jerseydevious:

to recap:

• mr. and mrs. pines let their 12 year old children take a bus to a completely different state…. alone.
• mr. and mrs. pines expected their kids to ride on the same bus, alone, back home.
• in gideon rises, stan had to have warned mr. and mrs. pines that their kids were coming home because he couldn’t care for them – but how did he explain everything ending okay? and, more importantly, why did the pines parents continue to trust stan’s quality of care?
• they leave their kids in oregon the whole summer. if oregon was on the other side of the country, i could understand it, but it’s not that far away – a two week visit is sensible, but a whole summer? what good parent would let their kids go for a whole summer?
• alex has addressed the fact that the pines parents don’t call often, so it’s not just something that happens offscreen and they don’t include it for time purposes. they really don’t call. 
• in scary-oke, mabel says that dipper and stan are her favorite people in the whole wide world. dipper is understandable, but how is stan more important to her after half a summer than her parents after 12 years?
• neither dipper or mabel respect stan’s authority that much, and dipper lies to him without much problem – nevermind the fact that stan’s trying to protect him.
• neither dipper and mabel find anything wrong with running all over the town and rarely telling stan where they’re going. stan is definitely not the best caretaker, but dipper and mabel seem used to it from an early point in the series.
• dipper and mabel cling to each other, and they’ve been shown to do this throughout their whole lives – which. it gives them a powerful relationship, but have they ever been able to rely on their parents? 
• mabel is frequently ingesting toxic substances – yeah, craft glitter is toxic, and those plastic dinosaurs in her mabel juice? if left in there for long enough, they’ll start leaking chemicals. that’s why water has an expiration date – because plastic isn’t safe after a certain period of time, and you most certainly should not put plastic in your drinks. and that’s not even talking about the choking hazard. and bedazzling your face? eating ice cream off of the floor? none of that stuff is safe.
• dipper runs fast and loose too, and has no real problem getting into extremely dangerous situations. jfc parenting 101 is, “teach your kids to stay out of danger and not eat toxic substances.” these are the basics.
• dipper questions whether his family loves him, when family is supposed to be the go-to love machine for kids: you’re supposed to know that your family loves you. dipper doesn’t. and he’s too young to think that way already.
• mabel has insecurities over not being as book-smart as dipper, and in the guide, dipper refers to tests and school as a really stressful thing, so i’m led to believe that there’s a lot of weight put on intelligence in the pines household.

keep in mind that i’m measuring these to what i personally know, and that everyone’s different, but this is what stood out to me as strange. but i really don’t think highly of mr. and mrs. pines.