No More Learning

For the establishment of the psychology of the unprejudiced man a non- threatening father figure may indeed be of great importance. It makes it possible for the son to include in his conception of masculinity some measure of passivity. Not feeling greatly threatened by the father, the unprejudiced man is apparently less afraid of losing his masculinity. He thus does not have
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to overcompensate for such? fear by an overly rigid ego-ideal of aggressive toughness. The unprejudiced man did not as a rule have to submit to stern authority in his childhood; in his later life, therefore, he neither longs for strong authority nor needs to assert his strength against those who are weaker.
3. IMAGE OF THE FATHER IN WOMEN:THE ROLE OF PROVIDER
Let us now turn to the traits ascribed to the father by our women inter- viewees. Since our data on women are, by and large, less complete than those on the men, there will be even fewer cases in each of these categories than were found for men. Significance in the statistical sense has not been estab- lished for any of the categories used. A few illustrations will be given to illuminate the meaning of our concepts, but less emphasis will be placed upon the discussion of quantitative results.
The opportunism found in high-scoring women, together with their under- lying hostility towards men, discussed later, made us expect that they would tend to see their fathers mainly as sources of provision. It was statements like the following which led to this assumption: "Father was extremely devoted to family-will work his fingers to the bone for them-never has done any drinking" (F7z). Another of the prejudiced extremes, F24, in stress- ing how "wonderful" her father is, explains: "He is always willing to do anything for you. " Another subject in this group, F6g, describes her father as follows: "Works hard-very serious-gets no fun out of life at all. "
Six of the high- and only r of the low-scoring women stress the provider guality in their fathers (Category 6Wa). It is this quality that high-scoring women seem to value primarily in men and which, rather than affection, is often the source of their dependency on men. There is indeed little evidence of a genuine positive relation of prejudiced women toward their fathers. The exploitive attitude toward men in general on the part of high-scoring women will be discussed again later in connection with attitudes toward the other sex.
The notion of the father as a moral-model did not differentiate between high- and low-scoring women (Category 6Wb).
The families of our high-scoring subjects often seem to be highly conven- tional and respectable; however, reference is sometimes made to a psycho- pathic background. But even in the latter case-as will be seen in the material about delinquents in Chapter XXI-there is often a great deal of convention- ality and stress on middle-class values in the same context with delinquent behavior.
A few of our high-scoring women describe their fathers in such terms as to make it appear that they were psychopaths. Whether this description corresponds to fact, or is merely gross exaggeration or the result of the underlying contempt many of these women seem to have for men, is diffi- cult to decide offhand. Our best course is probably to assume a combination
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of these trends. In the accusations made by these subjects against the father, the main reproach is usually directed against his not having provided enough for the family.
F66 says: "My father could not stay put. We lived in _ _ _ ,and I don't know how many other places. "
F68 relates that her father "never worked in his life. He was a gambler, an adven- turer who broke his family's heart. "
This may serve as an example of the fact that once the high scorer turns against the parents-which happens only rarely-there is a tendency to make them out as real villains.
For the presumedly "Low" alternatives to the above traits ascribed to the father by women, namely the conception of a warm, lovable, and understand- ing father, the absolute number of responses was small. Discussion of them may therefore be omitted.
However, as many as 6 of the low-scori,ng as against only I of the high- scoring women described their fathers as intellectual-aesthetic (Category 6We). Interest in intellectual and artistic endeavor is usually more pro- nounced in low-scoring persons, a fact that is in line with the "intraceptive" quality found to be more characteristic of the unprejudiced.
4. IMAGE OF THE MOTHER: SACRIFICE, MORALISM, RESTRICTIVENESS The list of traits ascribed by our subjects to their mothers was constructed somewhat similarly to their counterparts referring to the father; and the results tend to be analogous. However, while the conception of the father by high-scoring men was, on the basis of our exploratory analysis of the interviews, expected to be best characterized by the term "stern," the cor- responding image of the mother was expected to be that of a sacrificing, kind, submissive person. And likewise, as prejudiced women tend to refer to the provider role in their fathers, they also tend to look at their mothers primarily from the point of view of what she gives them or how well she
took care of them when they were children.
Nine of the high- and only 2 of the low-scoring men had this conception
of their mothers. Among the former, M57 says about his mother: "She was a hard working lady, took care of us kids; she never did mistreat us in any way. " The idea of a mother giving everything to the child is expressed espe- cially clearly in the following quotation from the protocol of another high- scoring man, M 13. " "Mother was sick in bed a great deal of the time. She devoted her last strength to us kids. " Emphasis on "devoting" the last strength carries the connotation of a limitless sacrifice devoid of healthy mutuality.
M 13 further describes his mother as "a Methodist and quite strict up until her death. I was sick much of the time. She brought us up very strictly under this guid- ance. "
? P ARENTS AND CHILDHOOD SEEN THROUGH INTERVIEWS 367 A total of 6 high- and 2 low. :. scoring men consider the mother as a moral-
model (Category 7Mb).
Thus another of the high-scoring men, M47, says of his mother: "She always taught me the difference between right and wrong, the things I should do and shouldn't. "
This latter record also illustrates the absolute certainty with which many of the high-scoring subjects and their parents view "what is right and what is wrong"-the usual yardstick, however, being social approval or disapproval. This view is frequently accompanied by a good deal of intolerance toward deviations from what is "right. " When present in parents, this attitude may well lead to rigid identifications and repressions in the children, thus leaving parts of their personality unmodifiable and unsublimated.
The general orientation toward affection in the low-scoring subjects, and the impression that they actually had received more love, led to the expecta- tion that low-scoring men would conceive of t~eir mothers as warm, sociable, lovable, as understanding, and as intellectual-aesthetic (Categories 7Mc-e). Of these three traits the first was the most differentiating: 9 low-scoring and none of the high-scoring men described the mother in terms similar to "warm, sociable, lovable. " The warmth of the relationship between mother and son in the low-scoring men seems crucial for the development of their general concern with love (in contradistinction to power) and of their other humani- tarian attitudes. The quality of "understanding" in the image of the mother did not differentiate very well; however, 5 of the low- and none of the high- scoring men mention intellectual-aesthetic inclinations in their mothers. An example of the latter attitude from the records of low-scoring men fol- lows:
Mso says about his mother: "An intellectual and a very well educated person. Her principal gift seems to be that of perception. And an artist not by trade but cer- tainly by nature. "
Similar passages, referring to the mother's interest in music or painting, are found in the protocols of the other low-scoring men in this classification. The woman's conception of the mother is covered by a somewhat different list of traits (Category 7W). Again, the data here are rather incomplete, due to the specificity of the categories involved and the comparative incomplete- ness of the women's interviews. However, 10 high- and only 2 low-scoring women describe their mothers by what may be summarized under the term restricting. Thus F36, the high scorer who was quoted above as displaying drastic rejection of, as well as submission toward, her mother, described the
latter as being "domineering, dictatorial, and self-centered. "
Other records are more subtle, emphasizing dominance and social success in their mothers. Unfortunately only one of the two raters scored this latter
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trait which thus does not appear in Table 2 (X); she found 5 out of I3 mothers of high-scoring daughters described as a social success. On the other hand, none of the low-scoring women emphasized this quality in her mother.
The admiration that high-scoring women are inclined to have for their socially successful, dominant mothers is being offset by hate against mother figures in the stories of the Thematic Apperception Test (see Chapter XIV). Instead of admiring the successful mother, the pressure which such mothers exert upon their daughters leads some of them in their stories to conceive of maternal figures as witches (see 31, 32). Here one is reminded of Wylie's theory of "momism" in his book, Generation of Vipers.
The assumption that high-scoring women would tend to see their mothers as sweet or (pseudo-) feminine in their interviews, that is, on the conscious level, was not borne out by our material. This quality is stressed by very few of the women interviewees. The high-scoring women probably see through the pseudofeminine fa~ade of th'eir mothers to a greater extent than they are ready to admit, and feel rather clearly the press of domination. As far as their picture of themselves is concerned, however, they tend to believe firmly, as will be discussed later, in their own "femininity. "
Six of the high- and only 1 of the low-scoring women describe their mothers as a moral-model, while more low-scoring than high-scoring women speak directly about their mothers as demonstratively warm and lovable.
The remaining aspects,referring to understanding and intellectual-aesthetic qualities, showed little differentiation in women. There are two possible reasons for this. One may be that the data in question are few, the other that the hostility of the high-scoring women toward their mothers is indirect rather than direct. As pointed out above, there are some clear indications of such disguised hostility in the interviews, and direct evidence of hostility in the reactions to the Thematic Apperception Test.
5. P ARENT AL CONFLICT
We now turn our attention to the subjects' notions concerning the rela- tionship between the parents. Denial of parental conflict as contrasted with open and objective verbalization of parental conflict (Category 8) will be discussed first. This pair of opposites was not enough differentiated in the Scoring Manual; it did not provide for the distinction between absence of real conflict and denial of existing conflict. Furthermore, differentiation between absence of conflict due to "smooth f~nctioning," on the one hand, and due to real love, on the other, was likewise not considered. Either for this, or for other, still more intrinsic reasons, there was practically no dif- ference in the denial of serious conflict between parents in high- and low- scoring men. Overt admission. of such conflicts, however, occurs somewhat more often in the records of low-scoring men, but the entire category still
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does not differentiate significantly between the prejudiced and the unpre- judiced.
In a few of those cases in which the raters, proceeding in accordance with the Manual, scored "denial of conflict" as the "High" variant in subjects who were later identified as low scorers, they added as a comment: "real love. " This is quite in line with what was said above about the unsatisfactory formulation of Category 8.
Typical examples of denial of parental conflict by high-scoring men are:
M41, in answer to the question, How did your parents get along together, says: "Fine, never did hear no quarreling. "
Or Ms8: "If there were any conflicts between mother and father I didn't know. " Examples of admission of parental conflicts from the records of low-scoring
men are:
M 15: "Mother accuses father of 'keeping her down. ' She talks about her ambitions too much. Mother thinks of herself first. She doesn't want to settle down in any church. Keeps suspecting father lets another singer get ahead of her. There are many quarrels between them, which upset me. Father sometimes threatened to leave. "
Or Mso: "Father was temperamental and father and mother had considerable domestic strife. I didn't like it and I didn't like my father as champion. Preferred my mother as champion. . . . My sister became psychologically against my mother . . . nothing very definite, nothing you could put your finger on-very subtle. . . . I didn't realize it then. . . . "
Mn: "Mother went along with him on all the moralizing, though not as harsh as. he was, not really a very good marriage. Mother should have married someone a lot more human and he probably would have been a lot better off . . . well, it's hard to imagine him with anyone with whom he would get along. "
M59: "Well, just the usual family quarrels. Maybe raise her voice a bit. (What bones of contention? ) Well, the fact that in the first ten years of my mother's mar- ried life, my dad used to get drunk quite often and he would beat her physically and later on, as the children were growing up, she resented my father's influence, though he contributed to our support. . . . He used to come about twice a week, sometimes oftener. "
The foregoing records illustrate the frankness and the greater insight into the marital conflicts of the parents, characteristic of low-scoring men. In addition, they show the tendency, mentioned above, of men to side with the mother.
In the records of women, on the other hand, denial of parental conflict differentiates between high scorers and low scorers in a proportion of 8 to r. The fact that denial of parental conflict is more often found in female than in male high scorers is perhaps due to the fact that our sample of high-scoring women is, on the whole, more conventional than that of the high-scoring men. Examples of denial of parental conflict are:
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F24: "Parents get along swell-never quarrel-hardly ever. Just over nonsense if they do. They quarrelled once after drinking wine over who got the last. Silly stuff like that. "
F3z: "My parents get along very well with each other, so far-knock on wood. They have their arguments, but they're never serious because of my mother's easy- going personality. Father teases her terrifically. She takes his jokes, but not too well. They have no serious arguments, just sort of silly things. "
The foregoing records show that for some of the high-scoring women it seems important to assert that there was a good marital relationship between their parents, minimizing conflicts by presenting them as "silly little things. "
6. F A THER-DOMINA TED VS. MOTHER-ORIENTED HOME
As far as the power relationship between parents is concerned, 10 of the high-scoring and only 3 of the low-scoring men see the father as the more dominant and more influential; 2 additional high-scoring men think the mother is "henpeckingly dominant," bringing the number of "High" ratings up to 12 (Category 9M). Some of the high-scoring men who conceive of the home as father-dominated speak of their fathers' having made all the decisions, and of the submissiveness of their mothers.
An example is the record of M p : (Who made the decisions usually? ) "My father. (Any bones of contention? ) Well, I don't think there were any to speak of. . . . I've often tried in later years to analyze my father's wanderlust. . . . Apparently seeking business success. . . . My mother has remarked that I am just the opposite of him. . . . "
Conversely, only 1 high-scoring but 10 low-scoring men interviewees think of theirs as a mother-centered (love-nurturance) home, or as an equali- tarian home. The entire category differentiates to a statistically high degree between prejudiced and unprejudiced men. -
If the conceptions of our subjects can be taken to represent reality-and to a certain degree they probably can-there appears to be a tendency toward father-domination, or just "domination," in the families of the high-scoring, and toward mother-orientation, in contradistinction to mother-"domination," in the families of the low-scoring men. This finding, if substantiated and found crucial in a larger sample, would have far-reaching sociological and psychological implications. It would then be more understandable why the German family, with its long history of authoritarian, threatening father figures, could become susceptible to a fascist ideology. The son of such a father figure can apparently never quite establish his personal and masculine identity; he thus has to look for it in a collective system where there is oppor- tunity both for submission to the powerful and for retaliation upon the powerless (see G. W. Allport;, 10; 0. Fenichel, 26; E. Fromm, 42; E. H. Erikson, 2 5). It must be emphasized that looking at a fascist society from the point of view of the needs of the individual does not exclude recognition of
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larger socioeconomic determinants which may well be responsible both for the organization of society and for that of the family.
Following up for a moment this line of psychological reasoning, could it then be inferred that, because of the predominant mother-orientation of the American home there is less danger of fascism here? To answer this question, sociological and economic factors beyond the scope of this project would have to be considered. It might, however, be important to remember in this connection the 2 cases of high-scoring men who refer to a henpeckingly dominant mother. In both these cases it seemed evident the mother had taken over the threatening function of punishment in the family as a whole. By contrast, the family of the typical low-scoring man seems to be centered about a mother whose primary function is to give love rather than to domi- nate, and who is not too weak or submissive.
On the basis of their dichotomous conception of sex roles and their antag- onism toward men it was expected that high-scoring women would have the following conception of the power relations between the parents: strict division of labor, mother home and father works, or else "mother stronger and dominant. " On the other hand, it was expected that in the case of the records of low-scoring women the father would be experienced as more important and stronger, or that there would be an equalitarian home.
Actually, 7 high-scoring women displayed one of the first two alternatives (mostly the second), as contrasted with only 2 of the low-scoring women. The second pair of alternatives was found with only slightly greater fre- quency in the low-scoring group, probably because the data on this issue are not complete and because some of the high-scoring women report a
dominant father.
In consequence, for women as contrasted with men, the category as a
whole is not statistically significant. The data do, however, lend some further support to the original assumption that prejudiced men tend to experience the father, prejudiced women the mother, as the major figure of the family.
It perhaps may be said that prejudiced women tend to have a stronger though more ambivalent tie to the mother, conversely the prejudiced man to the father. A greater inclination toward latent or overt homosexuality may be connected with this (see Chapters XI and XXI).
7. DISCIPLINE: HARSH APPLICA TION OF RULES VS. ASSIMILA TION OF PRINCIPLES
How parents, being the first authorities in the life of a child, handle the problems of discipline must be assumed to be of crucial importance in the establishment of attitudes toward authority. Was the issue in question ex- plained to the child and was he included in the discussion of it, or did it appear to the child as unintelligible, arbitrary, and overwhelming? Did the
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parents in their application of discipline adhere to a rigid set of conventional rules, or were they guided by more intrinsic values? These are some of the questions for which data were collected from our interviews.
In particular, discipline for violation of rules, primarily "moralistic," was contrasted with discipline for violation of principles, primarily "rationalized" (Category w). As the first of two variables to be considered in this context, the choice between these two opposite alternatives on the part of the parents would seem to be crucial for the establishment of the child's attitude toward what is considered right or wrong: it probably decides the externalization vs. internalization of values. These two types of discipline further imply differ- ent resultant attitudes toward authority.
In the first case, discipline is handled as "vis major," as a force outside of the child, to which at the same time he must submit. The values in question are primarily the values of adult society: conventions and rules helpful for social climbing but rather beyond the natural grasp of the child. At the same
. time this type of value lays the foundation for an attitude of judging people according to external criteria, and for the authoritarian condemnation of what is considered socially inferior.
The second type of discipline invites the cooperation and understanding of the child and makes it possible for him to assimilate it.
Fourteen of the high- and 6 of the low-scoring men interviewees report having been submitted to discipline for violation of rules whereas 5 low- scoring men and only I high-scoring man report discipline for violation of principles. With respect to violation of rules the difference is even greater for the women interviewees: I2 high scorers and only 2 low scorers report this type of discipline in their home. Discipline for violation of principles is reported by only 4 women, and this in even proportion among high and low scorers. On the whole, discipline for violation of rules is more character- istic of high scorers than discipline for violation of principles is of low scorers. The latter report an altogether smaller number of incidents of being disciplined.
Related to the distinction just described is the differentiation between a threatening, traumatic, overwhelming discipline, and an assimilable, and thus non-egodestructive, discipline (Category II). The first type of discipline forces the child into submission and surrender of his ego, thus preventing his development. The second type contributes to the growth of the ego; it is similar to a therapy in which the therapist becomes an ally of the patient's ego, helping him to master his id. This second type of discipline seems an important condition for the establishment of an internalized superego, and thus crucial for the development of an unprejudiced personality. This cate- gory proved differentiating at a high level of significance. In men, I 3 of the high scorers had the "threatening," none the "assimilable," type of discipline (7 received a Neutral rating due to lack of data). This finding is highly
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important since it seems to tincover a source of the basic fear so frequently exhibited by high-scoring men-and so often compensated for by sadistic toughness.
Furthermore, 9 of the low-scoring men-as contrasted with none of the high scorers (see above)-received the assimilable non-egodestructive type of discipline. Four of the low-scoring men were disciplined in a threatening manner.
Since discipline is of particular importance for our general theory con- cerning the genesis of the prejudiced personality, a series of examples from the records of high-scoring men is given herewith:
M45 reports that his father "did not believe in sparing the rod for stealing candy or someone's peaches off the tree. " .
Msz: "My father spanked me on rare occasions, did it solemnly and it didn't hurt; and when he did it everybody cried. . . . But mother had a way of punishing me- lock me in a closet-or threaten to give me to a neighborhood woman who she said was a witch. . . . I think that's why I was afraid of the dark. "
A similar psychologically cruel way of punishment is reported by M44: "Father picked upon things and threatened to put me in an orphanage. "
M52 who, as quoted above, was struck on the finger with a knife at the table for being a bit too hungry, also reports that he "got a whipping (with a razor strop) that I thought was a little unreasonable. " He tells a story about a friend who at the friend's home, in playing around, accidentally shoved subject through a window. When his father learned about it the same day, subject "got a whipping without a chance to explain. . . . "
M58, asked which parent he was closest to, answers: "I think my father. Although he beat the life out of me. " He continues to emphasize that his father always gave everyone, including himself, '~a square deal. "
A good example of how some men in this group were frightened into obedience and submission is the following:
M57, asked about spanking, reports, "Not after 17. . . . Father had to give us one look and we knew what he meant. "
An example of delayed punishment experienced as meaningless and cruel is given in the following quotation:
'
M2o: (Nature of discipline? ) "She would hold me back in. Never let me play if
I'd done something wrong. . . . If I did anything wrong during the day, they couldn't spank me in public, in the hotel; they would spank me at night when I had maybe forgotten what it was for and resented it. Too delayed. " Subject says he usually cried when he was spanked in order to get it over sooner, because when he started to cry, his grandmother would usually stop shortly. "It hurt my pride. . . . Just an- other restriction. . . . Or, sometimes, they would take away a movie. " Subject says he resented this particularly since movies were few and far between for him anyway. "Grandfather never spanked me. . . . " About 10 or 12, subject says, he started run- ning around more . . . "and they sort of lost their grip on me. I just stayed away from home. More school activities and work. . . . "
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374
Another high-scoring man expresses his own ideas about the necessity for
harsh punishment as follows:
M41: "If they have to whip them, I believe in whipping them. I don't believe in sparing the rod and spoiling the child; though I don't believe in abusing them. ? . . Go down the street and hear a mother (threaten a spanking), the child says, 'Oh, mother, you know you don't mean that. ' If I'd have said that to my mother, I wouldn't be able to sit down. ''
Further examples of the "High" type of discipline, taken from the records of high-scoring men and containing, among other things, deference to the emphasis on "being told" in terms of "petty" rules or "laws" lacking suffi- cient explanations, are the following:
M43: (Who gave ~he discipline? ) "Uncle. (What kind? ) Whip us. (How often? ) Two or three times a month. (What for? ) Going off without asking, not doing things we were told. (Was he always fair? ) Well, after you'd think it over, you had it coming. (Ever question whether he was right about it? ) No. "
To the question whether he has been often punished, M45 answers: "Often, and the hard part about it was that my stepmother would tell him (father) that my brother or I had done things and he wouldn't give us a chance to explain. . . . (What was your reaction? ) Well, I ran off twice. . . . It didn't cause me to hate him. I held it mostly against her. (Did he exercise most of the discipline? ) He did. (Did she sometimes punish you? ) Yes, but not often. (For what? ) Oh, things that seemed so trivial, like getting home late from school to do my chores. "
M 47: (What was the usual nature of the discipline? ) ". . . . just bawl us out. (Q) She made it seem like it was hurting her more than it did us. . . . I think I'd rather have a licking than a good bawling out. (Q) She'd look hurt. (What were your feel- ings? ) . . . Make me feel hurt . . . ashamed of myself. (Example? ) One time I stayed out pretty late one night. When I got home, why she bawled me out, just little things like that. . . . Or going some place where she told me not to go . ? . like some kid's house she told me not to play with. "
Similarly, to the question, for what sort of things have you been punished, M51 answers, "Usually something petty, stealing fudge off a shelf or something like that. " Ms8: "Well, my father was a very strict man. He wasn't religious, but strict in raising the youngsters. His word was law, and whenever he was disobeyed, there was punishment. When I was rz, my father beat me practically every day for get- ting into the tool chest in the back yard, and not putting everything away . . . finally
he explained that those things cost money, and I must learn to put it back. " Another high-scoring man, M6, reports: "My father left the discipline to my mother, though he was the la~when you came right down to it. I don't mean to say that either of them dominated us, but they kept us on the right track. I always had more respect for my mother than most. It was just the idea that she wanted me to do things that kept me on the right path. She spanked me sometimes. Father laid the
strap on rarely; the last time was when I was 12 or 13 for talking back to my mother. ''
There is much reference to cruel punishment such as "whipping," "not sparing the rod," or "beating the life out of me" in the records of high-scoring subjects. Furthermore, the above quotations show that the discipline in the home is experienced as something arbitrary. Often it is implied that the
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punishment was unjust or "unreasonable" and that the subject had to submit to it without being given a "chance to explain" the situation. This is espe- cially evident in the use, without further comment, of delayed punishment, an example of which was given above: "They would spank me at night, when I had maybe forgotten what it was for and resented it. "
Furthermore, there is in these records a great deal of stress upon the fact that punishment was administered for something which seemed petty to the subject, for the violation of an external rule rather than of a basic principle.
Quite different are the reports of low-scoring men about the type of disci- pline they received:
Asked as to how discipline was enforced, Mz6 relates: "Father lectured a good deal about honesty and integrity, etc. "
A relaxed type of discipline with few restrictions is clearly indicated in the protocols of the following two low-scoring women:
F75: (Family training? ) "Mother was in charge although they handled us well, I think. We were good, almost too good-and we were punished only rarely. Then it was a little spanking or scolding. There were never problems about going out. W e could have had more freedom than we took. "
F7o: (What kind of things did she stress in your upbringing? ) "She seems to me thoroughly liberal; there were not many restrictions anywhere. She accepted prac- tically anything I did. "
As is true in the case of many of the other categories, the material in the interviews on the issue of discipline of the women is not very complete. Thirteen of the high-scoring women received a Neutral rating; of the re- maining 12, 9 report the threatening, and only 3 the non-egodestructive type of discipline. The following are quotations from the records of high-scoring women:
F66 relates: "I was kind of temperamental when I was little. I had temper tantrums if I didn't get my way. My mother cured them-she dunked me under the water faucet until I stopped screaming. "
F36 reports a type of punishment psychologically quite cruel: Subject's mother criticized all her friends and interfered with all her friendships. In , subject had a boy friend eight years older than herself with whom she dated. Her mother scolded about the time she came home-said it was one or two o'clock in the morn- ing, although it was never later than eleven P . M . Her mother said that everybody in town was talking about subject's relationship with this fellow and that she would not be allowed to teach next year (in a small town). This worried her so that she finally went to the vice principal of the school board, who had got her the job, and asked if he had heard anything about her. He said, no, that everybody liked her and liked Gus too. So that's how she knew her mother was making it all up.