I wish I had a father like John Smith.

No you wouldn't. That house may be pretty and their clothes may be perfectly ironed, but that's all a facade. This family is in a constant state of flux and anxiety. They may not be riding on buses or escaping cities via underground tunnels in the middle of the night, but keeping up that show is tiresome.

Have you noticed how many times in the two seasons either the husband or the wife has been up at night because they can't sleep? I mean, dang. Plus, mom's on barbiturates and who knows what else. They all drink heavily. Every time Helen and John talk on the phone it's some type of coded, stilted call. Ick. That's not living.

You be seriously messed up. HenceThomas' final decision.

Well, if you're talking leading, I'd say the only positive aspect of the Smith family is that the parents are kind of both heads of the household. Helen plays the game just as much as her husband and is a force to be reckoned with. While they don't have an equal division of labor, I guess it's the closest you'll get in their universe. John even told Joe as much when Wegener visited in season one. I mean, even Tony gave Carmela zero power under the guise of plausible deniability. It's not actual equality or anything approximating it, but as much you can have when your domain is the house/kids and his is the office. That whole '50s mess about men leading the house is an old trope that needs to die soon.

Separately, they're not good parents because they 1) believe everyone else's children are worth less than theirs, 2) actively fuel that belief in their children and 3) are setting their kids up for a hard fall. Don't know if you've seen the finale yet, but I'd consider them pretty horrible parents given the outcome. Good parents aren't nazis. That may be on more of an existential level than the day to day fatherhood thing, but it still ends up terribly.