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I'd like to expand a bit more on that being as stupid as a brick that ate paint chips as a kid thing that seems to hamper Elly's effectiveness as a parent that I talked about yesterday. The specific form of idiocy I'd like to comment on is her never really figuring out when to pick her battles. As we've seen, she folds when it really, really matters and turns into Attila the Hun in mom jeans when it doesn't matter worth a damn. Given her obsession with the frightening possibility that her children will grow into adults overnight and her realization that her having to defend herself against what she saw as a tide of chaos designed specifically to overwhelm and defeat her meant that's pretty much exactly what happened, you would tend to think that she'd finally have realized what the small stuff was and why not to sweat it. Sadly, you'd be wrong about that.
The reason you'd be wrong about that is that Lynn has declared on many occasions that she takes pride in doing the same stupid, damaging things as her mother did. She likes having shrieked in Aaron's face that she'd have had more children if he weren't such a monster because her mother did that and she turned out great! Similarly, what Elly took away from the little more time strip is that if the children had admitted that instead of her tolerating their behaviour, they should have been good kids and obeyed her without question, they would have have a lot more time. It can't be her fault really because as far as she knows, doing it Marian's way is the right and only way. We thus seem to be dealing with someone as simple-minded as a teenaged girl or a newspaper reporter in that she blindly follows the example of the first random idiot she meets. This is why we have any number of foolish fads, idiotic articles about fads that don't actually exist and Elly screaming blue murder because picking her battles would mean betraying her mother.
The reason you'd be wrong about that is that Lynn has declared on many occasions that she takes pride in doing the same stupid, damaging things as her mother did. She likes having shrieked in Aaron's face that she'd have had more children if he weren't such a monster because her mother did that and she turned out great! Similarly, what Elly took away from the little more time strip is that if the children had admitted that instead of her tolerating their behaviour, they should have been good kids and obeyed her without question, they would have have a lot more time. It can't be her fault really because as far as she knows, doing it Marian's way is the right and only way. We thus seem to be dealing with someone as simple-minded as a teenaged girl or a newspaper reporter in that she blindly follows the example of the first random idiot she meets. This is why we have any number of foolish fads, idiotic articles about fads that don't actually exist and Elly screaming blue murder because picking her battles would mean betraying her mother.
