the take that hosea is a good father is an understandable one, considering it mostly derives from comparison to dutch, who groomed two orphan boys to be outlaws, pitted them against one another through his favouritism, treated one son more as a workhorse than a son to the point where he literally drives himself to sickness and injury and has most of his self worth come from what he can do for others, dismissed his gang members when they had concerns - often berating them and accusing them of not being loyal (which he does repeatedly, sometimes unprompted, to men and women who have been loyal to him for years), prioritised a man so vile that most - if not all except dutch - did not like him - a man who went against everything he claimed to stand for - a man who was actively a threat to the people of colour and the women who dutch had promised safety too, did not plan to rescue his son who was being tortured and very close to death after being captured from a very obvious trap, did not plan to rescue his other son from prison, taunting his dying son over being too tired to go on any jobs, claiming that he never had a son in an effort to manipulate eagle flies, pointing a gun at his son and leaving them to die, (and that's outside of his other crimes, being abusive to his girlfriend as well as hitting on other women in front of her and making it so the gang members treat her like shit. exploiting a fucking genocide for his own personal gain, and more)
so it's easy to look between the two and think "wow, hosea is so much better than him, he must be a good father/man," but that just isn't true, he's.. more okay than anything. not only was he complicit in signing his children's death warrant, raising them to be outlaws, and putting them in so much danger, he was also complicit and enabled dutchs treatment of the gang members, not just arthur and john either, but all of them.
he is the second in charge, the other half of the curious couple, he holds so much power in the gang, and we see that with how they listen and confide in him, and yet he doesn't do much, he doesn't stop dutch from mistreating the gang members, doesn't stop dutch from doing much of anything (even things he clearly disagrees with), doesn't throw micah out (which, I repeat, he does have the power to do so, especially since dutch still respects hosea, yes, we see dutch not listen to hosea that much, but he still respects him and his decisions, still clearly cares for hosea, i'm sure if hosea were to dig his feet in on something instead of rolling over, dutch would at least consider, of course this is just my interpretation), doesn't work to settle tensions between the gang, he still brings the gang on dangerous jobs that are doomed to fail (one of which results in his own death) - believing in his own hubris and intelligence which results in him underestimating his enemies, and he doesn't take charge even when he knows something is wrong.
it isn't just this either, he has his moments where he too treats the gang members (not just arthur) unfairly, berating, and using physical aggression on sean and bill, comes to mind (although, this was a different time where such actions were acceptable back then and sean and bill were generally being rather lazy, which could very much put them in danger,) but he was also at fault in the raising of his two sons into the roles that they had and is partly responsible for arthurs incredibly low self esteem, often calling him stupid and ugly looking, which may be jokes to him but something arthur very much takes to heart, believing it to be true.
sure, we see him asking arthur to rest and trying and succeeding to get the gang members to open up, and actually listening to them, we see him comfort them and respect them, unlike dutch, and he's very good at that, I applaud him for it, but I can't help but feel this mostly coming from his old age and the fact that he feels (and is correct) about the gang coming to an end and realising what he has done, trying to rectify the situation, soothe his regret if you will. that doesn't mean he didn't take this role much sooner (likely back to when bessie had passed), but I believe he fully delved into this role because of his old age and his regret, wanting to make sure he feels the world with as little of it as possible. he has been a complicit and active participant in everything.
this isn't anti-hosea, i love hosea to bits, i wish he could very much replace my pa but I wish people would understand that just because dutch is awful, does not mean that hosea is an angel, he's decent, at best.
