The supernatural books are definitely a thing and I think the kids would inevitably find them. Dean's excuse would be that he used to be buddies with the author and he used his and uncle Sam's likeness and they're totally 100% fictional. Who wants ice cream (immediate change of subject)

Dean obviously has a good amount of scars, some strange looking ones, that his kids would definitely have questions about and he makes up fantastical stories about each one. But he can't always remember every detail he tells them and forgets what he said last time all together, and the kids are suspicious lol

Now for the lore and analysis side of things...

I think with her dad on the road a lot and Ellen being busy running the roadhouse and answering calls from hunters, Jo was left to her own devices for the majority of her childhood. She was very much a free-range kid lol. But she was never alone, she always had Smokey (her childhood dog, which I talk about in this post) and when she was younger, he kept her from wandering too far off and would herd her back towards the roadhouse. But... I think that definitely changed after Bill was killed. Ellen became much more protective of Jo, and I think we all know how she felt about that. So I think Jo would be much more open to the idea of their kids just doing their own thing without constant supervision, whereas Dean would be veryyyy nervous about that because he's incredibly protective, it's been hardwired into him. So that's a common battle between them, trying to find a good balance for their kids safety and autonomy. Though they grew up in very different environments, they both felt like they weren't given the freedom of choices. So that's something they can agree is important to give their kids.

We're all very aware of how Dean's childhood (I use that term loosely) was so I'm not gonna sit here and explain it lol. So understandably as a dad he would definitely really struggle when it comes to discipline. Jo would have to be the bad guy.

Unrelated but I strongly believe Jo becoming a mom would actually be very healing for her and Ellen's relationship. It would provide them with not just a common ground, but a new common ground to bond over which helps them to let go of their history. Also, it would give Jo perspective on what being a mom is really like and give her a better understanding of her mom and her childhood. That being said it would definitely also bring its own set of problems, because I'm sure Ellen (though she means well) would have her opinions and advice on parenting that Jo would not agree with lol. But generally speaking, I think it would do them some real good.

Similarly, I think becoming a dad would force Dean to confront some things emotionally about his own father and his childhood and come to terms with the fact that "yeah that was actually really fucked up" in a very visceral way. I mean, think about Dean watching his innocent little kid playing in the yard and he thinks how he can't imagine ever handing that child a loaded gun and teaching them to kill. I don't think that would be healing for him to experience I just think that would be the reality.

Also, this doesn't need to be explained, but Dean for sure suffers from PTSD and it's really hard adjusting to civilian life as a parent. He learns to cope in more healthy ways than he used to, but it's a very real struggle.