Hybrid on Sundays
I believe in today’s For Better or For Worse, we have entered the stage in which the Sunday strips will also be hybridized. For those viewers whose papers only subscribe to the Sunday colour section, nothing has changed or happened to For Better or For Worse. The Sunday strips have all been new material. I had been wondering if Lynn Johnston would go to hybrids on Sundays because, after all, those strips are about the equivalent of 3-4 daily strips and would have to be a considerable consumption of time to produce them. If Lynn really wanted to take a vacation, she would have to turn them to hybrid also.
Today’s strip is a variation on a theme often touched on by Elly Patterson, which is that she preferred her kids when they were small and cute. This is a common problem with parenting. I remember before I even had children reading the results of a survey that showed the favourite age of parenting was between the ages of 2 and 12, when the kids were still cute, but not completely helpless. The second favourite stage was the 0 – 2 stage, and the least favourite stage of parenting was the 13+.
Elly’s opinion seems to match this pretty well and even Lynn Johnston’s to a certain degree, since she seems to take delight in showing April in her Aypo stage, whenever she shows pictures of the Patterson family for her sideline business of using them as company advertisers. I do not know if my experience will match hers. My son with Asperger’s Syndrome made the 0 – 2 stage extraordinarily difficult and I have a hard time imagining ever having a worse time with him. My life with him today, as he grows older and is more aware of his situation, and makes more adjustments to compensate is far better than it was back in his early years, when none of us knew what was going on, and were desperately trying everything and anything which worked.
My wife recently heard a report on NPR with a man who discovered he had Asperger’s Syndrome at age 40, and the revolution that occurred in his life when he “got it.” He said that had he known earlier in his life, he may have gotten it earlier. My wife's and my sincere desire is that my son will reach a similar understanding, or the 13+ plus years may not be very much fun.
Monday’s For Better or For Worse remains a question mark. We were left on Saturday with Liz and Anthony leaning on each other, in an awkward, romantic pose. Will we have more Liz and Anthony romance, more dealing with Grandpa Jim and his stroke, or will we return to a hybrid strip discussing those subjects abstractly through reprint strips? Or better yet, will it now be time to go back to the history of young Deanna Sobinski briefly touched on this week?
Today’s strip is a variation on a theme often touched on by Elly Patterson, which is that she preferred her kids when they were small and cute. This is a common problem with parenting. I remember before I even had children reading the results of a survey that showed the favourite age of parenting was between the ages of 2 and 12, when the kids were still cute, but not completely helpless. The second favourite stage was the 0 – 2 stage, and the least favourite stage of parenting was the 13+.
Elly’s opinion seems to match this pretty well and even Lynn Johnston’s to a certain degree, since she seems to take delight in showing April in her Aypo stage, whenever she shows pictures of the Patterson family for her sideline business of using them as company advertisers. I do not know if my experience will match hers. My son with Asperger’s Syndrome made the 0 – 2 stage extraordinarily difficult and I have a hard time imagining ever having a worse time with him. My life with him today, as he grows older and is more aware of his situation, and makes more adjustments to compensate is far better than it was back in his early years, when none of us knew what was going on, and were desperately trying everything and anything which worked.
My wife recently heard a report on NPR with a man who discovered he had Asperger’s Syndrome at age 40, and the revolution that occurred in his life when he “got it.” He said that had he known earlier in his life, he may have gotten it earlier. My wife's and my sincere desire is that my son will reach a similar understanding, or the 13+ plus years may not be very much fun.
Monday’s For Better or For Worse remains a question mark. We were left on Saturday with Liz and Anthony leaning on each other, in an awkward, romantic pose. Will we have more Liz and Anthony romance, more dealing with Grandpa Jim and his stroke, or will we return to a hybrid strip discussing those subjects abstractly through reprint strips? Or better yet, will it now be time to go back to the history of young Deanna Sobinski briefly touched on this week?
posted by howard at 1:10 AM
7 Comments:
Elly Patterson clearly regrets having had a third child. Poor unwanted Apes.
I agree that Monday could go anywhere, considering the way this strip has been jumping around lately. At one time, I would have been fairly certain that the Liz-Anthony story would continue tomorrow. But really, it could just jump to something else entirely.
BTW, do you tune in to America's Next Top Model at all? One of the contestants this season is a young woman with Asperger's Syndrome.
Also, in case you are wondering about today's double-POV post, normally I check right away for a Michael dispatch when there's a Michael-centric strip--but this morning, for some reason, I just forgot (maybe out of indignation over Elly's apparently forgetting April's existence again) and banged out a post before remembering to check.
The sad thing is that all the excuses she gives about April standing in the way of her education are just that. If April had never have been born, the lives of the Pattersons wouldn't be affected to any great extent. Elly would have worked at Lilliputs, John would have jerked everyone around so he could buy the Tiny Train House, Mike would still be a crappy father and Liz a whining martyr. Not only that, 4-Evah would probably be Becky's backup group. The sad thing is that April may not as well exist because her presence seems to make so little a difference.
Speaking of a mom and her kids...
http://youtube.com/watch?v=anSpBUxsgAU
Anon, NYC
aprilp_katje
I do not watch America’s Top Model. However, my wife does watch it, and she reported to me that on the show the other models were making fun of the model with Asperger’s Syndrome, and it made her cry (the model and my wife). Thanks for pointing it out to me, though. My wife had not mentioned it to me.
dreadedcandiru2,
You are quite right. The grand missed opportunity for Lynn Johnston, as far as the character of April Patterson is concerned, is to show how parents change their parenting when they get older. I have known people with a wide range of age difference between the oldest child and the youngest child, and have heard the comments about how the parents are usually much better parents to the youngest than they were to the oldest. I think that because Lynn Johnston did not experience that herself personally, she was unable to translate that to the strip. Elly Patterson screams at the top of her lungs at April, just like she did at Mike and Liz. Judging from the Coffee Talk comments, Lynn enjoys the ones where people say, “Your characters model my life”, but I really don’t remember any saying, “When Elly changed her parenting style with April, I could really relate; because that’s what I did when I had an ‘oops’ baby.”
Anon NYC,
Great Youtube. I enjoyed it, but my wife enjoyed it more. Thanks.
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