Entertaining Children
I remember when my boy got a Gameboy from his grandparents on the occasion of them coming to visit us in Arizona back in 2002, when he was 7 years old. It was an amazing thing, because the Gameboy was the first toy he had which would keep him occupied for more than an hour. Keeping the children occupied during the course of a day was one of the majour activities of being a parent in my house for most of their early years. Eventually my kids got to the point where they could watch a whole movie lasting more than an hour without getting restless and having to take a bathroom break to alleviate their boredom and their bladder, but it took awhile.
Now my kids are 10 and 12 and keeping them occupied during a day is not a problem at all. Now the problem is making sure they do the school work or their household cleaning assignments before they go to the activities they like to do. The early days of diaper-changing seem long ago. Although I remember them, I sometimes forget how those days were until I think hard about particular incidents. I suspect Lynn Johnston is the same way.
In today’s For Better or For Worse, we get to see Deanna Patterson dealing with her kids again, where once again Elly gets to pop in at the end for a good laugh at Deanna’s laughable parenting. To evaluate it, I have to think back to when my kids were those ages. Would I have done or said what Deanna did? The answer is no.
I think back to my house as it was in those days, with the awful baby gates all over the place and constantly having to open them or step over them. Naturally Robin at 3 is up and down the stairs and not a gate in sight. I think back to how I used to have to clean in those days. If my wife wasn’t there to wrangle them, the kids had to be on the same floor I was and occupied with some activity, so I could hear anything going wrong.
I think back to all those parenting books we read. I will have to digress and point out that when my boy started manifesting behaviour from his Asperger’s Syndrome, my wife and I had no idea what was going on. The pediatrician suggested that he was simply having the terrible 2's over a year early, that there was nothing going on with my son that good discipline wouldn’t fix. So, we read a lot of books on disciplining children and we tried most everything that was suggested. If you guessed it didn’t work, you would have guessed right.
Would I have thought I knew everything about raising children before I became a parent? No! Absolutely not! Moreover, who would? Only someone who had a lot of experience with other people’s kids, I would guess, like a daycare worker or the oldest sibling in a large family. That’s certainly not Deanna, who was the youngest of 2 kids and has worked only as a pharmacist. The joke of the strip is to show that once again, Deanna’s meager parenting skills have been trounced by her kids, and that she was once arrogant enough to think she knew everything. I'll give Lynn Johnston points on the realistic way Meredith and Robin react to the situation Deanna created; but Deanna loses points from me in general. Someone who has been a parent for 5 years now, should know better.
Now my kids are 10 and 12 and keeping them occupied during a day is not a problem at all. Now the problem is making sure they do the school work or their household cleaning assignments before they go to the activities they like to do. The early days of diaper-changing seem long ago. Although I remember them, I sometimes forget how those days were until I think hard about particular incidents. I suspect Lynn Johnston is the same way.
In today’s For Better or For Worse, we get to see Deanna Patterson dealing with her kids again, where once again Elly gets to pop in at the end for a good laugh at Deanna’s laughable parenting. To evaluate it, I have to think back to when my kids were those ages. Would I have done or said what Deanna did? The answer is no.
I think back to my house as it was in those days, with the awful baby gates all over the place and constantly having to open them or step over them. Naturally Robin at 3 is up and down the stairs and not a gate in sight. I think back to how I used to have to clean in those days. If my wife wasn’t there to wrangle them, the kids had to be on the same floor I was and occupied with some activity, so I could hear anything going wrong.
I think back to all those parenting books we read. I will have to digress and point out that when my boy started manifesting behaviour from his Asperger’s Syndrome, my wife and I had no idea what was going on. The pediatrician suggested that he was simply having the terrible 2's over a year early, that there was nothing going on with my son that good discipline wouldn’t fix. So, we read a lot of books on disciplining children and we tried most everything that was suggested. If you guessed it didn’t work, you would have guessed right.
Would I have thought I knew everything about raising children before I became a parent? No! Absolutely not! Moreover, who would? Only someone who had a lot of experience with other people’s kids, I would guess, like a daycare worker or the oldest sibling in a large family. That’s certainly not Deanna, who was the youngest of 2 kids and has worked only as a pharmacist. The joke of the strip is to show that once again, Deanna’s meager parenting skills have been trounced by her kids, and that she was once arrogant enough to think she knew everything. I'll give Lynn Johnston points on the realistic way Meredith and Robin react to the situation Deanna created; but Deanna loses points from me in general. Someone who has been a parent for 5 years now, should know better.
posted by howard at 11:15 PM
7 Comments:
It makes me laugh in a sort of mildy disgusted way that she chose Elly as a role model. That's just what we don't need: one arch know-it-all taking notes from an older model of the same arrogant buffoon. That's the reason she abets the Pattersons in their campaign to deny Mira influence over the children's lives. You see, she has always had an unwelcome habit of calling shenanigans on Dee's claim's of knowledge. From what I've seen of Dee so far, I can't help but come away with the impression that she's always thought she knew more than she did, always had an arrogant streak to her. She doesn't see that Mira is looking out for her best interests or that Elly just wants her own arrogant, closed-minded validated by it being held by another stuck-up jerk. She sees a fat fool thinking she can boss her around and a fairy-godmother figure who tells her she's doing fine.
dreadedcandiru2,
That's just what we don't need: one arch know-it-all taking notes from an older model of the same arrogant buffoon.
True, but I don’t see that with the Deanna and Elly dynamic. Elly almost never went to Deanna’s apartment in Toronto, so there was almost no interaction between them. Now Deanna is in Milborough, Elly visits Deanna much more often now she is within walking distance, as you would expect. Nevertheless, even though Elly has walked in on Deanna in the middle of a child-rearing disaster on a few occasions now, we have yet to hear Elly give Deanna any child-rearing advice. Instead, Elly more represents the older parent who has done it all and now spends her time being amused by the younger parent’s mistakes.
From what I've seen of Dee so far, I can't help but come away with the impression that she's always thought she knew more than she did, always had an arrogant streak to her.
As far as the way Deanna treats her mother, that is definitely the case. The Christmas Dinner reaction to Mira’s prayer was just another example of it. That’s why one of my favourite For Better or For Worse stories is the one where Mira wants to buy Deanna brand new baby furniture and then reverses her decision based on a conversation with Lovey Saltzman, just as Deanna realized that new baby furniture was a lot better than the junk she bought.
Yes. Elly does seem to be getting a good little chuckle at Dee's expense. Another thing that distinguishes her from the younger woman is that, depsite my my brash attempt to make them equivalent when they aren't, she was aware that she had no idea what to do as a mother. She was making it all up as she went along and said so. All she knew is that she didn't want her mother telling her she was doing it wrong.
dreadedcandiru2,
Yes, presumably Deanna's understanding of parenting would be based on her desire not to do things the way her mother did them. As near as I can tell, Deanna is a success in that regard.
From Deanna's Letter, May 2004:
He never grew up with my mother who tried to direct every little aspect of my life, ever since I can remember. I had to dress perfectly, act perfectly, have the "right" friends, and go to the "right" things. I took ballet and figure skating because mom wanted me to. They were "right" and beautiful and she wanted to tell people her daughter was a figure skater, or studying dance. It sounded good on her resume
1. Dress perfectly. Not Robin and Meredith. She has Robin in boxers and you rarely see Meredith in those cute little girl dresses. However, I will grant that Robin and Meredith are possibly the best-dressed of all the Pattersons.
2. Act perfectly. Not these rotten kids.
3. Have the “right” friends. With Robin and Meredith, the question is “have any friends.” Let me think of all the kids’ birthday parties I have seen for Robin and Meredith in the strip. Zero is the number.
4. Go to the “right” things. None, unless you count Mike’s book-signing.
5. Take ballet or figure-skating. Oops. There was a strip where Meredith was a junior skating Teddy Bear. Oh well, no one’s perfect.
That leads me to my real difficulty with Deanna; I find it hard to trust her account of events because we only have her side of the story. From what I saw today, she really doesn't seem to have any proper idea of what to do with her free time. That's why she simply said "Do something"; since she can't think of a specific thing to do with a spare moment, she can't very well tell Meredith how to spend her time. Mira, on the other hand, was full of ideas to prevent her child from staring off into space moaning about how bored she was. Daddy's little layabout didn't like that one bit. Making her mark in society contradicted her impulse towards inertia. Mira's quest for status seems to me to be motivated by love, by a desire to see that the people she cares for get as much of what this world has to offer as their hands can hold. Deanna sees it as bossing people, like her Daddy, around instead of letting they do what they want. When you consider that what Deanna wants to do is be the grinning lackey to a buffoon, you come away with the strong feeling that Mira is right to condemn how she lives her life.
dreadedcandiru2,
Mira's quest for status seems to me to be motivated by love, by a desire to see that the people she cares for get as much of what this world has to offer as their hands can hold. Deanna sees it as bossing people, like her Daddy, around instead of letting they do what they want.
My wife and I struggle over these issues with my kids all the time; and I remember going through it with my mom. My mom was determined that all her kids have the things which she wanted growing up, so we had piano lessons, violin lessons (and my sisters had to take dance). We didn’t like the piano lessons or the violin lessons and my sisters hated dance. However, the net effect of all that was that my sisters and I all learned how to read music (a valuable skill) and we are marginally competent at the piano, but no good at violin because we hated it with a passion. I know from that experience it is better to help kids achieve the things they like doing; but on the other hand, if the kids are given the choice, they would just as soon sit on their butts and watch TV or play video games all day than do anything else.
If I take Elly and April as an example, April’s love of the guitar stemmed from personal time spent by Grandpa Jim teaching her guitar basics. However, Elly does take and pay for April’s guitar lessons with the classical guitar teacher, she did let April rehearse her band at her house, and she did take April to a music camp one summer. The difference between Elly and Mira may be that Elly supported a venture which April wanted to do, whereas according to Deanna’s perspective, Mira forced her activities on her. However, without that Grandpa Jim personal time, April may have been just as inactive as her niece and nephew. The activities I can think of, which Elly pushed on April, was working at Lilliput’s and working a summer at the Winnipeg farm.
What Deanna has failed to realize is that when her mother forced her to do the “right” things, it did change her. Of the Patterson women, she is considered to be the most fashionable and attractive. Of the Patterson women, she is the one who makes the most money (at least until April becomes a vet). And most importantly, of the Patterson women, she is by far the most emotionally stable. You never see Deanna shrieking at kids, like Elly did.
Deanna may have hated the regimentation thrust upon her but it had a good effect that Mira may not have intended; it made her more able to focus on a goal than Elly or Liz. Her stated purpose in life is to prove to herself that she didn't heed to be prodded and pushed through life by raising children who can choose for themselves what to do with their time. Today's mess, I should think, stems from her unwittingly channelling one of the coaches from her activities. I can think of any number of times when she's said something you'd expect a gym teacher to say.
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