Michael Misunderstood
Seeing today’s For Better or For Worse after yesterday’s, I am beginning to wonder if the theme behind Elizabeth’s remembrances were: My brother = my parent. Mike is interacting with and trying to teach his sister. Elly simply pops in out of nowhere from doing whatever it is that she was doing, to come and discipline Mike as she misinterprets the situation. A few more times of this, and I will start analyzing why Mike doesn’t trust the way women think.
The other possibility is that we are seeing Bad Parenting 101
a. Leaving your older child alone with your very young child.
b. Not listening to your child.
c. Presuming one child is always the one at fault.
The other possibility is that we are seeing Bad Parenting 101
a. Leaving your older child alone with your very young child.
b. Not listening to your child.
c. Presuming one child is always the one at fault.
posted by howard at 10:50 PM
9 Comments:
That is a recipe for turning said sibling against the other. Mike didn't start out hating Liz, after all. Nor did he initially begrudge her her share of the attention. Since Elly was a flop as a parent, however, he soon began to see baby sister as an enemy. A child that young couldn't help but think that Lizzie was doing things on purpose.
dreadedcandiru2,
You have a point. The hybrid strips we have been shown so far with Michael shows him being pretty friendly with his baby sitter. And yet, the framing pseudo-old style Lynn sequences invariably talk about a rivalry between Liz and Mike. Could it be that Lynn is trying to retcon the 1980 strips for some reason?
Possibly to make it look as if Elly didn't pit them against one another out of sheer stupidity. Her 'children are a pain in the neck' thesis collapses in a whiff of Northern Ontario hot air when you realize that that's a self-fufilling prophecy.
I'm really thinking that Lynn is making serious errors in choosing the strips for the hybrid, up to this point. First we get the terrible "Super Teddy" strips, then we get the "Elly-hates-being-tied-down-with-husband-and-kids" flashbacks, and now we have the "Liz-and-Mike-always-fight-Elly-disciplines-wrong" strips.
And let's not even think about the nefarious "John-cheats" Sunday strip. That was just embarassing, in light of Lynn's personal situation.
DJ
DJ
Lynn has made a theme of letting Mike and his kids imitate his actions in the past, so the Super Teddy strips do fall into that category. Now little Robin carries a Super Teddy with him.
The “John cheats” Sunday strip was picked out for no other reason than to call attention to Rod’s cheating on a national scale. The Chicago Tribune article had several paragraphs about it just before it came out. I view it as the “Lynn tells the U.S. that Rod cheated” newspaper article, with accompanying Sunday strip.
As for "Elly-hates-being-tied-down-with-husband-and-kids," unfortunately a lot of the old strips were about that. Those were Lynn Johnston’s bread and butter, because she was able to find an audience who could easily relate to it.
As for the "Liz-and-Mike-always-fight-Elly-disciplines-wrong" strips, I am not sure where she is going with this with Liz and April as narrators. At least it is not as confusing as Elly taking Connie Poirier to visit Grandpa Jim in the hospital and helping out Iris by telling her stories about Connie as a single mom going on dates.
dreadedcandiru2,
Possibly to make it look as if Elly didn't pit them against one another out of sheer stupidity.
If could be to retcon Elly as a better parent. I probably shouldn’t be looking for any real purpose. After all the sequence with showing why Gramma Marion was “great” ending up showing how Grampa Jim was great instead, and then he had stroke #2.
Based on that, if Liz tells April that she and Michael weren’t all that close, and then the strips show instead that Elly was not good at disciplining her kids, then what would be the next thing? A Mike disciplining children sequence, where Liz corrects him based on her teaching experience?
I have no idea what it's leading to, either. After all, the Spotlight on Connie didn't go anywhere so this could just be Liz blowing off steam.
Hey all,
This doesn't relly fit here, but . . . as a woman whose ex-husband cheated on her, I'm going to admit I was, for a milisecond, jealous that Lynn had the opportunity to bash her unfaithful spouse in public, to the universe, as she did. Then I shook my head and cringed. I once phoned my ex's mistress at 2.00am when he was with her and have regretted it ever since (I am better than that!) I bet Lynn woke up sometime after the cartoon of Elly's nightmare ran and cringed too, and is now hoping it will be quickly forgotten.
Anonymous
First of all, I am sorry your ex-husband cheated on you. It is an awful feeling when it happens, even if you can look back on it and see that you are better off.
It is difficult for me to gauge from where I am in Arizona what the effect of Rod cheating on Lynn is. Their daughter Katie clearly sided with Lynn, since she worked at Lynn’s office for a few months. Rod’s sister is doing the more-detailed character biographies for the Who’s Who section of the FBorFW website, so presumably she is on Team Lynn. Whatever people may think of Lynn Johnston by virtue of her interviews or the way she treats her fans or even the way she portrays herself vis-à-vis Elly Patterson, it was not so bad that Rod’s closest female family members sided with him. With his sister in particular, that makes Rod look pretty bad.
As for Lynn Johnston, herself, the Chicago Tribune article where she trumpeted the appearance of the Sunday hybrid strip about the dream of John Patterson cheating was not the first of her press appearances talking about Rod cheating on her. It was over 6 weeks after her initial press statement announcing it back in early September. It would nice if “Lynn woke up sometime after the cartoon of Elly's nightmare ran and cringed too, and is now hoping it will be quickly forgotten.” However, I have my doubts. After decades of marriage, you don’t get over those things overnight. I suspect there is more to come.
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