Watching Your Brother Pee
I have an older son and a younger daughter. Today’s For Better or For Worse strip tested my memories about when they learned their parts weren’t the same. In their younger years, it took awhile for my kids to understand about how they were not supposed to walk into a washroom when the door was closed, even if it was unlocked. Or likewise, to understand that they were supposed to close the door when they were using the washroom.
When they were very little, but old enough to be bathed in a bathtub, I did wash them both at the same time in the same bathtub. After the bathing, they would play together in the soap suds with their bathtub toys and they had a great time. Eventually they got too big for that, and by too big, I mean they both couldn’t fit comfortably in the bathtub at the same time. It was a sad moment for both of them, because they missed playing together. I hope I am not disturbing anyone by these statements. I realize that in many families, there is a strict separation of children by gender and a definite taboo over one gender seeing the other gender without clothes at the very earliest ages. My kids have definitely passed into that age where they do not want anyone to see them naked; but when they were little, they could have cared less.
Needless to say, her fascination with her brother’s ability to pee standing up displayed by little Lizzie in today’s For Better or For Worse was not a thing which ever happened in my household with my daughter and my son. I certainly would have been horrified to see my daughter grasping on the toilet bowl for a really close look at my son urinating for a whole host of reasons.
As disturbing as this strip was, however, you can derive the following understandings:
a. Little Lizzie had seen Michael pee standing up before.
b. Michael did not like Lizzie watching him pee.
c. As a diaper-wearer, little Lizzie is quite a bit more interested in the physical differences between her and her brother than I would have expected.
d. Michael has called his mother on little Lizzie before, because he apparently lacks the ability to get her out of the way, i.e. shutting and locking the washroom door.
e. After the last 2 weeks of Michael, I have a good understanding of why his parents might not want little Michael to know how to shut and lock a door; even though we know from Michael’s experience with John in the washroom, the door can be shut and locked.
f. It is possible for Lynn Johnston to put subject matter in this strip more disturbing and unsettling than I would have ever imagined.
When they were very little, but old enough to be bathed in a bathtub, I did wash them both at the same time in the same bathtub. After the bathing, they would play together in the soap suds with their bathtub toys and they had a great time. Eventually they got too big for that, and by too big, I mean they both couldn’t fit comfortably in the bathtub at the same time. It was a sad moment for both of them, because they missed playing together. I hope I am not disturbing anyone by these statements. I realize that in many families, there is a strict separation of children by gender and a definite taboo over one gender seeing the other gender without clothes at the very earliest ages. My kids have definitely passed into that age where they do not want anyone to see them naked; but when they were little, they could have cared less.
Needless to say, her fascination with her brother’s ability to pee standing up displayed by little Lizzie in today’s For Better or For Worse was not a thing which ever happened in my household with my daughter and my son. I certainly would have been horrified to see my daughter grasping on the toilet bowl for a really close look at my son urinating for a whole host of reasons.
As disturbing as this strip was, however, you can derive the following understandings:
a. Little Lizzie had seen Michael pee standing up before.
b. Michael did not like Lizzie watching him pee.
c. As a diaper-wearer, little Lizzie is quite a bit more interested in the physical differences between her and her brother than I would have expected.
d. Michael has called his mother on little Lizzie before, because he apparently lacks the ability to get her out of the way, i.e. shutting and locking the washroom door.
e. After the last 2 weeks of Michael, I have a good understanding of why his parents might not want little Michael to know how to shut and lock a door; even though we know from Michael’s experience with John in the washroom, the door can be shut and locked.
f. It is possible for Lynn Johnston to put subject matter in this strip more disturbing and unsettling than I would have ever imagined.
posted by howard at 10:23 PM
8 Comments:
This is the best explanation she could come up with for why Liz spent her life whining; she wanted the same sort of equipment for her very own. Too bad that I can't unsee or unthink this. What this really means is that she wishes she were male. That way, she could fight back against the patriarchy instead of being doomed to a life of frustratiion, flapping and honking. In short, she's given the omega males that surround her permission to opress her, just like a good little Passiveson.
dreadedcandiru2,
I know you're going with the "penis envy" explanation for Liz, but in the back of my mind I am thinking, "What could possibly have possessed Lynn Johnston to do a strip featuring kids about this subject?"
I don't think she really knows how children's minds work at all. Nothing I've seen in this stretch of hybrid material leads me to belive that she has all that much insight into any mind that isn't like her own. She appears to explain things to us by having her characters act as she would in that situation.
She appears to explain things to us by having her characters act as she would in that situation.
Sadly, Lynn has said, time and time again in interviews, that this is exactly what she does. "All of the characters are ME. They do what I would do in their situation!"
Which explains why so much of the strip feels so false. Instead of strtching her imagination and seeing how a character would react in a given situation, she simply shows us how she would. This is why the male characters seem so effeminate, why Liz and April seem so ,well, old.
dreadedcandiru2,
And why she's envious of the ability to stand and pee? Is that Lynn's envy?
Moe like she's assuming hat a one-year-old would know what her brother was doing becuase she does. At least I hope that's it.
Who cares? Theyre just playing. Much to do about nothing.
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