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As I write this, I do so in the knowledge that Bil Keane commented on the habit children have to trying to avoid punishment by feigning ignorance by creating a series of gremlins. The first member of this family is a mischievous little fellow named "Not Me" and his job was to represent the charming tendency kids have to throw a sibling under the bus. A little while later, his girlfriend "Ida Know" showed up to do the double duty of castigating children for not enunciating a language they were just learning as clearly as a fifty year old man as well as making a sour commentary about how kids aren't all that good at feigning ignorance because they make it obvious that they do know. Bil might have had the generosity of spirit to have the grandparents tell an exasperated Bil and Thel that they too blamed them as well as showing Bil and Thel as grandparents telling an adult Dolly that those jokers will be around as long as there are children. Where he failed is that he assumed that all adults outgrow the use of these creatures and live in a world of honesty about their actions.
As Foob shows, this is not the case. It has always seemed to me that Elly's real best friend has never been Connie Poirier. Instead, her truest friend is a translucent cartoon ghost with the name "Ida Know" stenciled on her chest. As by way of example, let's remind ourselves of when Liz got playing with that bag of milk and unintentionally broke it. We know that Lizzie felt as if she might as well run off because Mommy was sure to throw her out anyway. Should someone have asked Elly why her child is afraid of her rages, the response would quite probably be "I don't know." This is because of something Bil never thought of: an adult lacking in self-awareness. He could live in a world of children pretending that they didn't know but not a world where supposedly grown people were unaware of why things happened and how they affected the world around them.
This means that his belief that people were honest about how their actions affected those around them was also overly generous. This is because he could probably watch John make boneheaded mistake after boneheaded mistake as a husband and father and claim that its' not his fault that his wife feels frustrated or that his children think of him as an ogre when everyone knows he's a really cool guy and assume that he's just saving face. He refused to live in a world where a grown man could say that it must be Not Me's fault that Elly thought of John as a chauvinistic pork-butt or that his kids thought of him as being a short-tempered loon who can't take what he dishes out.
As Foob shows, this is not the case. It has always seemed to me that Elly's real best friend has never been Connie Poirier. Instead, her truest friend is a translucent cartoon ghost with the name "Ida Know" stenciled on her chest. As by way of example, let's remind ourselves of when Liz got playing with that bag of milk and unintentionally broke it. We know that Lizzie felt as if she might as well run off because Mommy was sure to throw her out anyway. Should someone have asked Elly why her child is afraid of her rages, the response would quite probably be "I don't know." This is because of something Bil never thought of: an adult lacking in self-awareness. He could live in a world of children pretending that they didn't know but not a world where supposedly grown people were unaware of why things happened and how they affected the world around them.
This means that his belief that people were honest about how their actions affected those around them was also overly generous. This is because he could probably watch John make boneheaded mistake after boneheaded mistake as a husband and father and claim that its' not his fault that his wife feels frustrated or that his children think of him as an ogre when everyone knows he's a really cool guy and assume that he's just saving face. He refused to live in a world where a grown man could say that it must be Not Me's fault that Elly thought of John as a chauvinistic pork-butt or that his kids thought of him as being a short-tempered loon who can't take what he dishes out.
