Thursday, November 08, 2007

Foul-Mouthed Michael Part V

I know that young kids have foul mouths these days, and I feel very blessed that my wife's and my efforts to keep bad words from seeping into my kid’s language have by-and-large been successful. At their schools, the use of bad language is a punishable offence, so the pay-off is they don’t get in trouble.

In today’s For Better or For Worse, I can’t fault Elly for reacting swiftly to Michael’s use of the language, but once again, the boy who is never punished reacts just like…well…he’s never punished. “I like to curse with my friends and if mom won’t let me curse in my own yard, then I’ll to the park and curse.” The strip is funny in a creepy way, because the joke is that Michael doesn’t like to be yelled at by his mother, but on the other hand, he doesn’t respect either her or what she is trying to impress upon him. “I disrespect my mom. Ha-ha!” That’s the joke. His attitude is “If I can get away from her, I can do what I want.” Given this strip beginning, I am beginning to wonder who it is that actually gave Michael Patterson a sense of morality, and why any person would say, "My boy was just like Michael. When he was 5 years old, he swore like a sailor too."

I am prejudiced in this respect. I don’t like cursing and I don’t like being around people who regularly curse as a part of their communication abilities. When I go to my high school reunions, I find that the kids I knew growing up that had foul mouths grew up to be adults with foul mouths. And their parents had foul mouths, so I know where they got it. So, from whom is Michael Patterson getting his foul mouth? Elly disapproves of it. Grandpa Jim is a likely source, but at this age, Michael is not around him that often. The simple truth is that the style of cursing we see here: star, Saturn, exclamation point, asterisk, ampersand; is done by virtually all the Pattersons except Merrie and Robin at some point or another. Elly may disapprove of cursing, but she curses and so does John. The most likely source of it for Michael is his parents. Because we, as readers, only get the symbols, we are not as offended as we would be if we heard the real words.

Somehow or other, Michael Patterson goes from the 5-year-old with a foul mouth to the boy who eventually will think his aphasic grandfather is crazy because he curses. That is quite a change from the boy who goes to the park so he can curse freely. I am not sure at what age Michael started to think differently about cursing, but this week of strips is painting a pretty bleak picture of young Michael and the way he treats his parents.

11 Comments:

Blogger DreadedCandiru2 said...

It also marks a complete disconnection between Liz's words and reality. Mike's being able to get away with the same things Elly wouldn't her do doesn't make him especially smart, after all. All it means is that his parents have 'Boys will be boys' tattooed on their brains. What happened, simple as paper, is that her parents made her life a misery by applying a double standard to their behavior.

9:55 PM  
Blogger April Patterson said...

I think the supposed joke in this strip is that Mike is (shock of shocks) being painfully literal. Elly does not tell him not to swear. She only tells him she does not want to hear him doing so. From the point of view of painfully literal Michael, he is complying with her wishes by removing himself from her hearing range. She has to watch how she phrases her instructions. Har dee har.

3:58 AM  
Blogger DreadedCandiru2 said...

Yes. That is Elly's thing, isn't it; not realizing that her children can't pick on the subtext of her ranting. Not for her the realization that to Mike, a word only has one meaning. Had she said flat out "Don't curse, it's not nice.", the world would be a bete place.

4:33 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Is it my imagination, or in the past did the strips kinda sorta try to run 'in season' as it were? A little odd to wake up to snow in Corbeil yesterday morning, and have Mike & Lawrence playing in the sand pit/ park today . . .

4:53 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Anonymous, you live in Corbeil? Poor thing. ::Comforts you::

; )

Could you send me from fresh Canadian AIR??? No one from Corbeil has every offered to send me nothin'! Oo wait, never mind, I was offered a Cease and Desist letter.

Adrianne

7:21 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Howard,

I'm glad you're bringing your kids up to be respectful human beings in that they don't swear. I'm equally glad to hear you don't swear.

For Lent last year I gave up swearing/cursing. I liked it, it was a good thing to give up and I'm glad I did it. Ironically enough, or maybe not so much, I found that by not swearing I wasn't angry all the time. I had to learn to deal with things instead of just cursing about them.

Adrianne

7:29 AM  
Blogger howard said...

aprilp_katje,

Painfully literal Michael. I think you are right that is the joke, now that I look at the strip by the light of day. My son with Asperger’s Syndrome is also painfully literal, moreso than most kids. Even then kids are oftentimes painfully literal when it comes to something they don’t want to do. For example, the mother who says, “Go to the bathroom and take a bath…with the water…and soap…and you take your clothes off…all of your clothes…and get into the bathtub…with the water and the soap…on your body…removing the dirt…from your body…all over your body…but not your eyeballs.” Even though my son can be painfully literal about something like a bath, where I do have to remind him that I mean for him to use soap and shampoo every single time, he still picked up on the fact that he should not use bad words. I think a majour part of it, is that not only do I correct him if he does use a bad word, but I also do not use bad words myself. Michael’s painfully literal interpretation of what Elly asked him to do, carries little weight with him, if he knows she does it herself.

11:44 AM  
Blogger howard said...

Anonymous from Corbeil,

The strips do normally run “in season”. For example, Sunday’s strip made a reference to the coming of winter. These daily strips are reprint strips which are run regardless of season. By the way, any new news from Corbeil (aside from the fact it snowed yesterday morning)?

11:44 AM  
Blogger howard said...

Adrianne,

I agree with you about swearing. I forget who said it, but it was “Swearing is the last resort of someone with a limited vocabulary.” That’s the quotation I like. However, I must point out that I do enjoy pirate swearing like, “that scurvy dog” or Grandpa Jim swearing like, “Boxcar!”

11:45 AM  
Blogger DreadedCandiru2 said...

Ah, yes. That's another thing that makes all this so very silly; Mike has a perfect answer for her anti-cursing world view in that she does it herself. A lot of children resent being told "Do as I say and not as I (hope you don't find out I) do." Good parents have it in them to explain why adults get to do things children can't. The Elly Pattersons just stand there shrieking.

12:55 PM  
Blogger howard said...

dreadedcandiru2,

The Elly Pattersons just stand there shrieking.

At least the Patterson children have not picked up this awful habit.

5:11 PM  

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