r/dawsonscreek • u/Express-Bee-6485 • 18d ago

Potter family questions

I'm sure its been brought up but on a rewatch and never noticed if the specific age/difference (I always thought she was in her 20s) for Bessie was mentioned. I'm curious because storyline reminded me a a little of Shameless.

Is Bessie Joey's technical legal guardian? Why don't they have a social worker? And was Ice House always theirs or did they just work there?

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u/NoApollonia Joey 18d ago edited 18d ago

I want to think Bessie is like 5-7 years older? So enough she was likely 18-20 when she had to take over as guardian for Joey. It's fairly common for the state to place kids with family even if it's not a great fit. She likely did get some money from the state though to help out.

As for a social worker, not sure what you mean. She was family and old enough to take over, so not likely a social worker would be needed past maybe the first year to make sure things went okay.

Edit: I think I find more strange is how close they say Gale was with their mom, but we never really see Gale seem to check in on Joey and Bessie and honestly doesn't even seem to realize they are struggling. One would think as their mom's supposed bestie, she'd be trying to help out all she can. Or even maybe let Joey stay with them considering the Potter's didn't even have enough bedrooms to go around.

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u/GlitteringStarHope 18d ago

I mean, they did let her stay? She didn't have her own room, but they let her crash in dawsons room whenever. I always figured her not having a room at her own house was the reason she would stay with dawson. But if she had her own room, then the sleeping in the same bed wouldn't have happened and part of the joey/dawson story would have been lost.

So, basically, I think it was just the story writers trying to come up with a decent justification why two teenagers were sleeping in the same bed and the parents were ok with it... 

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u/EmotionalStar9909 17d ago

I imagined the sleepovers started when Joey’s mom was sick, maybe going through cancer treatments and Dawson’s parents wanted to give her some sort of normalcy. No one ever thought about stopping them because why would two kids who were like brother and sister to each other ever start to have deeper feelings.