On the prevention of maturity......

The interesting part of the way that John and Elly raise their children is, of course, the goal they seem to have in mind; unlike, say, Evil Mira who had the evil goal of evilly wanting Deanna to be a mature adult capable of making her own decisions and standing on her own two feet, John and Elly seem to wish to derail the maturation process and keep their children childish and dependent on them for their emotional needs. This, as clio_1 said, is why they sent them to Exile Farm; rather than face the terrible spectre of the offsprings and small ones outgrowing the need to please their parents, they did their damnedest to disrupt any unapproved-of relationship that might interrupt the flow of tribute they expect owing to their self-centered conversion of a moral obligation into a sacrifice. Elly's jealousy of people who were having a better time because they had the body, the language and the smarts to realize that their problems are of their own making was simply the icing on the "You owe us for feeding, clothing and housing you so don't repeat what that awful Martha girl said about that being 100%, Grade-A, All-Canadian bullshit" cake. The only person who escaped the gravitational pull of John and Elly's endless need to be paid tribute is, of course, the awful child who ruined the last two decades of Elly's life before she could; not only did Elly not care about the Martian creature because there were no horses to be owned, there was no Anthony to reinforce the need to repay her parents for all the horrible sacrifices they thought were optional. Combine that with the snobbery that the Pattersons and their lickspittles don't admit to and you'll see that there are new depths to plumb. I'll explore the revolting and silly way that Lynn likes to assign people roles based on how much money their parents have tomorrow; suffice to say for now that there's a good reason why Gordo never went to University and why Anthony vaguely resents being his lackey.