#at some point i'll have to post the entire eleutherophobia ficlet i did with steve and tom talking about all this

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

I was reading that story in Eleutherophobia where the Berenson extended family all gather and I'm wondering, do you have any thoughts/headcanons about the Berenson brothers' relationship? No, not Tom and Jake, but the generation before them: Steve, Dan, and George.

I do.  So much.

We don't know a ton about George (Saddler's dad) but the contrast between Dan (Rachel's dad) and Steve (Jake's dad) has always been striking to me.

Steve seems like this incredibly balanced guy: "Always nice. Always gentle. Joking with the kids and reassuring the moms and dads. Staying calm while the littler kids screamed bloody murder and vibrated the very walls" (#31). And it's not just sick kids he's that nice toward; when there's some guy screaming in his face and threatening to hit him over a parking spot, Steve remains level-headed and even comforts the dude when he gets upset over getting attacked by a cockroach (AKA Jake). Sure, Steve can be a clueless at times, tolerating some Weird Shit from Tom especially without showing any sign of worry that his kids are acting so erratic, but he's this responsible and steady dude.

Dan, on the other hand, is... flaky. Rachel says "My dad does these little outings where we all get together every second weekend. Sometimes it's just me and my dad... I don't get to see him as much as I wish I could" because "he cancels sometimes” (#7). We also find out that he talks openly about Rachel being his favorite child, which suggests the reason he doesn't always bring Jordan and Sara on his twice-a-month visits. Dan will buy Rachel room service (#12), but when she calls to say she's "not doing good", Dan responds "Have you talked to your mom? She's pretty good with this kind of stuff" (#32). He'll take her to the circus, but he expects her to cater to his emotional needs ("No, it wasn't pity or guilt... my dad was feeling lonely") without considering hers (#7). He puts the hard conversations on Naomi, letting her be the one to tell their kids about the divorce (#2), give them The Talk (#32), and announce that he's moving away (#7). Frankly, no wonder Naomi dumped him.

Also, look at their jobs. Steve's in a career that requires 12+ years of post-secondary education, and highly active in the lives of his own kids. Dan apparently spent years pursuing a gymnastics career that went nowhere ("almost made the Olympic team," #7) before pivoting to become a "hotshot" reporter, and still can only carve out two afternoons a month for his girls. Reporters are heckin useful to society, but it's also not a career that requires the same selfless consistency of effort as being a pediatrician.

Anyway, my headcanon to explain all that: their parents have traditional ideas about traditional roles. I'm thinking these are upper-class Yugoslavians who immigrated as teens, then were caught up in the assimilationist zeitgeist once in the U.S. The ‘rents emphasize the traditional role for the oldest child, AKA Steve. He's to provide for them in their old age, and therefore they need him to go the doctor-or-lawyer route. Steve is (like Jake) a rule-follower and a people-leader, never rebellious unless he has a good cause. Steve's also a nurturer who loves kids, so he goes along with his parents' plans... until it comes time to choose a specialization, at which point he quietly shunts from surgery into pediatrics. He fails to mention this fact to his parents until it's already been a done deal for a few years and there's nothing they can do about it.

Dan, meanwhile, has Steve and George sheltering him from the slings and arrows of his parents' good intentions. The first two sons turned out okay (I headcanon George being a marketing manager) and so the parental units will let their baby indulge his dreams in a non-lucrative sport for a while. And then pay for him to get a degree in media studies. And then still approve of him, since he brought them grandchildren, even if he supports them less than Steve.

#animorphs #animorphs meta #steve berenson #dan berenson #aniparents #animorphs headcanon #at some point i'll have to post the entire eleutherophobia ficlet i did with steve and tom talking about all this #because it was literally JUST subtext in Back to the Future #but i headcanon steve as estranged from his parents after the war #on account of his parents being Not Happy that he let jake drop out of high school #and steve bluntly telling them that they're not entitled to an opinion on his kids' personal choices or mental health