Pool House is such a fascinating read about the lengths some people will go to to maintain an image. By its very nature, living in the pool house affects Moon and Stevie’s perceptions of themselves. When Adam joins them and they pretend to still be in the big house, what purpose is the lie serving? How does this play into the fake family/real family dynamic? What do you think about these characters and the way they are intertwined?
What’s the wildest thing a parent, yourself, or someone you know has done to keep up appearances? Were they able to maintain that image and if not, what brought it crashing down?
In my life there hasn't been anything this dramatic, but white lies, for example, keeping mutual friends who don't like each other apart - these things exact an energy cost. You have to remember what you said to two different friend groups, etc. As I've gotten older I'm more honest, not necessarily out of a heightened respect for ethics, but just because it's not worth the trouble. The same can be said for literal appearance - styling hair, doing makeup.
I had to giggle, as there are always "those kind of people" all throughout history, but especially in the here and now. Individuals, or couples, who always attempt to to be better, have more, dress in more expensive clothes, drive more expensive cars, rent, or if able, buy more expensive houses (usually with a pool and a hired gardners, oops! THEY call them "landscapers" now, and have expensive furnishings, they may have even hired someone to care for their kids, but they wouldn't dare call them babysitters! They are Nannies (even if they aren't "live in", as most past, and historical Nannies were. ALL of this is NOT new, and was, once upon a time, referred to as "Keeping up with the Jones's" Whoever the mythical "Jones family" was. Today, if it has been replaced with another term, and that is called "upward mobility". I always laugh at that terminology, because, in reality, aren't 98% of us standing upward (we're not back to crawling on all fours yet, and WE are mobile, unless afflicted with a medical condition where we can not stand, or do not have two legs, (but we have wheelchairs, scooters, cars, etc. So in most respects we are pretty much all "upwardly mobile".
I don't buy into ANY fade, fakes, frauds, nor do I suffer fools. I have, as silly as it may sound, followed the creed, and example that was the embodiment of this old cartoon character, Popeye! As Popeye the Sailorman, if you're old enough to remember this Cartoon character, has always said, "I y'am what I y'am, and that's all that I y'am!"
It has worked wonderfully for me!