Elly Patterson: Tied Down and Shackled
It’s an interesting thought from today’s For Better or For Worse. I would have gone with “buried” or “planted” to play off the activity, but Connie goes for the same choices as your standard dominatrix. Go figure.
Connie Poirier takes Elly to task for making herself available to her kids no matter what time of day or night, and they have taken advantage of her and turned her into a daycare. As usual, we don’t see this 5 days a week business. All we had was one visit by Mike and Deanna to Josef Weeder and Carleen Stein with Elly keeping the kids late at night. Considering Connie’s jokes about being tied down and shackled, the implication is that Deanna’s 5 days a week statement is the correct interpretation, and not an occasional occurrence for a trip to Toronto to wrestle Weed, so to speak. Flying in the face of the daily routine though is today’s strip, where we see Elly planting and not taking care of kids. So, unless today’s strip is supposed to represent a weekend, then I don’t know how to interpret the level of daycare Elly is providing for free to her kids. Neither showing nor telling is clear in this case, and it is unfortunately increasingly the way the strip is.
Of more interest to me this week, was the interrelation between Deanna and Elizabeth Patterson. Deanna showed previously-unseen skills in sewing, while sending these basic messages to Elizabeth:
a. You don’t know what it’s like to be married.
b. We will be there to support you when you fall.
c. Don’t take our baby-sitter. We need her more than you do.
At each point, Elizabeth denied Deanna’s statement. She thinks she does know about marriage. She doesn’t care if Deanna supports her or not, as long as she doesn’t get in the way of using Elly for a baby-sitter. I don’t know what Lynn Johnston is up to here. You would think Deanna and Elizabeth would be on the way to becoming very good friends, but the statement qnjones made in a comment earlier in the week about Deanna’s position as number #2 female next to Elly being threatened, looks more like the case.
When you get right down to it, there have been few moments of sisterly affection with Elizabeth over the years. Lynn Johnston has shown a few from time-to-time, but more often she has delighted in showing Elizabeth and April picking on each other, even as they have gotten older. It is possible that now Elizabeth is getting married, she has set Deanna as her target for rivalry; since marriage for April will be well into the future considering she has 1 more year of senior secondary and 8 more years of university ahead of her as a future veterinarian. By that time, Elizabeth’s first child with Anthony will be at least 8 years old, and Elizabeth should be well past rivalry. I hope.
Connie Poirier takes Elly to task for making herself available to her kids no matter what time of day or night, and they have taken advantage of her and turned her into a daycare. As usual, we don’t see this 5 days a week business. All we had was one visit by Mike and Deanna to Josef Weeder and Carleen Stein with Elly keeping the kids late at night. Considering Connie’s jokes about being tied down and shackled, the implication is that Deanna’s 5 days a week statement is the correct interpretation, and not an occasional occurrence for a trip to Toronto to wrestle Weed, so to speak. Flying in the face of the daily routine though is today’s strip, where we see Elly planting and not taking care of kids. So, unless today’s strip is supposed to represent a weekend, then I don’t know how to interpret the level of daycare Elly is providing for free to her kids. Neither showing nor telling is clear in this case, and it is unfortunately increasingly the way the strip is.
Of more interest to me this week, was the interrelation between Deanna and Elizabeth Patterson. Deanna showed previously-unseen skills in sewing, while sending these basic messages to Elizabeth:
a. You don’t know what it’s like to be married.
b. We will be there to support you when you fall.
c. Don’t take our baby-sitter. We need her more than you do.
At each point, Elizabeth denied Deanna’s statement. She thinks she does know about marriage. She doesn’t care if Deanna supports her or not, as long as she doesn’t get in the way of using Elly for a baby-sitter. I don’t know what Lynn Johnston is up to here. You would think Deanna and Elizabeth would be on the way to becoming very good friends, but the statement qnjones made in a comment earlier in the week about Deanna’s position as number #2 female next to Elly being threatened, looks more like the case.
When you get right down to it, there have been few moments of sisterly affection with Elizabeth over the years. Lynn Johnston has shown a few from time-to-time, but more often she has delighted in showing Elizabeth and April picking on each other, even as they have gotten older. It is possible that now Elizabeth is getting married, she has set Deanna as her target for rivalry; since marriage for April will be well into the future considering she has 1 more year of senior secondary and 8 more years of university ahead of her as a future veterinarian. By that time, Elizabeth’s first child with Anthony will be at least 8 years old, and Elizabeth should be well past rivalry. I hope.
posted by howard at 11:52 PM
11 Comments:
howard:
Lynn is clearly playing up Liz's fear of being shoved aside and not given her perceived rightful share of parental affection with the scenes of sisterly rivalry. Given Liz's essentially timid nature, she can't outshout or outrun hardier lifeforms like Mike, April or Dee; all shew can do is look more pathetic than they are so that people will give her things out of sympathy. It's a thing she shares with the also-ran she wants to marry. Anthony doesn't have it in him to play with the big dogs but if he whines enough, he'll be thrown a bone.
I think dreadedcandiru2 is right. Liz sees that she will never compete with Mike in her mother's eyes, because Mike is the literary "genius" and Liz is just a boring teacher marrying a boring accountant/garage manager. I think by insisting that Elly sit for her kids on demand, Liz is trying to get back at Mike and Dee a little bit.
And it's interesting that it's okay for Mike and Dee to use Elly 24/7, but when Liz makes the same request, it is suddenly too burdensome. If Elly is actually caring for Merrie and Robin every weekday while Dee works and Mike "works," then she is already tied down every day.
But perhaps Elly doesn't see it that way because it is all in service of her golden boy. I have known amongst my acquaintances growing up many mothers who favored their sons heavily over their daughters. In fact, there is a set of mothers who believe that women should wait upon their sons--first they do it, and then their sons' wives do it. We see that is the setup for Mike. His mother does all the childcare and gives him a furnished house with a deal on the price. His wife works full-time to support him in his writing dream. Women are put on Earth (or in Milborough) to serve Mike Patterson.
Liz, however, has never gotten that kind of parental attention. The only concern her parents ever had about her was that she should get married, and then presumably become some man's responsibility. And now Elly resents Liz asking her to do the same thing she did for Mike.
One wonders if this was Lynn's attitude about her son and daughter.
I did like Connie here for actually pointing out that Mike and Dee are taking advantage, i.e., being jerks.
That was Connie! I thought it was John until the last panel! Yikes!
dreadedcandiru2,
Given Liz's essentially timid nature, she can't outshout or outrun hardier lifeforms like Mike, April or Dee; all shew can do is look more pathetic than they are so that people will give her things out of sympathy.
For example, like walking into the house and start bawling her eyes about Paul breaking up with her, or crawling into her bed in the fetal position holding a bunny.
qnjones,
The only concern her parents ever had about her was that she should get married, and then presumably become some man's responsibility. And now Elly resents Liz asking her to do the same thing she did for Mike. One wonders if this was Lynn's attitude about her son and daughter.
I am not sure. In Lynn’s moment of need from her divorce, it was her daughter who came back to work for her for awhile. I always kind of wondered if what she did was work, of just be there when her mother fell apart, so the rest of the staff didn’t have to deal with it. As for Elly and Liz, the relationship is definitely different than that between Elly and Mike. Up until recently, Liz spent a lot of her time trying to get away from and avoid telling her mom things, to the point where her mother took 2 trips to Mtigwaki, for no other apparent reason than to get her daughter to talk to her. Michael, on the other hand, even has his mother edit his book for him.
Katie,
I thought it was John until the last panel! Yikes!
Yes, Katie, the artwork has reached the stage where every old woman could just as easily be John Patterson.
howard:
As for Elly and Liz, the relationship is definitely different than that between Elly and Mike. Up until recently, Liz spent a lot of her time trying to get away from and avoid telling her mom things, to the point where her mother took 2 trips to Mtigwaki, for no other apparent reason than to get her daughter to talk to her.
She also fretted about how much time Liz spent talking to her teacher instead of her. Looking back, it wasn't so much her fear of outsiders that inspired that as it was her simply wondering why Liz wouldn't come to her. I doubt that she could put two and two together and realize that Liz thought that it was essentially futile to establish any sort of bond because she feared that, sooner or later, the conversation would swing back to glorifying the sullen goon she called an older brother.
dreadedcandiru2,
I doubt that she could put two and two together and realize that Liz thought that it was essentially futile to establish any sort of bond because she feared that, sooner or later, the conversation would swing back to glorifying the sullen goon she called an older brother.
Certainly this would be the case in conversations with Elly. However, it would not explain why Liz is close-mouthed with people who won’t talk about Mike, like April for example.
howard:
However, it would not explain why Liz is close-mouthed with people who won’t talk about Mike, like April for example.
People like Liz would rather sit there moaning about how they have no friends than do something risky like try and make them. Living her life in such a way that she keeps the chance of getting hurt to a minimum means, sadly, that she isn't really living at all.
I'm still fixating on Elly's statements:
A man with a child.
Wanting kids of her own.
Ouch. Francoise is "that man's child". Liz wants her OWN kids. This is screaming poor step-child/step-grandchild.
Hopefully, this was stupidity on Lynn's part when she was writing and she didn't think of "Liz's new daughter" and Liz wants MORE kids, too.
However, I do believe in those slips of the subconscious. That, and the way the Patterson's have just been shown over and over as considering themselves superior. superiority.
debjyn,
Ouch. Francoise is "that man's child". Liz wants her OWN kids. This is screaming poor step-child/step-grandchild.
The language does expose Elly’s favourites in advance. Elly may put the “grand” in grandmother, but she is not going to put it in step-grandmother. On the other hand, it may simply be a case of not accepting Francoise as anything until Elizabeth and Anthony are officially married, in the event Elizabeth flakes out.
Post a Comment
<< Home