(Strip Number 4260, Original Publication Date, 8 December 1982)
Panel 1: We find ourselves at the Pattermanse seconds after Mike's panic causes him to suffer language failure; Elly, whose tentacle-fingered hand is over the telephone receiver, stands there bug-eyed as she tells Annie that Mike got caught shoplifting. Since this is a day after the fact and she never suspected a damned thing, I'd say that her panicky rage is a day late and nine dollars short.
Panel 2: As she whines about where she went wrong now that her son has humiliated her and destroyed her reputation by being revealed as an incorrigible thief, Permissive Idiot Annie tells Elly that Mike, as a small boy, is normal and can't help but be grabby.
Panel 3: Elly's insistence that Mike's basic criminal tendencies must stem from something she ate while she was carrying him seem particularly irrational.
Summary: That's because what the root of the problem is is that Mike is a moronic sucker who'll listen to anyone who wants to make him look like an ass while whingingly shutting his ears to anyone foolhardy enough to want to rescue him from himself; this is why he let Weed talk him into doing all manner of idiotic things and why he hated Mira and her evil common sense that would evilly make his life better. No amount of never letting Mike have any sort of toy ever again will cure him of being a gullible nitwit who unfailingly sabotages himself in the name of fitting in.