Sunday, April 13, 2008

Connie and Elly’s Self-Congratulating Conversations

Tough? Elly thinks Connie and she are tough. I think Elly needs to have one of those chats like April has with her friends Eva Abuya and Luis Guzmán, whenever she gets on her high horse about how bad her life is, only to have them throw their refugee history or “being thrown out of their home by warfare” stories in her face.

I just finished a Boy Scout Camporee, which from Friday to Sunday involved supervising Boy Scouts tromping around the desert; and sweaty-hot dusty days followed by freezing, cold night (50 degree Fahrenheit desert temperature changes). I have blisters on my feet, and I know intimately the parts of my body where I missed with the sunscreen. I had to deal with my son’s hurt feelings when the kid with whom he had been assigned to share a tent moved him (re: threw his stuff) into another boy’s tent because he preferred to tent with another boy. I got to go on a long trek with the Boy Scout troop on a project picking up trash from illegal immigrant campsites which litter the Mormon Battalion National Historic Trail site chosen for the Camporee (a very educational experience). I was quite happy when the Camporee was over, but I would not trade the experience with my son.

I came home and read today’s For Better or For Worse strip with Connie and Elly yammering on to each other how tough they are, and it irritated me. There are Boy Scout moms who come on these Camporees and these women are tough. One of them in our troop was accepted into the Order of the Arrow Boy Scout honorary society as a tribute to how tough she is. She has a bad knee, but she was there during the freezing night, and tromping along with the troop through the rocks, crevices and mountainsides cleaning up and carrying out trash just as well as the Boy Scout dads were. Frankly, I cannot imagine the bickering and complaining Elly Patterson that I have seen presented in this comic strip doing half so well in that situation.

However, as for Lynn Johnston’s story-telling, I will grant that as far as a realistic presentation of the characters of Connie and Elly goes, congratulating themselves on how well they did their mother work seems perfectly in character for them. Openly self-congratulatory people I have met in real life, rarely ever deserved the congratulations they gave themselves, and this proves to be no exception with Connie and Elly. However, I was surprised to see Connie and Elly admit that they thought loving and forgiving were the toughest part of all. That is surprisingly honest of them to admit that they were not particularly loving or forgiving, and it is actually a little out-of-character for them to do so.

After years of observing Elly (less so Connie), I can see she is not a terrible mother, but neither is she particularly spectacular. My own mother and her mother before her, could mother circles around Elly Patterson’s or Connie Poirier’s mothering. My mom was a single mom with 3 kids and she worked 3 jobs, and loving and forgiving were not tough for her at all. Connie and Elly are wimps and pansies and lightweights compared to her.

11 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Elly and Connie are reflections of Lynn, and Lynn seems to feel terribly conflicted. It appears that she can't be honest and admit to herself that she may have been ambivalent about having kids in the first place (no shame in that, and it can be worked past IF one is honest with oneself!), because she has completely bought the line that "a woman SHOULD desire her kids with all her heart". The "love and forgiveness are tough" line seems to stem from a denied resentment of her own kids that has never been honestly admitted and worked through.

My own kids drive me nuts at times; we can get into fierce arguments, and sometimes I feel (momentarily!) like strangling them. However, they were unreservedly wanted from the start, and as tough as parenting can be, loving and forgiving my kids is not tough in the least. I'd do anything for them, and they know I've always "got their backs."

1:20 AM  
Blogger April Patterson said...

think Elly needs to have one of those chats like April has with her friends Eva Abuya and Luis Guzmán, whenever she gets on her high horse about how bad her life is, only to have them throw their refugee history or “being thrown out of their home by warfare” stories in her face.

::snerk:: I had the same exact thought, as you will see when you read ARB today. Snarky minds think alike. :)

I really hate the self-congratulatory talk, too. Sorry chicas, but you don't deserve any special awards for your parenting.

3:53 AM  
Blogger howard said...

Anonymous,

Elly and Connie are reflections of Lynn, and Lynn seems to feel terribly conflicted….because she has completely bought the line that "a woman SHOULD desire her kids with all her heart".

I agree, and an excellent summary of the life of Elly. If you were to look at Elly Patterson from 1979 to today: Her years of complaining about doing housework and taking care of the children, her struggle to find things to do outside of the house, and the fact that the villainization of the character of Thérèse Caine is based on this one line; you can see a struggle over this idea.

The "love and forgiveness are tough" line seems to stem from a denied resentment of her own kids that has never been honestly admitted and worked through.

You could argue that she has in this strip honestly admitted and is working through it. I have often felt that For Better or For Worse was Lynn Johnston’s therapy.

6:57 AM  
Blogger howard said...

aprilp_katje,

::snerk:: I had the same exact thought, as you will see when you read ARB today. Snarky minds think alike. :)

Yes they do. Oddly enough, Connie Poirier used to serve the purpose of keeping Elly humble in the old days. These two ladies today have the same voice. Lynn seems to have given up on trying to make them separate characters.

6:57 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

How very strange it is to see them congratulate themselves for being a number of things that they are not. It's all so very similar to the infamous Lizthony checklist strip of last August. If they had the humility to accept that they were ambivalent about their lives instead of cocooning themselves in denial, they might not be able to praise themselves for being superwomen but they'd both be happier with the way things have turned out.

7:51 AM  
Blogger April Patterson said...

These two ladies today have the same voice. Lynn seems to have given up on trying to make them separate characters.

Same voice and same butt. Poor Connie, it used to be that she was the one who managed to keep herself physically fit and lean. Now she's got an honorary Patterbutt.

8:14 AM  
Blogger howard said...

dreadedcandiru2

It's all so very similar to the infamous Lizthony checklist strip of last August.

Excellent comparison. I remember some of the Lizthony answers to those checklist questions seemed to be out-and-out lies. The main characters in this strip often seem to need a devil’s advocate, when they start doing mutual congratulations or comparisons. We need the old Candace Halloran or old Connie Poirier to fulfill those functions. Otherwise the Patterson egos will expand unchecked.

10:01 AM  
Blogger howard said...

aprilp_katje,

Poor Connie, it used to be that she was the one who managed to keep herself physically fit and lean. Now she's got an honorary Patterbutt.

It’s a sad, sad place to be if having a Patterbutt is an honor.

10:02 AM  
Blogger April Patterson said...

Only Elly would wish to bestow such a dubious honor as a Patterbutt on anyone.

3:56 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I don't know any good mother who goes around bragging about it. In fact, they usually worry that they could have done better, and dwell on the things they did wrong.

The ones I know who do brag about being good mothers are usually totally delusional, dysfunctional nutjobs.

So, bravo Lynn, for creating a real slice-of-life today! :P

4:10 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Howard said, These two ladies today have the same voice.
And the voice is saying that we're going into flashbacks...

aprilp_katje said, Same voice and same butt.
Actually, I think today's strip is nicely drawn and both women look rather slim---for their ages.

qnjones said, I don't know any good mother who goes around bragging about it. In fact, they usually worry that they could have done better
That's exactly what I have observed.

Anon NYC

4:37 PM  

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