In Paul Zindel's The Pigman, how does Lorraine justify John's outlandish behavior?

In
Chapter 2 of 's young adult novel ,
Lorraine uses the fact that John is "extremely handsome"
to justify how often John gets away with his rebellious behavior.
As she explains, John feels the need to "do something unusual all the time," such as
type a letter in Miss Stewart's typing class so that the margins are in the shape of an
hourglass. As Lorraine further explains, if John had been ugly, he wouldn't be able to get away
with his rebelliousness and would have been shipped off to "reform school."


Lorraine also briefly asserts that "analysts" would blame John's
rebelliousness on his need to "assert his independence." Lorraine
particularly blames John's behavior on his family. In fact, she states, "We
both have families you wouldn't believe," but refuses to go into further details in this
particular chapter.

Later, in Chapter 9, from
John, we learn that the reason he behaves rebelliously and drinks and smokes so much is simply
because his family doesn't care what he does. He further tells a
story from when he was a child: his father was a heavy drinker, and
John used to attract attention by emptying his father's beer cans. Hence, his father is guilty
of influencing John's drinking. However, when his father was diagnosed with liver illness and
quit drinking, nobody seemed to notice that John did not quit drinking too. Nobody cares what he
does so long as he doesn't bother his father. He also reports that his older brother Kenny is
the one everyone admires, and the only thing John can do better than Kenny is
drink beer.