How would Henry and Joey feasibly raise the crying child together? Or even Michael Afton and Elizabeth?
This is a cool question! Let's just rescue all the Afton kids like a week before the bite of '83! (In my version of events, Elizabeth was dead by then, but we'll ignore that!) Evan would be nine at this time, Elizabeth would be ten, and Michael would be fifteen.
-Overall, Henry would be the more involved parent. Joey likes kids, but when push comes to shove, Henry is the one that would do the tough stuff like giving Michael heck about skipping school again, or comforting Evan after Michael gave him hell again, or say no to Elizabeth when she's trying to go to a high schooler party held by a friend's big sibling again. Joey shows up for more of the fun stuff.
-That being said, even though Joey parents roughly as much as he feels like and not much more, that's still a lot more than William did. He wants to teach his kids that they can accomplish anything they put their minds to, and would tell them all kinds of stories and probably try to teach them about his Illusion of Living philosophy.
-Elizabeth could be. Interesting. She's willful and stubborn as heck and has got a bit of her father's ruthlessness in her, but she also has a decent conscience. Joey might be tempted to teach her a bit about the business world or even the Satanic world, but he'd be careful about letting her know too much, too quickly. Those two would be a pair, and would definitely have little secrets they keep from Henry- I'm just not sure whether those secrets would be on the level of, "I snuck her into a party when I said I was taking her to the movies," or the level of "I showed her how to draw a pentagram." Henry is nice and Elizabeth loves him, but she knows who the fun parent is.
-Henry doesn't play favourites. That being said, he is definitely Evan's favourite parent, and Henry definitely enjoyed seeing the little guy come out of his shell over time (Henry had found Evan’s initial timidity to be rather worrisome- the world was clearly not a friendly place in this kid’s eyes). Henry became his rock, and Evan even eventually told him What He Saw (a man dying due to a springlock failure). They're probably the closest pair in the family. Joey would try to push Evan to be bolder as well, since Joey has a thing about masculinity and a bigger thing about showing his kids that he believes in them.
-Michael likes to pretend that he's too old to need parental love or anything like that, but that’s just a front he puts up. He opens up a little at a time- Joey catches him hanging out in the hallway and listening in while Joey is telling the younger kids a story, Henry catches that Michael smells like cigarette smoke and offers to help him quit instead of punishing him and he actually takes him up on it, stuff like that. Michael would tell you that they're better than William at least, but honestly, he appreciates them more than he lets on even if Joey's teasing and Henry's discipline get on his nerves sometimes. Also, he'd probably bully Evan less both because it's harder to get away with now and because he has less reason to be mad at the world.