Something I Could Never Do
Something I could never do as a parent was to maintain a conversation with my wife when my children were crying or fighting with each other. The kids were simply too loud to speak over. In fact my son was so loud when he cried as a baby, my wife discovered that it was impossible to speak over him. Even together, we were unable to raise our voices to match his decibel level. If he was in the car, and I turned the car stereo up to full blast, the stereo was able to be louder than my crying son. This was, of course, an experiment that didn’t last very long, because of potential ear damage. We couldn’t match him and we stopped trying very soon into parenthood.
As I viewed today’s round of For Better or For Worse reprints, Elly and John’s conversation seems completely unrealistic to me. This is the conversation you would have after both children are in bed and asleep, and then in a far separate room where your conversation will not wake them up. However, I understand the technique being used. Lynn Johnston desires to show the chaos John Patterson missed, as he talks about the chaos that he missed, without realizing that being able to talk about the chaos while the chaos is going on, lessens the effect of the chaos. Mike and Lizzie are kids quiet enough to talk over. Let Elly and John try having that conversation while putting my kids to bed.
On another note, the Yahoo colourist had problems today figuring out which kid was Lizzie and which kid was Michael. It’s an easy mistake to make, assuming you don’t pay attention to what outfit each child is wearing. There is very little different in the drawing of their heads and bodies. If this was a new strip, I would tell Lynn Johnston that crying babies rarely ever spit raspberries at their siblings, and she should correct that in the future. However, having seen the strips of the future, I know that Lynn Johnston never learns this lesson.
As I viewed today’s round of For Better or For Worse reprints, Elly and John’s conversation seems completely unrealistic to me. This is the conversation you would have after both children are in bed and asleep, and then in a far separate room where your conversation will not wake them up. However, I understand the technique being used. Lynn Johnston desires to show the chaos John Patterson missed, as he talks about the chaos that he missed, without realizing that being able to talk about the chaos while the chaos is going on, lessens the effect of the chaos. Mike and Lizzie are kids quiet enough to talk over. Let Elly and John try having that conversation while putting my kids to bed.
On another note, the Yahoo colourist had problems today figuring out which kid was Lizzie and which kid was Michael. It’s an easy mistake to make, assuming you don’t pay attention to what outfit each child is wearing. There is very little different in the drawing of their heads and bodies. If this was a new strip, I would tell Lynn Johnston that crying babies rarely ever spit raspberries at their siblings, and she should correct that in the future. However, having seen the strips of the future, I know that Lynn Johnston never learns this lesson.
posted by howard at 11:33 PM
6 Comments:
John has a pretty low tolerance for noise if he calls the subdued playfighting we're seeing 'chaos'. Then again, he usually shows up just after the real chaos has petered out. Deep down, he thinks Elly is yelling over nothing because he never really experienced the children at their worst.
Howard: Mike and Lizzie are kids quiet enough to talk over.
DreadedCandiru2: John has a pretty low tolerance for noise if he calls the subdued playfighting we're seeing 'chaos'.
With the way Elly "parents" ... just screaming at whatever is bothering her, I can see Mike and Liz learning early to be quiet so Elly doesn't come unhinged. And given John's complete lack of parenting skills himself, I can see him following Elly's lead, that something the kids did that caused Elly to scream and holler is bad and Elly's screaming is justified, even if it doesn't seem like that big of a deal to him.
This is how things were in my house... Mom was always right, regardless, and if you made her scream and holler you deserved what you got for making her angry. It's still that way.
Adrianne
This is how things were in my house... Mom was always right, regardless, and if you made her scream and holler you deserved what you got for making her angry. It's still that way.
Ironically, I have told my son it is a good idea to avoid antagonizing his sister when she is in a bad mood. He, of course, does the exact opposite, and goes out of his way to mix it up with his sister on those occasions.
dreadedcandiru2,
Deep down, he thinks Elly is yelling over nothing because he never really experienced the children at their worst.
Perhaps, but it could also be from his own experience with screaming Elly. If he judges her screaming at him to be over nonsense, then he could just transfer that to her screaming at the kids or the dogs. And to be honest, we have seen Elly screaming over the dogs' taking too long to do their business outside and screaming over having to scrape ice off her car and screaming over April saying the house needed new drapes, just in the last year. John could make a case for screaming over nothing, based just on that.
Oh, yeah. I can see that. I can see John thinking that since Elly would rather holler because of non-events than eat, everything that she bellows at must be, by definition, not worth worrying about. Perfectly plausible, given their shared history.
Elly would rather holler because of non-events than eat
Surely, you jest! Than eat?!! Elly Patterson?!!
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