mary's mind-palace in 12x22 shows us that if anyone of the two of them is projecting the idea that she ought to be "cutting the crusts off dean's sandwiches" it's her. that's part of her grief and her complicated relationship with her children. she is stuck with the image of her babies. she is mentally stuck in the mode of young mother to babies. and she is trying to navigate this new reality, and trying to figure out who she is now and how to interact with her adult children, but she's the one who was just in the past, she's the one who holds that past closer to her, the one who is struggling to reconcile with the fact that she's no longer the mother of babies. dean and sam are not asking her to be their mommy, they've had 30+ years to reconcile with the fact that they can never go back, never go home. having mary back doesn't reverse those 30 years without her, but what they want now is time with her, getting to know her, being a family, however that may look now. mary is the one still looking back, still trying to get home to those babies, who when retreating into her mind finds herself in a sundress fixing sandwiches for her 4 yr old and watching over her baby. like, it makes me think perhaps her "i'm not just a mom and you are not a child" was more about her trying to convince herself that this was her reality than it was actually criticizing dean.
