I know - I never understood why Joyce was so vilified. Yeah, she was insensitive at times, but she certainly didn't qualify as either abusive or neglectful - just human. I imagine most of the people who complain are just looking at it from Buffy's POV. Given that it appears Joyce's marriage broke up over Buffy's weird behavior, and she had to leave town, become a single parent and build a new life she was probably more than a bit frazzled until she found out that there really were vampires.