The Lessons Not Learned Phase of the Strandening, Part Two.

As I said yesterday, all that John and Elly know about what happened is the incoherent and fact-free mush issuing forth from their son's mouth. They don't know that Fred has no business operating a boat, they don't know how cold and miserable Mike and the others were or how desperate the situation was because they didn't bother to inquire further for a telling and, as it turns out, consistent reason: a Patterson will blindly accept what someone says if it matches his or her preconceptions and also doesn't require action on his or her part.

This is why Elly wants to shut down any conversation about who started what when her kids argue: she might have to find out what's going on in her own house and accept the fact that what children do might actually matter. Worse, she might actually have to start thinking that being a mother is actually important and since she looks down on the sort of housewife she actually is, that ain't happening, is it? It's also why she blathers idiotically about making friends with that skeeby little mongrel Jeremy. In her empty mind, all April has to do is be friendlier to an irrational thug who wants to break her into itty-bitty bits because he's as crazy as a shit-house rat and he'll become suddenly wonderful and not come to the unsupportable and idiotic conclusion that somehow, April knows about his home life. Elly doesn't want to hear anything that would cause her to have to get off her ass and parent or make her realize that a preconception that makes her feel good is inoperative. In the Strandening arc, it means that Elly thinks that Mike's date was ruined by crazy parents and siblings who intruded for some reason.