Why didn't Jake tell Marge about Baby's shenanigans?

Baby asked her father Jake for $250 without explaining the reason. Later, Baby got her father out of bed in the middle of the night and brought him to treat a hotel employee suffering after an illegal abortion.

Jake does not tell any of this to his wife Marge. Jake even tells Baby:

You're to have nothing to do with them ever again! I won't tell your mother about this. Right now I'm going to bed. And take that stuff off your face before your mother sees you!

Later, the Houseman family is eating breakfast, and Jake announces that the family will leave Kellerman's a day early. Marge is the only person at the breakfast table who does not know Jake's reason for the early departure. The reason is that Lisa has told him -- and Baby knows that Lisa has told him -- that Baby has come back to the daughters' hotel bedroom in the morning. Baby was away from that bedroom all night.

Marge does not begin to understand the situation until the Housemans' later breakfast with the Kellerman's, when Baby reveals that she was with Johnny in his cabin when the wallet was stolen.

Marge at the breakfast where she begins to understand the situation

We can assume that right after this breakfast, Jake belatedly informed Marge about:

* the $250

* the illegal abortion

* Baby's all-night absence from her bedroom

Marjorie seems to have reacted to this belated news calmly and thoughtfully in her subsequent talk with Baby. A few hours before the talent show, Marjorie and Baby had a serious conversation in which Marjorie compared herself to Baby. The conversation was filmed, but the scene was deleted when the film was edited. In the following video, the deleted conversation can be seen between 8:17 and 9:02.

Baby Houseman
Ma, please, you don't understand.

Marjorie Houseman
No, Baby, you don't.

I know about this. I really know.

When I was your age, I was in love with someone else before your father. And when it ended, it hurt so bad I thought I'd die of it, but I didn't.

And I didn't wreck everyone else's lives in the process either.

Here, Marjorie compares her own seventeen-year-old self with seventeen-year-old Baby. Marjorie too suffered a painful break-up with a boyfriend. Marjorie engages Baby emphatically in a conversation about Baby's current emotional relationships -- rather than about her sexual activities.

Marjorie does not become ashamed, angry or hysterical about Baby. On the contrary, just a few hours later, at the talent show, Marjorie proudly exclaims about Baby: I think she gets it from me!

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Why does Jake hide Baby's shenanigans from Marge -- his wife and co-parent? We can suppose that their marriage suffers problems with honesty, trust, communication and parenting.

Compared to the 1987 movie, marriage problems between Jake and Marge are more blatant In the stage musical and in the ABC "original movie".

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In the stage musical, Marge learns from Penny. In my review of the stage musical, I wrote:

After Penny recovers from her abortion in the musical, she is so grateful to the entire Houseman family that she takes the initiative to give private dance lessons to Marjorie. During such a lesson, Penny mentions that Jake had treated her after her an abortion. Penny assumes that Marjorie knew about this, but Marjorie knew nothing until Penny mentioned it.

Marjorie is angry that Jake has kept this secret from her, and so she goes and confronts Jake about it.

Afterwards Marjorie confronts Baby. This scene in the musical is similar to a scene that was filmed for the movie but was deleted.

This anger of Marge toward Jake  is not depicted in the 1987 movie.

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In the ABC "original movie", Marge is so dissatisfied in her marriage that she even tells Jake she wants a divorce. Her major dissatisfaction does not seem, however, to be about co-parenting. Rather, Marjorie's major dissatisfaction seem to be about inadequate intimacy with Jake.

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Here is my own explanation for Jake's hiding Baby's shenanigans from Marge.

In the Houseman family, there are two main parent-child relationships:

* Jake and Baby

* Marge and Lisa

In the movie's opening scene, we see the family riding in their car to Kellerman's. Baby is sitting behind her father, and Lisa is sitting behind her mother. Baby embraces her father's neck, admiringly expressing her desire to find a male partner like her father. In the next scene, Lisa and her mother engage in a conversation about Lisa's wardrobe.

As the movie continues, a sisterly rivalry becomes apparent. Both daughters recognize that their father favors Baby. Later in the story, though, Lisa declares that Baby's lies have caused their father to begin to favor Lisa instead:

What you care about is that you're not Daddy's girl anymore.

He listens when I talk now. You hate that.

Until that turning-point in the family dynamic, Baby had been Jake's favorite daughter, and Jake had been Baby's favorite parent. When Baby wanted $250, she asked only her father, even though her mother too was nearby on the putting green.

Jake had two daughters; he had no sons. Baby was his quasi-son. Baby prioritized her higher education and professional career over marriage, and so she might follow in her father's footsteps -- might even become a doctor. He wanted to influence and guide Baby's life much more than Lisa's life.

Baby apparently disdained her mother for being a stay-at-home mother, with no career ambitions. Baby did not value her mother's advice and support, and so Baby deliberately excluded her mother from knowing about many of her dubious, risky actions.

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The first incident that Jake and Baby concealed from Marge involved the $250. Perhaps Jake and Marge disagreed often about money. Jake was the family's only money-earner, and so perhaps he felt he should largely control the family's finances. He might have felt that Marge overspent frivolously -- for example, on fashionable clothing for herself and for Lisa.

Jake liked to be able to spend his hard-earned money independently, without the influence, approval or even knowledge of his wife. Furthermore, he liked that his two daughters sometimes came to him to ask for money without their mother's knowledge. Whenever he granted the money in such situations, he gave his daughters (Lisa too) reason to favor their father over their mother.

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The second incident that Jake and Baby concealed from Marge involved his helping Penny after the illegal abortion  As a professional doctor, Jake was the respected, unquestioned expert in such a situation. He did not have to pay any attention what his wife might say -- even if she were present.

The fact that Jake was superior in medical situations might be generalized to a supposition that he was superior in most situations. Perhaps he felt he knew more than Marge also about, for example, parenting.

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The second incident included also Baby's wearing cosmetics -- lipstick, mascara, rouge, and so forth. Jake told Baby to "take that stuff off your face before your mother sees you".

Part of Jake's concern about Baby's wearing makeup on this occasion was that Baby normally did not wear makeup. He was worried that Marge might begin to ask questions about why Baby was acting so abnormally.

Further, though, Jake might have preferred that Baby generally not wear makeup, because he preferred that she defer romantic relationships with men until after she had completed her higher education and established her professional career. Jake preferred that Baby remain frumpy and unattractive for the next several years.

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The third incident that Jake and Baby concealed from Marge was when Baby was away from her hotel bedroom all night. I think that Baby knew that Lisa snitched to their father. Baby certainly knew by the time that Jake announced at breakfast that the family would depart a day early.

When Jake received this information from Lisa about Baby's all-night absence, then that should have compelled him to inform Marge that Baby was acting strangely. Jake needed Marge's help to monitor and get Baby back under parental control.

By this time, however, Jake already had concealed too much from Marge. He did not want to admit the previous incidents. He did not want to deal with Marge's inevitable complaints that he should not have concealed from he Baby's strange misbehavior.  

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In general, Jake wanted to exert the major influence and control in Baby's life -- and wanted Marge to allow him to do so. In Jake's mind, the less Marge knew about Baby's serious but dubious activities, the better. In Baby got into trouble, then Baby should come to her father first, not to her mother.

Baby perceived advantages for herself in her status of being her father's favorite daughter. She did not have to convince both parents to support an important and perhaps risk or expensive decision. Rather, she had to convince essentially only one parent -- her father. Baby figured that she would prosper usually by playing off her father against her mother.  In any parental disagreement, her father ultimately would prevail against her mother -- because he controlled the money and was the respected expert.

The disadvantage for Baby in this arrangement was that her father preferred that she defer any romantic relationships with men for several years. He generally did not forbid such relationships, but he did expressly and strictly forbid her to associate with the dancers and other hotel employees.

Jake apparently did approve of Baby's flirtation with Neil Kellerman, but he did not fear that she would become sexually involved with Neil, at least during the immediate future. Jake trusted Max Kellerman to help monitor the relationship between Baby and Neil. Jake did not trust the hotel's dancers and other low-class employees.

I think that Marjorie -- if she had learned promptly about Penny's illegal abortion -- would not have prohibited Baby to associate with the dancers and other employees. When Marge had been Baby's age, Marge had broken up with her own boyfriend and then had moved on. Marge had this perspective to expect that if Baby became romantically involved with a man who turned out to be a bad match, then that romantic relationship eventually would end without lasting consequences.

Marge trusted Baby in romantic relationships more than Jake trusted Baby. That is part of the reason why Jake wanted to be kept out of decisions involving Baby's romantic relationships. Jake expected that Marge would give Baby more free rein to try and develop romantic relationships.