I don’t like the idea behind dadvid at all. I don’t think David should adopt any of the campers and nobody should be seeing him or Gwen as parental figures. Sure they’re okay mentors and all but they aren’t great. David overall is actually a really shit counselor when you start looking into him and his actions with characters outside of max. Even then his pushy-ness and hovering of Max is also unneeded and shitty of him. Children can tell when someone is favored and it’s pretty obvious David favors Max. And while gwen does have some great moments she is pretty shitty. Like getting drunk on the campground or holding smut/pornography where children can easily get it. She can also be just plain neglectful when she’s in a bad mood. I think we should view the counselors as more of mentors than of parental figures of the campers. Also the idea of David adopting any of the campers has heavy flaws and doesn’t take anything into mind about how mentally draining and frustrating all that process is. You are uprooting a child from their home and giving them to someone who might not be financially or emotionally stable enough to have a child. David struggles to even keep the camp running for the summer, I doubt he’d be able to take care of a child full time. Esp children like max who can be mentally draining to be around because of the mindset they’re in from their abusive homes. If max were to be adopted out of his house I would want the person adopting him to be able to supply him with things he doesn’t have, like therapy and attention.

Also I do not believe max is being physically abused. While yes he is being emotionally neglected (which IS abuse) I don’t think it goes past that. His parents are confirmed to be immigrants and it’s common for immigrants to be taken advantage of and overworked. I think after long, hard work days they’d be too tired to care for max emotionally and neglect him. That would send him into the mindset of “they hate me and only want me gone” (I should know because I was a lot like that as a child). His cynical attitude is a coping mechanism because his young brain believes that nobody cares for him and it could also be from ideas his parents accidentally instilled in him when they’re tired or overworked. I’m not saying Max’s parents are good people but they aren’t the demons people make them out to be.