Wednesday, January 30, 2008

I Have No Complaints and Yet I Still Complain

Today’s For Better or For Worse is the classic line of the married man with the stay-at-home husband == "What do you do all day?" It was only a matter of time before we went there, and I have actually met husbands with stay-at-home-wives, who have asked that question. However, and this is a crucial “however”, they would not ask that question if this statement preceded it:

I come home to a clean house, good food, well-managed finances & happy kids.

The husbands I knew who asked that question, asked the question precisely because there was some part of that statement which wasn’t true, usually the finances or the clean house. And there is one other caveat. The husband has to have observed some other husband’s house who has a stay-at-home wife and he has perceived that their house is immaculate, or his wife hasn’t spent them into the poor house; and he wonders what it takes to get one of those (not an actual exchange of a person, but an exchange of the person’s habits).

What these husbands fail to realize is that keeping an orderly and clean house is a skill. Some people are very good at it and are strongly motivated to do it, and some people stink at it and have no desire to get any better. They also fail to realize one very important thing which is, if you really want something done around the house, do it yourself.

It was this very situation which propelled me into taking over the laundry duties in my house. Initially, after we were married, my wife did this job (mainly because she did not want me to touch her clothes, because she didn’t trust that I would read the washing instructions and not ruin her clothes.) However, my wife has about 4X more clothes than I have, so she can go a month without washing and be just fine. As for me, if I go a week without washing, then I have problems. I needed the clothes to be washed weekly, so I took over the wash and have done so ever since. I expect in a lot of marriages, the division of household chores occurs in this manner.

When John Patterson says, “What do you do all day?”, it is an idiotic question. If his prior statement is true, then he should have no complaints; but then he says he doesn’t know how it could take her every waking moment. That’s just crazy. A man really would have to have spent no time observing his family at all to make that statement. Shoot! Just Elizabeth alone at that age would take up at least ¾ of Elly’s time making sure she was fed, cleaned, diapered, and afternoon napped. It’s when you come home and find the house in total chaos, with the kids crying, and no supper made, and you find your wife sitting and watching television with a package of bon-bons in front of her; then you could possibly ask that question, but even then it would be a stupid question to ask.

It appears to me that Lynn Johnston wants it both ways. Elly hates housework, and yet John think she is aces at it. If she is, why would John ask the question? Lynn wants the question to be unjustified when it is asked; but without any justification it makes little sense and John appears to be stupider than ever.

17 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ouch!!!! I feel like I just had root canal.

I’m going to STOP reading this strip and start doing crossword puzzles while leisurely sipping my morning cup of French vanilla coffee. Or better yet, I’ll start grading this stack of lab reports…

Anon NYC

2:18 AM  
Blogger DreadedCandiru2 said...

The man isn't supposed to be able to realize that Elly has a problem because he's slow on the uptake. It took him years to realize what a headache raising active children like Mike, Liz and April were and even longer to get it through his thick skull that housework ate up his wife's day. He might, by the time April is in post-graduate education begin to formulate the notion that his spending habits are open to debate.

3:47 AM  
Blogger howard said...

Anon NYC,

It is bad when reading a comic strip assaults you dentally.

5:42 AM  
Blogger howard said...

DreadedCandiru2,

He might, by the time April is in post-graduate education begin to formulate the notion that his spending habits are open to debate.

The premise of your argument then, is that John Patterson really is that stupid? You know, given the proof of your argument over 28 years, I think you have made a pretty good case.

5:43 AM  
Blogger DreadedCandiru2 said...

Not only is John stupid but he's also insensitive. When you consider that he felt that he was being unfairly punished when Elly called him out about blowing two grand on a toy while she was trying to save for the future and that he spent years thinking that what she did wan't "work" because she stayed home and said so, we can scarcely say he has what we call tact.

6:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Howard,
Do you still only do laundry once a week now that you have two kids? I only have one and I wash every day. I do work from home, so I have time to do it, but if I let the laundry pile up for seven days, that would be all I did that day. I just throw one load in every day and I feel like I am keeping up.
Patti

7:12 AM  
Blogger howard said...

DreadedCandiru2,

Not only is John stupid but he's also insensitive.
I am beginning to wonder if the guy has any redeeming features at all, and if Elly only tolerated him because he brought home money.

10:29 AM  
Blogger howard said...

Patti

Do you still only do laundry once a week now that you have two kids?
Yes. I really only have time to do the laundry and put it up on weekends, so my “once a week” is stretched from Friday night to Sunday night, and I accomplish other tasks between loads. It is pretty piled up by Friday night. When my kids were smaller and much messier with eating, I had to do “emergency” loads of laundry fairly often during the week, and it was a rare piece of clothing they had which did not require stain work. Now the kids are older, the emergency clothing washes are pretty rare.

10:29 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

can someone explain John's food? in panel 3 it looks like he's eating a sandwich, while Elly has already finished (and no one has touched the bowl of steaming hot mashed potatoes) but Michael is clearly eating hot food with a knife & fork. In panel 4 what is John doing? did he put the entire sandwich in his mouth in one?

10:57 AM  
Blogger DreadedCandiru2 said...

It wasn't just about the money: the prestige of being the wife on the number one dentist in Milborough was far too great to be lightly abandoned.

10:58 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Actually, Elly has only the one requirement for a husband that she has passed on to Liz and April:

A male who is conveniently nearby.

12:48 PM  
Blogger howard said...

anonymous

can someone explain John's food?

In the colorized version, the mashed potatoes, by virtue of their yellow/orange coloring look like Kraft dinner. As for John, in panel 3 his right hand has a knife and his left hand has the sandwich. In panel 4, it looks like his hands have been reversed and the sandwich is hidden behind the end of the table and his left hand. As for Elly, she is on her diet of a few peas, judging from the plate in panel 4, since she is trying to keep that weight off so John won't call her fat.

1:50 PM  
Blogger howard said...

debjyn,

I think I will go with your explanation of A male who is conveniently nearby versus dreadedcandiru2’s wife of the number one dentist in Milborough. I can’t think of any occasion where Elly has played up John’s dentistry to her social benefit. I remember she bragged on him once for doing laundry a few years ago, and that’s all I can remember.

1:55 PM  
Blogger DreadedCandiru2 said...

I did overreach, didn't I? When you see what Elly, Liz, Dee and April consider suitable males, it would seem that the only criteria are that they have a pulse and not have any active interest in other women.

2:21 PM  
Blogger howard said...

dreadedcandiru2,

I thinking leering John, and Thérèse-marrying Anthony fail the “not have any active interest in other women” test. As for their appeal, if there was a theme to it, it looks like the most attractive thing about these men is the idea that they find the women attractive.

John: We recently had the retcon of the John / Elly romance in September. As I look at those strips, we see John noticing and then pursuing Elly. The only indication that Elly was attracted to or interested in John is an off-hand remark by Michael that Elly was impressed by his dental work.

With Anthony and Elizabeth, the early strips so nicely shown on Lynn’s website show an Anthony interested in Elizabeth long before she knows he is alive. Elizabeth develops an interest in him seemingly based only the idea that she thinks he likes her.

With Michael and Deanna, the early strips also so nicely shown on Lynn’s website, show Michael with a crush on Deanna and no interest returned in their very early days. When they meet again later in university, Deanna’s interest in Michael seems to be based on the idea that he came to visit her after her accident, confessed he had a crush on her in Grade 4, and she realized they were going to the same school. This is actually the most reasonable of all of Lynn’s romances, because Deanna had the opportunity to see Michael as an attentive and caring man.

With Gerald and April, he kisses her and then tells her that she knew he liked her and she confesses she liked him too. However, there was no real lead-in to this in the strips that I can recollect. I think Lynn Johnston recanted on this romance when someone pointed out that Gerald and April were 11 years old, and did not need to be getting into heavy kissing. We do not see April and Gerald romantic again until the Grade 8 grad.

4:42 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Well, here's the thing:

Some men really are assholes.

My father still, to this day, not only believes that "housewife" is the easiest job on the planet, but also that it requires no real work and deserves no respect. He used to say things like this to my mother just because he is a total bastard and enjoys upsetting her.

Looking at these strips, I have to wonder if Rod Johnston was possibly just a really horrible person in his private life. They mirror my parents' home life so much. Some women DO want to stay married above all other concerns and put up with this crap. Some of them come to believe the emotional abuse is normal. My mother, for one. Didn't Lynn's first, cheating husband leave HER, and not the other way around? Perhaps Lynn is a glutton for punishment.

10:22 PM  
Blogger howard said...

qnjones,

Didn't Lynn's first, cheating husband leave HER, and not the other way around?

I believe that is correct. As for whether Rod Johnston was like this in real life, I certainly do not know. The line about "What do you do all day?" is such a cliche, I can imagine Rod did not say it; but Lynn decided to use it anyway. In contrast, the business about "Why do you need a dishwasher, when you've got me?" is not so much a cliche, so I could imagine a real person saying that.

The thing which is difficult to know in interpreting this strip as an accurate reflection of Rod Johnston, is that I remember in old interviews, Rod said he feared when he would say something stupid, because it would always end up in the strip. Every husband says something stupid from time-to-time; but if that is focussed on, via the strip, then it could give you a false impression of the man as being constantly stupid.

11:41 PM  

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