Chapter 260: Mom Gets Led by the Nose

Monday, June 20, 2005 (Continued)

When Majella, Gina and Leanna were gone, Vanessa suggested, "Clean up, then coffees," so we all returned to the kitchen.

Vanessa divided up what dishes were ready, leaving two pots cooking for longer, then we all started cleaning up. It didn't take us long, especially with my helping so eagerly, in a pathetic attempt to look good for Mom. Conversation was entirely food related, which I'd normally think was great, but just made waiting for the axe to drop even worse. As we were finishing up, Mom interrupted my industrious bench wiping by tersely saying, "Come into the living room, Mark."

#1: <Oh boy. It's been nice knowing you fellas.>

We put down the cloth and moved to follow Mom. To our surprise, so did Carol.

To Mom's surprise too, causing her to say, "Just Mark, Carol."

"No, I'm coming too," insisted Carol.

Mom's surprise level rocketed upward. "Oh, why?"

"To defend Mark. I saw everything and he won't stick up for himself."

"I hope you did NOT see everything! He had sex with that girl, Julia and Ava, all at the same time."

#1: <Get ready to interrupt Carol if it looks like she's making a joke about wanting to see it. Mom's in NO mood for jokes like that.>

Fortunately Carol just said, "I didn't see THAT, but I saw everything else, including how excited Leanna was to have sex with him. It's not Mark's fault she got silly afterward. He gave her EXACTLY what she wanted."

"She wasn't ready for a wild foursome. She's only fifteen, for God's sake!"

Vanessa asked, "Carol, did Leanna know she was going to be part of a foursome?"

Julia answered, "I told everyone..."

Vanessa interrupted, "I asked Carol, Julia. See if you can sit out this entire conversation, unless specifically asked a question. It'll do you good."

Julia wasn't fazed by that, "Haha. You know how to frustrate me. Okay."

#5: <I'd REALLY like Vanessa to teach us how she can control Julia like that, but Mom wouldn't appreciate anything that resembled a joke at the moment.>

Vanessa prompted, "Carol?"

"She knew. Julia announced it before the competition."

"What sort of competition?"

"Rock, Paper, Scissors. The girls paired up and eliminated each other until only Leanna was left."

"Did Mark put any pressure on Leanna to enter?"

"He didn't talk with her before the competition at all. He was busy talking two other girls OUT of entering. He made a very funny joke out of it, and made sure everyone heard him, so they knew it was okay not to enter if they didn't want to. Mark's a GOOD PERSON!"

#4: <I could hear the "SO THERE!" at the end of that. When was the last time Carol stood up to Mom like this?>

#1: <I can't recall seeing her do it before.>

#8: <She did it BIG TIME in 3B-land, even threatening to kill herself because... >

#1, #2, #3, #4: <WHAT!... >

#8: <It was complicated, so I'll explain later. Carol's very loyal though. She stood up to Mom in a big argument over the pipeline system. That was after we were married in 3B-land. Mom had the idea that married guys shouldn't be able to date other girls, and Carol disagreed. That's how we knew Mom didn't trust Dad not to have an affair, because 3B's Vanessa spotted that from Mom's argument.>

Vanessa summarized, "So Julia announced the girls were competing to have a foursome, Mark discouraged girls from entering if they were unsure, Leanna entered and played well enough to win, not that there's much skill in it. She remained excited at the prospect until we saw her giggling on the way upstairs to the bedroom with Mark, Julia and Ava. Is that a good summary, Carol?"

"It's exactly right."

"On what we've heard so far, the fault seems to be almost entirely Leanna's. What do you think, Felicity?"

Mom answered, "I think I'm being led by the nose again. I'll admit that I didn't know all of that before."

"Clearly the girl was feeling angry at Mark, so it would have been foolish to rely on her version of events, wouldn't it, Felicity?"

Julia put up her hand, waving it at Vanessa.

"Yes Julia?"

"Leanna wasn't a virgin. Her conversation with us implied she'd had sex at least a few times before."

"Good point, thank you. So Felicity, the girl was sexually active thus knew what she was competing for. Can you think of anything significant that Mark should be reprimanded for thus far?"

"I certainly don't approve of his casual attitude to having sex. There's no romance whatsoever in having a competition to pick whom he goes to bed with. That the THREE of them go to bed with!"

"Mark's handsome, built like a Greek god, smart and rich. Women are going to be throwing themselves at him in droves all his life. He's going to get as much sex as he wants. I expect that many of the women who'll be chasing him won't have romance on their minds either. The sooner he learns to lose interest in meaningless sex, the better, wouldn't you say?"

#8: <Do you think we should tell Vanessa our opinion?>

#2: <Women have blind spots about some things. Vanessa's otherwise an exceptionally intelligent woman, yet she believes we'll lose interest in sex. I won't say "in meaningless sex", because that's just silly. It's like saying "bad money", or "ugly miniskirt".>

Mom answered, "I'd much rather he learned that when he's older."

Vanessa said, "I think the best time for children to learn something important about life is as soon as possible after they're mature enough to understand most of it, with the learning process taking them the rest of the way to full comprehension. I believe Mark is easily mature enough already..."

#8: <God! I hope not. No way do we want to learn there even is such a thing as "meaningless sex", let alone that we don't want it.>

" ... If he's ready to learn a lesson about life, wouldn't it be doing him a disservice to delay it?"

"Yes, dammit. You're very good at this."

"It's what I've been doing for a living most of my life. You're in among the trees so you can't see the forest, whereas I'm new on the scene so don't have any preconceptions. I'm also trained to see the big picture on ethical issues, and Julia and I have spent many hours talking about Mark's sex-life, so I'm coming into this topic already having thought about it a great deal. Even better than that, I've already been in your shoes, as it was Julia who convinced me to reverse my initial opinion that Mark should be monogamous.

^-- "I'm not saying that Mark is blameless. Leanna's anger was a good indication that he made a mistake with her, but the mistake wasn't what you were going to take him to task on. Leanna was the best person to judge her suitability for entering that competition, but she overestimated her maturity. That's not an uncommon failing of teenagers, and probably why they learn so rapidly during those years. I'm quite sure she'll wake up tomorrow and realize how foolish she was, that Mark was blameless, and that she did it to herself. Which makes me think of another aspect of this: what is Leanna going to think of this incident twenty years from now, Felicity?"

"Very little, I imagine. She'll probably prefer to forget it, as she'll feel embarrassed about it."

Vanessa disagreed, "I think it'll be one of her greatest memories and one of the highlights of her life." Vanessa then looked at Mom, waiting for Mom to get it

After a couple of seconds, Mom admitted, "Why?"

"Mark will be world famous. Possibly even the MOST world-famous person. With his potential, he could exceed Albert Einstein, Mahatma Gandhi, Bill Gates and Elvis Presley combined. You should NEVER forget that. I don't, and even if I did, Julia would quickly remind me. It's Mark's potential importance that drives me to confront you about him the way I do. I'd never be so rude toward any other woman about her son, but Mark's future outweighs politeness.

^-- "Let's concentrate on Leanna and Mark. In twenty years this evening will be one of the highlights of her life. Right now she's confused, tomorrow she'll be feeling foolish, and would normally feel embarrassed. Not in this case though, because her girlfriends will all want to know what it was like to have sex with Mark. Mark is already thought of highly enough in Leanna's circle that the attention and envy she'll be receiving tomorrow will quickly cheer her up. In a couple of days she'll be plotting ways to get back into Mark's bed. In short, the hour Leanna spent in his bed will likely bring her greater happiness throughout her life than any other hour of it, so I don't think Mark should be raked over the coals for harming her life in any way. So what's left to reprimand Mark for, Felicity?"

"Ahh. Nothing major. I still think he was taking advantage of the girl, and I don't approve of Carol seeing so much casual sexual behavior. Having that competition in front of Carol was a..."

Carol exclaimed, "It's GREAT for me to see these things, Mom! I'm learning a HUGE amount by watching all of this and listening to these discussions. How much am I going to learn by going to the movies with a boy and having him try to feel me up? I'm getting to see how dozens of girls handle sex, what they do well, what they mess up. I'm learning from all their mistakes and from your talking about their mistakes, rather than making mistakes myself. Unless you'd prefer me to make my own mistakes?"

Carol should've resisted getting smart at the end, because Mom doesn't appreciate being got smart at, "Yes I would, in about ten years time. You've got no need to learn about sex yet. Thirteen is WAY too young."

Vanessa reined Mom in, "Felicity, Carol is talking about UNDERSTANDING sex, not doing it. Thirteen is not 'way too young' to start understanding sex. I'd condemn the parents who isolated their daughter from all sex education until that age, but that's clearly not what you and Steven have done. Carol is sensible and mature well beyond her years, no doubt largely because of your parenting. She's hasn't been giggling like the proverbial schoolgirl, or asking silly questions, or showing other immature behaviors. She's been listening carefully and, I'm sure, understanding a great deal.

^-- "Let me contrast two of your parental attitudes, both to do with Mark. I'm sure that you and I would both agree that fifteen years of age is far too young for a boy to have control of millions of dollars, yet we have both trusted Mark with that. We've seen him struggle with it sometimes, and we've seen him get angry over the troubles it gives him. I know his bank manager annoyed him, and I wasn't the least surprised when Julia pushed him too far. He's struggling and he's making mistakes, and you don't appear to have any inclination to rake him over the coals for those mistakes.

^-- "I'm sure that you and I would also agree that fifteen years of age is far too young for a boy to have so much sex, yet we are both trusting him with that. You trusted him to have Julia as his girlfriend, and were helpful when it came to their having a physical relationship. But as soon as their sexual horizons expanded beyond a monogamous relationship, you've reacted by wanting to rake him over the coals for every mistake you think he's made, before you've taken to time to ascertain the facts of the situation.

^-- "It's arguable which is the more important to learn about, sex or money, but it's inarguable that both are extremely important. It's ESSENTIAL that Mark learns about both, he IS doing an excellent job of learning about them, and he's naturally making a few mistakes along the way, that being an inevitable part of learning. Of the two, Julia and I are amazed by how fast he's learning about sex. Not just the physical act, but the minefield of issues that surrounds it. Let me remind you that he spotted your sexual insecurity about Steven. That speaks volumes about Mark's depth of understanding. Steven hadn't spotted it in twenty years of intimate married life, yet Mark worked it out in the absence of any knowledge of your intimate life and from knowing virtually nothing about sexual relationships three months ago. That speed of learning is truly wondrous.

^-- "You should have great confidence in his sexual maturity, yet your only frequent reaction is to rake him over the coals every time you think he might've stumbled, even in cases like Leanna's where it's clear that the girl is almost entirely at fault. You don't blink when Mark stumbles over a financial issue, but you greatly overreact to sexual issues. What's worse, each time you leap to your negative conclusions, you're reinforcing your opinion that Mark is a bad person who mistreats girls for his own sexual pleasure, which will make you even quicker to jump to the same conclusion the next time Mark looks sideways at a girl. That's how prejudices reinforce themselves.

^-- "There are two things that I know are true: Mark IS going to have sex with many more girls, and when you make the mistake of reprimanding him, he's going to take your abuse knowing you are wrong. He won't stand up for himself, but if he's smart enough to see your insecurity about Steven, he's certainly smart enough to judge his own actions. Unless you confront your prejudice, it's going damage your relationship with him. I suggest it already has, because he's already hiding his sexual activities from you, because he knows you'll react incorrectly to them.

^-- "This is the point in the conversation where I'd normally end my lecture and let you apologize to Mark. I can see that's what you're about to do, but I'm going to suggest something different this time. Last night we had a very similar conversation when you repeatedly leaped to the wrong conclusions when Mark hit us with Carol's sexual kink and his worrying about Donna's sexual development. After your mistakes last night, you apologized to Mark and said you'd try harder in the future. I watched your behavior during Leanna's upset, and I didn't see you try at all. It never occurred to you that the girl might've been the architect of her own upset, or that you should gather more information before judging, and it especially never occurred to you to trust Mark, which was the main failure that you apologized so profusely for last night."

#1: <Poor Mom looks sick. Vanessa has politely ripped her a new one.>

#3: <I'm confused. Vanessa told Mom she needs more active involvement in our life, but now she's almost told Mom that she's the worst mother ever.>

#6: <I think we should stand still and keep saying absolutely nothing.>

#8: <That's for sure! I don't have a clue what to say, which means I'd almost certainly screw it up if I said anything.>

Vanessa continued, "I'm going to mention a couple more conversation points, and then tell you what I recommend you do instead of repeating another daily apology to Mark. In Ethics it can be very helpful to swap the positions around. For example, if in 2002 Iraq had created false intelligence and had used it to get the UN to sanction their invading the USA in EXACTLY the way we did them, including - I'm hypothesizing - with an overwhelming and successful military force, then what would we be asking the rest of the world to do now? That's a question that makes many of my students react with anger. It's possible to create two scenarios which are ethically equal but mirror images, to which people react very differently. It's a good way to expose their prejudices or other emotional issues. You made the same mistake two evenings in a row, even though you admitted your fault and apologized after the first occurrence. Let's turn that around and imagine Mark did something very bad last night, was caught and apologized for it, and then repeated exactly the same mistake just now. You'd throw the book at him for breaking his promise not to repeat that mistake, so why aren't you throwing the book at yourself for doing the same thing? You should be holding yourself to a higher standard of behavior than that of a 15-year old boy, yet you are condemning Mark FAR harsher than you are condemning yourself. Why are you being so unfair to him? Please answer."

Mom had no trouble suggesting it was because of her insecurity over Dad, but Vanessa asked for more. They went around the issue for a couple of minutes, with Mom not adding anything of any substance.

After which Vanessa said, "It's because the INSTANT you suspect Mark has committed a sexual impropriety, you do two things. Yes, you get angry as you admitted, but you also immediately consider him to be worthless. As 'just another cheating male.' You don't stop to think, ask questions, try to understand reasons, or take any other sensible steps, because why bother to make any effort at all when he's worthless in your eyes. If Carol had treated a boy the same way you thought Mark had treated that girl, you'd be very concerned about her and you'd sit down to have a serious conversation with her about her behavior. But with Mark all you were interested in doing was unleashing a tirade on him. Your reaction is gender-specific, and it's clearly because that insecurity that Mark identified is still raging out of control, and is based on an irrational prejudice about male sexual behaviors."

Mom barely got started on an apologetic agreement, when Vanessa shut her down. Vanessa let Mom's agreement stand, but the apology got dismissed. "Last night you apologized several times for the same thing, Felicity. I'm sure you wouldn't accept apologies in the event of repeated transgressions by your children, so they're not sufficient from you either. Your core issue is a prejudice against men's sexual behavior. Mark is going to continue to be sexually active, so your irrational response is going to be triggered many more times. I'm at a loss how to fix your gender-wide prejudice, but maybe I can change your understanding of Mark's value, so you won't consider him 'just another worthless male' again. Another tool we use in Ethics is a simplified scenario. Let's imagine my family is fishing from a small boat and a bad storm comes up and capsizes the boat..."

#5: <It's this terrible boat again. Talk about déjà vu, haha.>

#1: <You're joking about déjà vu, right? Because I can't sense anything.>

#8: <In 3B-land, Vanessa gave our family the "Sinking Boat, Everyone Drowning" scenario. It's amusing to hear it come up again. Just listen, and you'll understand.>

" ... and knocks everyone out except Prof. We're stupidly not wearing lifejackets, so we're all going to drown except Prof and ONE other person that he can hold up. He can't hold two, only one. Who should he choose to save? In our culture the answer's obviously Julia, as she's the youngest and female. Similarly if Prof was knocked out but some else in my family was awake. We'd all rescue Julia as that's how Americans value people in must-choose situations like that.

^-- "Now imagine your family is in the boat instead. A storm comes up and the boat capsizes, knocking out everyone except you. Who do you save Felicity?"

Mom said nothing, just shifting uncomfortable.

Vanessa pressed, "I want you to answer, Felicity."

"That's definitely not an answer I want to give in front of two of my children. That's guaranteed to upset at least one of them..."

"I'm sure it won't upset either of them. I could talk about the need for them to know that life-or-death decisions are sometimes forced on people, and other related points, but those aren't relevant in this case. Your answer isn't going to affect them in any of the ways you're worrying about."

#5: <We can make ourselves look smart here... >

#6: <I was thinking the same thing. Vanessa doesn't NEED Mom to answer. Not for her main point anyway. She might have a side benefit we haven't thought of, but it'd probably be better to score some intelligence points with Mom. She doesn't see us be super-smart about people often, and we want all the brownie points we can get before the marriage discussion comes up. God knows we understand people so poorly that opportunities to score brownie points have to be grabbed every chance we get.>

#1: <3A doesn't have a clue what you're talking about?>

#6: <It'd take too long to explain. Trust us on this, okay?>

#1: <I normally wouldn't trust you as far as I can throw you, but maybe just this once.>

#8: <If you throw me, you'd better not squeeze my ass like you were doing with the girls at the pool. My mother warned me about guys who wear bright yellow Speedos.>

I said, "I think Mom's been beaten up enough from this conversation, Vanessa, and her naming her choice isn't necessary to achieve your main objective, especially not once we all get into the bigger boat. I'd rather you went easy on her please?"

"You know where I'm going with this?"

"Sure. It's simple to project your scenario to its logical conclusion, especially because there was no real need for you to use your family in the first scenario unless you were going to resurrect them for fairly obvious third scenario."

"Julia hasn't used the 'Capsized Boat' scenario with you before?"

#8: <It's true that this body hasn't heard it before.>

I answered, "No. Julia prefers to use 'Clothes Shopping' scenarios, and then carrying them out for real." Julia chuckled at that.

Vanessa said, "I'm VERY impressed, Mark. That's extremely quick thinking."

"It's logical thinking. That's easy. If you asked me to tell you what clothes Julia's going to wear tomorrow, I'd be all at sea."

I got some more laughs for that. Not from Mom though, as she was too busy being confused, which is exactly what I wanted. If she was confused and she knew I wasn't, then I must be smarter than her, which obviously and logically led straight to the inescapable conclusion that I should be allowed to marry Carol (hopefully).

#5: <I've got a nice, little idea. Listen to this.>

I said, "Mom's confused, Vanessa. She's not used to seeing the big picture, so she thinks we're talking about the detail issue of who to pick." I turned to Mom, "Mom, Vanessa and I know you'd pick either Carol or Donna, and we're pretty sure which of those two as well. But for the main point that Vanessa is going to make it doesn't matter which. Let's just say that visibility is so bad that you'd keep searching, going past Dad and me, until you found the first of the two girls, and you'd rescue whichever one that was. Are you comfortable with that as your answer?"

"Not really, no. I'm not comfortable with the casual way you dismissed yourself and Steven. That..."

"You have to choose ONE person, Mom. You're getting stuck on details again. OF COURSE I don't want Dad to die, but he sees his role in life to be creating his kids' lives. He'd be pretty upset with you if you rescued him rather than one of his kids."

Vanessa added, "Mark has very impressively leaped ahead several steps, Felicity. Don't take his speed of thought to mean he's a cold-hearted brute. Mark would've taken your abuse about what you thought was his mistreatment of Leanna, even though he knew you were wrong, because he'd rather not hurt your feelings by defending himself. He's not cold-hearted. I'll move on because this is taking too long.

^-- "If Felicity is the one who is awake, she'll rescue Carol or Donna. If Steven was the sole conscious person, we can assume he'd make the same decision as Felicity. Carol, do you know who you'd save if you were the one who was awake?"

Carol rather too obviously enjoyed saying, "Of course. I don't even have to think about it."

Vanessa asked, "Who?"

"Mark obviously. It's a no-brainer, because of his big brain, haha."

"That's right. Felicity; you and Steven should..."

I interrupted, "Skip that point, Vanessa. Go straight to the bigger boat. It's kinder on Mom and it probably works better too, because it's making the point without pushing her to change her mind."

"OHH, I get it!" announced Julia. Adding, "Wow Mark. You worked it out way back at the beginning, AND you didn't know about Mom's boat scenario before. You're VERY impressive."

Julia grabbed my arm in her usual style, while adding more compliments. To my pleasure, Carol mirrored Julia with my other arm. Grabbing my arm, holding it against her heart (and you know what else), and retaining it there while she added her compliments too.

#5: <Are we risking Mom's getting upset about our arm being in Carol's breast, or Carol's holding us like a girlfriend?>

#8: <I think Mom's too confused to notice at the moment. Or maybe I just want to leave our arm there.>

Mom asked, "How come I'm the only one who doesn't know what you're talking about?"

"You're not the only one, Mom; Carol doesn't know either. But in her case, she doesn't need to know the logic because she already agrees with the answer. Vanessa, you'd better take us all out fishing again."

Vanessa chuckled, "Okay. It is better coming from me..."

I nodded along, to show off my understanding, never mind how I'd gotten it.

" ... Felicity, as Mark suggested, now imagine both our families get into a bigger boat and go out fishing again. There's yet another storm, the boat's capsized and everybody is knocked out except Prof. Who does he save?"

Mom didn't have any trouble answering, "Julia."

Julia looked like she might giggle, so I NP'd her lips shut.

Vanessa said, "No, not Julia. Try again?"

I said, "Think of the big picture, Mom. What's the point Vanessa is trying to steer you toward?"

It took Mom less time than I expected, only a couple of seconds before the lightbulb lit up. She looked at Vanessa and checked, "Mark?"

"Yes, Mark. Everyone in my family would rescue Mark instead of Julia. Mainly because if we rescued Julia she'd never forgive us for it."

"DAMN RIGHT!" declared Julia. "I'd be EXTREMELY angry at whichever one of you hypothetical morons did that."

Vanessa answered, "Haha. Seeing as you're insulting your hypothetical mother, I'll let you get away with that one. Felicity, if everyone in my family would choose Mark over our Julia, who do we think you and Steven should save?"

"This isn't a tit-for-tat situation. You're saying we should save Mark too, not Julia?"

"Absolutely. Mark every time. I'm trying to get you to realize how important Mark is. Yes, he is one of your three children, but he's not 'one of three'. Mark is an incredible valuable, UNIQUE phenomenon. I've told you that before, but it's not sinking in, so maybe a sinking boat might help you, haha.

^-- "The 'Capsized Boat' scenario was purely hypothetical, but Prof and Mark have already been in a life-or-death situation together. Prof was willing to lay down his life if he'd been able to get Mark free..."

#5: <SHIT! FUCK! I didn't see that coming. Tell her to stop.>

I (#1, because 3B weren't going to participate for a while) begged, "Vanessa, PLEASE stop. I'm sorry, but I can't handle that."

3B's reactions must have been visible on our face, because everybody became instantly sympathetic, Vanessa also apologizing as well, saying, "I'm sorry Mark. Had I known it affected you so deeply I wouldn't have mentioned it."

I (#1 again), "It hits me where it hurts, and you caught me by surprise. I need some fresh air; I'll go outside for a couple of minutes."

Julia and Carol were attached to me, and they both offered to come with me.

"I appreciate your offers, but I literally only need a minute or two to compose myself. It'll be easier if I'm alone. Please let me go."

What's the chance that in my moment of emotional need, my two girls would let me go? They LIVE for stuff like that. I suspect they'd even stop shopping if they saw me in such need. It wasn't worth the battle, so I led them outside for some fresh air.

I truly only wanted a few seconds alone to compose myself, and having the girls with me making the comments they did, made my settling down considerably slower; but they were doing their best and for good reasons so I accepted them without making a scene.

[[The Mark of this autobiography jokes many times about how impossible it is for him, or any male, to understand females. If it's any consolation to my male readers, the reverse applies too: females also don't understand males. When females are upset, they need to share it. When males are upset, the last thing they want is to be with other people who are insisting on talking about it. Julia and Carol had no understanding of that. They saw I was very upset, and they very much wanted to help me, so in their ignorance of the male psyche, they did exactly the wrong thing.]]

Presumably we could've ordered our symptoms to go away, as we had for nervousness several times, but none of us wanted to do that, not even any of 3A. There's a sort of perverse need to feel grief, even though it's a horrible feeling. It was important to 3B that they mourned their Prof properly, which turning off the physical reactions would've cheapened. 3A could very easily empathize with 3B, so they didn't interfere with 3B's reactions.