Deanna, the weakest vessel in the years to come

[dreadedcandiru2]

I have mentioned three things in the past that make Deanna fail as a parent.

1) She does not understand children at all well and greets conventional inconveniences with a look of primal horror.

2) She feels herself to be harshly judged by people who don't actually care about her one way or another.

and

3) She will do anything to not lay down the law and be like her evil, domineering mother.

The thing all these have in common is Deanna's dread of confronting people. She'll endure any horror as long as she doesn't have to risk alienating people by sticking to her guns.

This leads directly to the fourth form of failure: instead of dealing with a crying child and thus have the (indifferent) community-at-large shrug and go about its businesslook down on a bad mother, she resorts to some form of subterfuge to get what she wants. Just as it never occured to her that a sleeping child doesn't go all limp like a machine that got shut off, it never occured to her that people might feel sorry for her if Robin had a temper fit. Instead of getting some free sympathy, she did something time-consuming and risky: cutting his hair while he was asleep. If she's going to keep on doing this to avoid necessary confrontations, he's going to be an immature and dependant spoiled brat all his life. It's almost as bad as her fifth form of failure: maneuvering her children into not complaining about things that concern them. This will backfire on her because, as I've said, one fine day a teacher will encounter one of these kids after they get hurt. Their evasive refusal to go into specifics is, as we know, associated with victims of physical abuse. As I've also said, Deanna's dread of confrontation will end up getting her into a spot of bother with Children's Services.