Maia Laaning

During the week, after the conclusion of the wild weekend that saw Maia Laaning getting rid of her virginity, she and her mother, Vivian, subsequently had a series of intimate discussions not just about sex, but also about her future plans. Naturally, they rehashed the activity of the weekend as well as discussing Maria's plan for her upcoming birthday party. Since Maia had indeed surrendered her virginity to Dmitri Arkhangelsky, there was no sense of urgency which would now apply to her nineteenth birthday party. At the same time, though, since Maia was no longer a virgin it did not mean that she still could not indulge in sex should any of her male guests catch her fancy. Unlike most mothers of teenage daughters, Vivian did not lack any temerity in discussing sexual issues with her daughter.

Given her own colorful sexual history, Vivian had no desire to preach moderation in sexual activity for her daughter especially now that Vivian had officially become an adult and was sexually active. Vivian's attitude was that as Maia was perhaps about to enter college, those years and most of her twenties would be the time to have carefree fun and enjoy a hedonistic lifestyle. By the time she approached her thirties would be time enough to settle down perhaps get married if so desired and have children.

Mind you as a result of Vivian's political career first as a legislator in the Riigikogu (Estonian Parliament) and subsequently a cabinet minister in two successive administrations, she championed the need to raise the Estonian population replacement rate. Vivian had authored legislation that would provide substantial monetary incentives for women of childbearing age to give birth to more than two children plus provide generous assistance to stay at home moms. The replacement birth rate had been 1.58 per child for each woman of childbearing age, well below the needed minimum rate of 2.1. Presumably, as a result of Vivian's legislation that rate in Estonia had risen to 1.98. Consequently, in this regard, Vivian knew that the one thing she would forever nag at Maia was to urge her to have at least four children.

In encouraging Maia to take advantage of a carefree style of living while young, when there were not too many serious demands expected of her, Vivian did point out the need to also allow time for serious pursuits in order to ensure one can cope successfully with unexpected exigencies of life. Happily, Vivian did not foresee that Maia would fall into depravity. Maia did drink heavily, but from Vivian's viewpoint it was not so worrisome as perhaps others would aver. Maia was not into drugs as far as Vivian could tell. And she had the same arrogance streak that Vivian possessed in interacting with her peers. Thus, Vivian was complacent in believing that Maia would not be influenced by undesirable elements that would lead her irretrievably astray.

One of the reasons Vivian was confident of the steadiness in her daughter's maturity was what she could discern of her daughter's outlook on life. Unlike her peers, Maia did not really enjoy participating in frivolous activity unless she derived significant pleasure from it. Case in point was her penchant for drinking alcohol, which was also far beyond the norm of her peers. In fact, if truth were to be told, Maia herself would concede that most indifferent people would consider her a borderline alcoholic if they knew factually how much alcohol she did consume.

Intellectually, Maia had a realistic idea why she drank. First of all, she could attribute her desire to her genes. Alcoholism is not a disease that one can inherit, but there is no doubt that if a child grows up in an alcoholic environment, that child is more likely than not to become an alcoholic in adulthood. In Maia's case, her mother, Vivian was without a doubt a very heavy drinker far more than the average for women of her station. Vivian could out drink her stepfather, who was no slouch in that department, but remarkably Maia had never seen her mother get totally inebriated enough to make an outright spectacle of herself.

Vivian once recounted to Maia, that when she was fifteen, her parents (i.e. Maia's grandparents) held a party to celebrate the retirement of a substantial farm improvement loan. The only underage persons at the party were the Laaning children, although Vivian's older sister (Erica- Maia's aunt) was almost twenty-one, the legal drinking age. In any case the law in Wisconsin allowed minors to consume alcoholic beverages when in the presence and under the supervision of their parents or guardians. Vivian was tall for her age, and in fact at the age of fifteen was taller than the majority of adult women. Therefore, no one thought anything of offering Vivian a drink nor did anyone pay attention to how much she did drink. That is until she was noticed passed out underneath the table serving as a help yourself bar containing the available alcoholic drinks of the party.

Vivian did not swear off drinking as a result of this ignoble incident, but she did vow never to get so wasted. Maia had been impressed by that anecdote. She had witnessed her mother drink heavily often, but never betray any effects from it save and except that she tended to become more gregarious than usual accompanied with a slightly different higher lilt to her speaking voice.

Maia could discern even at an early stage in her childhood that her mother was an accomplished woman who had achieved a lot in her life. As she grew older such belief was strengthened by empirical evidence. The craft beer enterprise her mother had established, and her successful stint in the administration of the national government were prime examples. Accordingly, for her initial goal Maia had established for herself, was to be at least as successful as her mother if not more so. And she never wavered from that goal the older she got.

Accordingly, her mother was a heavy drinker, and so Maia was a heavy drinker. Although there might be a grain of truth in that simplistic rationale to explain her penchant for drinking, Maia herself when asked why she drank so much would laconically reply that she loved the taste of alcohol. Even that simplistic answer probably contained a grain of truth, since presumably if she actually detested the taste of alcohol then it follows, she just wouldn't drink.

Maia herself consciously believed that aside from the delicious taste inherent in alcoholic drinks she imbibed, she believed that she enjoyed the effects that the consumption of alcohol had on her outward personality. As a result of her drinking, she became more emboldened even reckless but still within the bounds of decorum. In addition, her drinking also provided a credible excuse to explain away any lapse in judgment or propriety she may not usually exhibit.

With her discipline and work ethic, normally Maia disdained others who lacked the same. That in turn made her arrogant in dealing with her friends and acquaintances. She was cognizant that her arrogant personality was off putting to some of her friends and acquaintances, and truly explained why she didn't have any real intimate friends except for Riina Mölder. She was also aware that whenever she slipped in her speech or in her actions to place her in a bad light, those friends and acquaintances, who were routinely belittled by Maia's arrogance, could not help hiding their feeling of schadenfreude in witnessing Maia's disgrace. She so hated being humbled in that way, but at least she had the excuse that her inexcusable behavior was explained away by her alcohol consumption.

These instances of lapses of decorum had the benefit of mollifying her friends and acquaintances. Since they witnessed the occasional weaknesses exhibited by Maia, it made it easier to tolerate her arrogance and make allowance for it. As a result, Maia retained quite a coterie of friends and comrades to easily maintain her status as the most popular female at her high school.

The additional benefits she derived from her heavy drinking was never more evidenced than this past weekend with her tryst with Dmitri Arkhangelsky. During the concert, Maia was overwhelmed by his sexual appeal, apart from his magnificent voice and his prowess in singing. As the concert was continuing, the desire in her for him to be her first lover and deflower her virginity grew exponentially.

However, her realistic subconscious mind would point out that a snowball in hell had a better chance of survival than she would be able to successfully induce the opera star to make love to her. After all, his sex appeal was universally recognized; he was routinely mentioned in the ubiquitous lists of the sexiest men in the world compiled by the varied tabloids and celebrity magazines. Besides he was a married man with children older than her.

Of course, the fact that at the behest of her mother, Maia was able to gain entry to the opera stars' dressing rooms turned her wish into an opportunity to realize that improbable dream. But Maia also knew, that had she not been drinking she would never have had the nerve to have pulled off her brazen antics and dialogue to essentially seduce Dmitri successfully.

To instill discipline in Maia's life, Vivian did not employ any permanent household help even though she easily was able to afford to do so. As we've seen, Maia has helping Vivian cook household meals since she was seven years old and was the main household cook since she was twelve years old. Maia also was expected to contribute to helping with the laundry and with cleaning the house. Most of the battles between mother and daughter had to do with equity in the sharing of the duties of the household chores.

Sometimes, Maia was even able to prevail in an argument with her mother as the latter conceded the inherent unfairness of the occasion. Other times Vivian's determination prevailed, and Maia had to bitterly concede that her mother's decision was fair. As her mother had instilled as a goal that Maia should aim to have four children when she grew up, this in turn made Maia form the sardonic resolve that she indeed would have at least four children. That way she could force her offspring to do all the chores in her own future household and let her enjoy her later years.

By far the most important factor that kept Maia disciplined and more mature than her peers were her piano lessons and tennis. In the former case Maia learned to play the piano at the age of nine. When Vivian and Raimond Kruuse started cohabiting, he brought into their relationship a full size concert piano as he had a life long interest in playing that musical instrument. He became proficient enough to be able to play any piece of music he took fancy to, including intricate classical piano compositions by Chopin, Liszt, Mozart and Beethoven.

Raimond had a naturally infinity towards mathematics and he became particularly fascinated in accounting once he finished high school. Because of that serious interest, he deemed that he did not have the sufficient passion in him to pursue a serious musical career, in lieu of a realistic successful accounting career. Still, he played the piano for pleasure at least a couple of times per week, as he found the exercise far more relaxing to combat the stresses he invariably faced in his high powered political career. Enjoyable sex with Vivian had a similar therapeutic effect to ward off the challenges of everyday living.

As Vivian had no objection, it was Raimond who encouraged Maia to take up piano lessons. By familial osmosis, Maia had the same attitude towards playing the piano as her stepfather, in that she lacked the patience to practice diligently enough to become a professional musician. But just like her stepfather, she would throughout her life play the piano for her own pleasure. In that regard her favorite piece of music was the Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven particularly the celebrated first movement. Her competent playing of that particular piece of music rivaled the efforts of professional concert pianists.

Her interest, though, in the case of playing tennis was a different kettle of fish compared to her interest in playing the piano. Probably the main reason for the difference was that Maia's interest was piqued by the success of Estonia's greatest female tennis player, Anett Kontaveit who had reached a career high ranking of number 2 in the world. Anett had attended her mother's wedding to Eino Tarvas when she was only twelve years old and was then already an acknowledged tennis sensation in Estonia. So as Anett's fame grew so did Maia's interest in emulating her.

Because of the upheaval in her mother's life and living on the dairy farm for her first seven years, Maia had not been in a situation where even casual tennis playing was possible. When her mother's marriage did disintegrate and as a result, she and her mother moved to Tallinn to establish a new residence in the capital city, there was too much chaos to settle into a routine family lifestyle. Besides her mother was a cabinet minister in the Estonian national government and so, was too busy to properly pay particular attention to her young daughter's nascent dreams, or aspirations not to mention goals.

It did not help that Vivian's significant other, Raimond Kruuse, who had quickly moved into the household of Vivian and Maia, within months of their original date, was also a cabinet minister in the government. As their relationship became public knowledge, Raimond and Vivian became a power couple in Estonia and their time spent with Maia was limited to bare essentials of daily living without really a time out to pursue private ordinary day to day living. In essence although Raimond Kruuse was living with her mother and her, nevertheless, in essence he remained almost a stranger to Maia.

This mode of private living, changed by the time Maia turned nine years of age. There developed a schism in Kaja Kallas' coalition government as Raimond's Centre Party quit the coalition. As a result, Prime Minister Kallas formed a new administration partnering with two other conservative parties. Vivian, being a member of the Reform party, remained as Minister of Culture, but Raimond as member of the Centre Party was no longer in the administration.

This meant that Raimond had more private time to spend with Maia, his stepdaughter, whom he had previously virtually ignored. Consequently, as a result of his increased private free time, he influenced Maia to take piano lessons. In her devious mind, although she really had no objection to taking piano lessons, still Maia found that this was her opportunity to get permission to take tennis lessons as a trade off.

Maia's first tennis coach was Märten Suurhal, a former professional player on the ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals) tour who had won the Estonian National Championships twice and had gained entry in a couple of grand slam tournaments. It is acknowledged that in tennis and in almost every other professional sport, that players who were mediocre during their own playing careers become much better and effective coaches than those who were stars or champions during their playing career. It is surmised that the skills of a player, who is a champion, come naturally to him/her such that he/she is hard put to explain the techniques required to improve and is usually too impatient when his/her charges do not improve.

On the other hand, a lesser player is well aware of his/her own limitations and weaknesses and can easily relate to the same in his/her clients. More importantly the lesser player is able to better convey exercises and techniques that would help the player overcome those weaknesses and improve their playing ability. And if a player cannot overcome any particular weakness, a good coach can suggest effective alternatives in style of play to compensate for the weakness.

In that vein, Märten Suurhal, proved to be the ideal initial coach for Maia. When Raimond and Vivian agreed to allow Maia to take tennis lessons and play competitively at the age of nine, almost all of the girls under Suurhal's charge had started to play tennis at the age of six or even younger. As a result, Maia was behind in development compared to the rest of her peers. However, with her determination and her aptitude in learning, Maia was able within one year to catch up and close the gap with her tennis peers. She was competing effectively with girls her age and by the age of eleven she was winning matches more than she was losing them.

Maia started winning an occasional amateur tournament during the years leading up to her fifteenth birthday. After that she engaged the services of Toomas Tamala who had briefly coached Anett Kontaveit at roughly the same age. Tamala had her enrolled in the International Tennis Federation (ITF) the governing body of world tennis plus partnering with the WTA (Women's Tennis Association) and the ATP to govern professional tennis as well.

He was instrumental in planting the seed in Maia's mind the ambition to join the WTA tour full time. He intimated she could forego high school to play in tournaments more frequently. Like some other young tennis professionals, Maia could fulfill her high school credits requirements by correspondence or through home schooling. Her parents, though put their foot down to insist that Maia should finish her high school normally before considering a full time professional tennis career. Tamala then suggested that after high school, Maia consider forgoing college at least for a few years to see how successful she might be in professional tennis. That decision then would be left up to Maia solely as she would be an adult when finishing high school.

Tamala was able to hone in Maia's skills to such an extent that in his opinion, she was the best promising Estonian tennis phenom to come along since Anett. In some respects, she had outperformed Anett at the comparable ages of sixteen and seventeen. During those years, Maia was a finalist when she was sixteen; and when she was seventeen, she won the Junior Girls Singles Tennis title at the famed Wimbledon Tournament. Anett hadn't done nearly as well in those junior girl slam titles at those comparable ages. However, in other respects Maia was not as far advanced in developing her tennis prowess as Ms Kontaveit. Anett was ranked in the Top 250 in the world, by the time she celebrated her eighteenth birthday, whereas Maia was ranked 626th when she turned eighteen.

There were two major factors that contributed to the lack of the desirable ultimate development for Maia to reach the true superstar status in women's tennis. The first factor was definitely the time Maia was able to devote in practice and in playing of tennis. Vivian had insisted that Maia still cook the household meals and contribute significantly to doing household chores. Naturally her school work, plus the time spent in practicing and playing the piano restricted the time available for Maia to spend on tennis and to improve her skills.

Thus, the knock down and drag out fierce battles between mother and daughter were involved with how much time would Maia be allowed to devote to tennis. Naturally, Maia was constantly demanding relief from household chores and especially from cooking. Vivian, in her mind believed she was being reasonable, as Maia was given time off from her household duties to compete in some tennis tournaments, especially for the two Wimbledon events. Otherwise, Vivian felt two hours a day practice play time in tennis was sufficient and still manageable for her household duties.

Vivian remained steadfast in insisting on maintaining the routine in their family's day to day living. Maia must cook the meals and help with the laundry as well as other household chores. Maia would protest that she had a huge work load far beyond what her friends and acquaintances faced in their daily family lives, and they didn't even spend any time in playing tennis. Vivian replied to the effect that she was unconcerned as to how strangers to her, lived. Vivian was of the view that as a mother, her main duty was to ensure that she equip and prepare her daughter to be able to successfully cope with what life would throw at her. That duty was paramount and superseded allowing Maia to indulge in an 'iffy' tennis career choice.