Elly: Is There Any Mom Greater?
I remember this one well. My wife’s dad and step-mom have long maintained that their son’s wife is a complete boob when it comes to taking care of their daughters. Their house for their granddaughters then became a place where they tried to teach her all the things that she should have been learning from her incompetent mother. Needless to say, the grandmother and the mother don’t get along too well.
It is one thing to lavish praise on Elly Patterson, because that has been a focus of the strip for years now. However, it is another thing for characters, who had previously been portrayed as somewhat competent to now be turning into “I can’t do anything without Elly”. Deanna Patterson started the week, with what appeared to be a lecture to Liz about how tough marriage is. When Liz makes a grab for Elly Patterson’s baby-sitting skills, the lecture changed into a confession that Deanna and Mike utilize Elly for baby-sitting 5 days a week and take advantage of her. Gone are the days of Ardith Narayan, their one-time sitter; or any idea that Meredith would be in kindergarten and Robin in childcare. This idea has left even the most ardent reader scratching their head as to why it would be necessary for Elly to baby-sit so much.
Connie Poirier is playing the devil’s advocate for Elly’s babysitting martyrdom. In today’s strip, Elly referred to Meredith and Robin as her babies, showing that she has been sitting them so long as to consider them her children. Connie’s voice of reason is that Mike and Deanna should find other baby sitters. If this strip heads the direction I expect, then we will see Elly find a childcare place for Mike and Deanna, for which they will be eternally grateful.
Honestly, I can’t see any purpose in this story arc except to set up Elly praise and those are the dullest and most irritating strips of For Better or For Worse.
It is one thing to lavish praise on Elly Patterson, because that has been a focus of the strip for years now. However, it is another thing for characters, who had previously been portrayed as somewhat competent to now be turning into “I can’t do anything without Elly”. Deanna Patterson started the week, with what appeared to be a lecture to Liz about how tough marriage is. When Liz makes a grab for Elly Patterson’s baby-sitting skills, the lecture changed into a confession that Deanna and Mike utilize Elly for baby-sitting 5 days a week and take advantage of her. Gone are the days of Ardith Narayan, their one-time sitter; or any idea that Meredith would be in kindergarten and Robin in childcare. This idea has left even the most ardent reader scratching their head as to why it would be necessary for Elly to baby-sit so much.
Connie Poirier is playing the devil’s advocate for Elly’s babysitting martyrdom. In today’s strip, Elly referred to Meredith and Robin as her babies, showing that she has been sitting them so long as to consider them her children. Connie’s voice of reason is that Mike and Deanna should find other baby sitters. If this strip heads the direction I expect, then we will see Elly find a childcare place for Mike and Deanna, for which they will be eternally grateful.
Honestly, I can’t see any purpose in this story arc except to set up Elly praise and those are the dullest and most irritating strips of For Better or For Worse.
posted by howard at 9:56 PM
11 Comments:
I find Connie to be very annoying and pushy in this strip. She dictates to Elly that she should only babysit when it's absolutely necessary. It does not surprise me that Connie thinks grandchildren should be avoided at all costs. But why does she feel the need to push this extreme view onto Elly?
Furthermore, Elly obviously wants some contact with the grandkids. She has started babysitting for some reason--a change from her past behavior, when she used to do as Connie advised and saw the kids as little as possible. Maybe she wants to know them better. Maybe she just wants the accolades. But it seems she does want to spend at least some time with them.
It is interesting that no middle of the road solution is proposed, like, "I will babysit on Tuesdays and Thursdays," or "I will take the kids one night a week." Nonsensical black and white thinking has become a Lynn hallmark of late.
It is also telling that John is left out of this discussion. If he is working only one day a week, then he is home during a lot of this babysitting. But it seems that, as with the wedding plans, John is content to do nothing. Certainly he doesn't factor into the decision-making, and Elly does not mention him helping out. I guess he holes up with his trains and ignores the grandkids--?
I personally think we will see Elly pretend to try to lay down the law, but will wind up still babysitting a huge amount of the time.
qnjones:
What's equally interesting is that Elly seems not to want to stand up for herself when she's confronted by the unsolicited advice of an envious hypocrite. If I recall correctly, Connie even objected to Elly's getting a sheepdog puppy from Mrs Baird because she told her that John was using Farley as a means to tie her to the house. In the real world, an annoying jerk like that would be told to sponge it up and disappear.
howard,
Honestly, I can’t see any purpose in this story arc except to set up Elly praise and those are the dullest and most irritating strips of For Better or For Worse.
Not even the lavishing of praise on Michael comes close to the dreariness of lauding someone even less worthy of kudos than he. As far as I'm concerned, Elly is a failure in almost every aspect of her life.
I'm confused by this week's strip. Elly is saying that she babysits all the time -- five days a week. If this were the case, then we should have many strips with Elly and her grandkids together. Many of the Meredith-and-Robin strips should take place with Elly and John as the caregivers, instead of Dee and/or Michael. Many strips that focus on Elly should have the grandkids in the background, especially those strips where Elly leaves the house during the day. If John is doing a lot of the care, then we should see him with the grandkids in the background.
This is not the case. We have seen almost nothing of Elly and and her grandkids together. She came over when the children were sick a few years ago, and Michael and Dee drop them off for an evening now and then (e.g. 5/24/08 for the book party), but that's it. The Meredith-and-Robin strips show their parents as the caregiving adults (e.g. 2/4/08 series: Michael cares for the kids one afternoon), and we get many strips showing Elly without the grandkids (e.g. 6/10/08-6/11/08: the wedding announcement, 5/26/08-5/28/08: shopping at the mall, 4/14/08-4/15/08: a walk with Connie ). There is nothing that shows Elly as primary weekday caregiver.
I suspect that this is is a case of "tell, don't show." Perhaps Lynn is responding to criticism that Elly is only an occasional babysitter for Dee and Michael, and so her response is to claim that Elly is actually the full-time weekday caregiver. However, the strips leading up to this revelation are totally inconsistent with that claim. The grandkids have not been depicted with Elly.
I know that events happen "off camera," but something as sustained, as ongoing, as daily grandparent childcare should appear in the strip. "Little kid" strips should appear with Elly as the present adult. Caring for the grandkids could also appear just as a background activity: the grandchildren don't need to be the focus of the Elly strips, if Lynn wants to deal with other issues, but the kids should be around -- caring for small children means having them in sight most of the time. This week's strip, for example, shows Elly gardening with Connie. Gardening is an involved activity that probably takes several hours. Where are the grandkids during all this? It would be easy to show them in the background, even just as dark silhouettes, or to show a toy in the corner of the frame, indicating that the kids are present even if they aren't the focus of the strip.
To me, it just seems that Elly claims her grandkids are with her all the time, when a quick glance through the archives shows plainly that they are not.
qnjones,
But why does she feel the need to push this extreme view onto Elly?
The view Connie is pushing is Elly's own (but... I already raised my kids) expressed only in a thought balloon. Talking with Connie, Elly's opinion switched to the opposite viewpoint. Perhaps Connie realizes Elly's true thoughts on the matter and is, by her extended lecturing, trying to give Elly motivation to do what she really wants to do, but won't do unless someone badgers her into it. It could be that Connie realizes this is a service she presents to passive Elly.
If he is working only one day a week, then he is home during a lot of this babysitting. But it seems that, as with the wedding plans, John is content to do nothing.
I believe John's one-day-a-week work schedule is not supposed to start until September. Currently he is at 3 days a week. However, I have noticed that since Lynn's divorce, the role of John Patterson as the person Elly talks with about things, has almost disappeared from the strip, and Connie Poirier has taken that spot. She has made almost as many appearances in the last year, as she did in the prior 3 years.
dreadedcandiru2,
In the real world, an annoying jerk like that would be told to sponge it up and disappear.
Lynn Johnston likes to use characters to occasionally take down the Pattersons by a notch, and oftentimes these characters are a Patterson best friend. Fortunately with Connie, there are also lots of other dull and boring strips where she does nothing but tell Elly how wonderful she is.
Anonymous,
I'm confused by this week's strip. Elly is saying that she babysits all the time -- five days a week. If this were the case, then we should have many strips with Elly and her grandkids together.
I agree. What we have instead is the May 24 strip to show us Elly baby-sitting late at night, and then Deanna's own confession this week that Liz can't have Elly, because they need her. From this, the readers are supposed to fill in the blanks. This is the current style the author uses for her storytelling and it can be quite confusing.
The classic example was Elizabeth's May, 2006, decision to move from Mtigwaki to Milborough because she was desperately homesick. In January, 2006, Liz had lectured at length about how she no longer felt Milborough was her home. In October, 2005, Elly had declared that Mtigwaki felt like home for Liz. Lynn Johnston's method of showing Liz getting homesick was one strip where she talked to her boss' wife, Vivian, about being homesick. The next thing you know she's moving, and the readers are getting mental whiplash.
However, the strips leading up to this revelation are totally inconsistent with that claim. The grandkids have not been depicted with Elly.
It's less "tell, don't show" and more like a single point complete change of character. It's similar to the Sunday strips which portray Elly and John as environmentalists for a day. The real question is whether or not this is truly a single point change, and Elly will revert immediately back to her old self of rarely having anything to do with her grandkids, or if this is more like the Liz getting homesick change that led to a majour change in her life.
"we will see Elly find a childcare place for Mike and Deanna."
At first, I thought that meant that Elly wanted to put Mike and Deanna themselves in childcare!
Though maybe Mike would benefit from that.
muzition,
At first, I thought that meant that Elly wanted to put Mike and Deanna themselves in childcare!
LOL. Not a bad idea.
Meredith certainly hasn't been in Elly's care on a daily basis for the last year. According to the last few monthly letters in the summer of 2007, Merrie was enrolled in kindergarten this past school year.
joshua,
Plus according to the same monthly letter, Robin was supposed to go to a daycare held at the same school where Meredith was going. However, if you don't see it in the strip, then it is not official, even if it makes more sense. We never saw Meredith in kindergarten, so she wasn't there.
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