Johnny LastResort: the Emergency Standby Parent.

One of Elly's complaints in the Smack-gobble-nasty years that rang true was that John didn't shoulder his fair share of the burden when it came to dealing with the children. As I've said before, he'd only be a dad and husband when it suited him. The rest of the time, he couldn't be bothered. This suggests to me that he was as ready to be a dad as Elly was a mom. The thing about the Early Years is that the jackass came across as one of those smirking, passive-aggressive goofolas in the Rock Hudson-Doris Day movies: a leer covering Neanderthal thinking. His Excellency was stupid enough to believe that he didn't have to take an active hand in the raising of his children. Not him, no way! That's why God invented wives: to do the domestic stuff he was too important to do. The rare occasions he could be stirred to move were marked by frightening hostility on his part. Not for what the child had done, of course. He was pissed off that he actually had to do something. Not only that, when he was confronted with a child who was upset by what he'd done he tended to run away rather than admit wrong-doing. His emotional absence is, as I've said, as equally damaging as Elly's non-stop hollering. It's produced an emotionally-absent, passive-aggressive Momma's boy and two daughters looking to marry the father figure his selfishness denied them.