Buffy was right, Giles wasn't happy about Buffy wanting to tell her mother about being the Slayer, the supernatural and the dangers of Sunnydale. He had what he thought were very good reasons.
"Buffy, it's for your family's safety and security that you can't tell them about being the Slayer. You'll endanger your mother, she can't protect herself if one attacks her!"
"She can't protect herself now, Giles! Like Cordelia pointed out, she can't identify one on sight, she could end up inviting one in the house. She doesn't even know to take precautions after dark and Cordelia's right, what if a vampire is smart enough to think about studying me or my routine. They'd find out about my mother and then use her against me. It's safer for her to know and I'm going to tell her!"
"Bloody Hell, this would be so much easier if we'd found you when you were a Potential!"
"Why would that be easier?" Buffy asked, confused.
"Because we would have raised you ourselves and trained you from a young age."
Silence from the assembled teens as they stared at the Watcher and then Xander spoke. "How and why would you be raising her? She has parents, ones who love her. They love her so much they sought treatment for her when they thought she was having a mental problem. They didn't do that because they were being abusive, so how would your Council even get their hands on her to raise her?"
"I'm unsure of the Council's methods, but as it's much easier to prepare a Potential for the possibility of being Called if we start from a young age, having custody of them helps."
"Since our inquires showed your Council has no legal standing in any country, then it follows that they also have no legal authority to gain custody of a Potential." Xander glared at Giles. "Which suggests less then legal methods of 'acquiring' one."
"We have a responsibility, to protect humanity, that requires sacrifice,"
"Oh, give me a break, you're not the ones making any sacrifices, it's these Potentials and their families being made to make those sacrifices." Cordelia growled at him. "And it's totally unnecessary. Xanders right, you're enslaving them under the mantra of 'it's for the greater good'. It's not for the greater good, it's for the greater glory of the Council! Once again you're going way beyond your stated purpose of supporting the Slayer. No wonder they keep dying young and fast, they have no actual support!"
"I'm a normal human." Jesse told him. "I'm not a Wesen or a Grimm or a Slayer. Uncle Rory's training me to fight, to use weapons, to protect myself and others against vampires and I do it every night, for a couple of hours every night, I go out and find vampires and I dust them. I help Xander dust them, because I want to help, to support him in his job of being a Grimm. What do you actually do to help Buffy?"
"A Slayer, Slays, a Watcher, Watches. That's what you told me the first day I met you." Buffy said quietly. "You told me your job was to train me, to prepare me. So far all you've done is some research and wear pads while I practice the instinctive fighting skills I have and tell me I keep dropping my shoulder. How exactly are you helping or supporting me, really helping or supporting me? You haven't me asked how I'm doing after witnessing a dead human made dead by another human. You haven't asked what fighting a human sized bug was like, both were nightmare inducing. I need my mother, Giles. I'm sixteen and terrified and you have no idea how to actually help or support me. You want me to be the perfect Slayer and welcome anything that makes me accepting of the Slayer and being willing to be out there fighting, but that's because you see me as nothing more than the Slayer! What's it going to take for you to see I'm also a sixteen year old girl, whether I'm raised by your Council or not? To care about me as more than the Slayer? Will it take witnessing me being terrified or nearly dying to see I'm human and I bleed red blood just like you?"
"That's what your training has been?" Xander asked. "Just you practicing the instinctive fighting skills while he wears pads? He hasn't tried to add to it? Do exercises? You mentioned that he said you don't understand your powers or how they work, has he tried to help you understand them?"
"Once, at the Bronze, the night Willow was taken. He talked about me honing my ability to sense vampires and to reach out with my mind. It was the only time he mentioned it."
"Well, I told you how to do it. You should be practicing it." Giles informed her.
"Practice doing something I didn't understand and you only mentioned once? How am I supposed to do that? Do you expect me to just know?"
"I'm guessing he does, Buffy." Xander said. "I think he's acquainting instinct with skill. They're two entirely different things. I understand you activated on your fifteenth birthday and Giles is your second Watcher. How did your first Watcher train you?"
"He threw a knife at my head without warning to prove I'd activated, I caught it. Then he took me to a graveyard and waited for a vampire to rise and let me fight it and eventually stake it. He said 'now do you see your power?' Then he mostly did what Giles does, wear pads while I practiced the instinctive abilities."
"Have you learned any weapons yet?"
"No, it hasn't come up."
"I activated at the beginning of summer, last year. Just from what you've listed I guarantee I'm better trained than you. If Giles and this Merrick's idea of training and supporting is the same as their Council's than it really is no surprise you Slayers die young and fast." Xander said grimly. "They expect you to just know what you're doing, but even instinct needs to be exercised. If you want to spar with me, I'd welcome it. We can get stronger together."
A/N Don't flame me please, the arguments in this chapter are not meant to malign Giles. They're based on the training methods seen in the show and movie that both he and Merrick were actually seen using. Buffy did more training on her own in later seasons than Giles is ever shown giving her. He was great at research though. Mostly, given that he never researched the soul curse.