Why Mike Writes and Does Not Work With Concrete
Concrete is interesting stuff. My dad learned the hard way with his stepson (my step-brother) that you if you have small children about, you have to watch it like a hawk until it dries. It’s also a good idea to cover it, if there is the chance of plant or animal life getting on it. In today’s For Better or For Worse, John Patterson apparently does not know these things. The joke is supposed to be that Michael Patterson should not be surprised how easily it is uncovered that he is the one who destroyed the concrete by putting his initial into it.
The real joke is that John Patterson did not allow his son to participate in some way, shape, form or fashion in the making of the concrete sidewalk. As for my children, they have a grandmother who intentionally gave each of them little squares of concrete for them to decorate with coloured stones and the like and put their name on, which are now permanent parts of the sidewalk to her house. The kids are delighted to see it, whenever they visit her.
The real joke is that John Patterson did not allow his son to participate in some way, shape, form or fashion in the making of the concrete sidewalk. As for my children, they have a grandmother who intentionally gave each of them little squares of concrete for them to decorate with coloured stones and the like and put their name on, which are now permanent parts of the sidewalk to her house. The kids are delighted to see it, whenever they visit her.
posted by howard at 10:06 PM
10 Comments:
howard,
John Patterson is a joke as far as I'm concerned. For all his alpha male posturing, the man was as ready to be a husband and father as Elly was to be a wife and mother. Over the years, we've seen him whine or fume about the consequences of his heedlessness and shortsightedness. It wouldn't occur to him to let Mike put a hand print in the walkway any more than it would to cover the concrete as it set. He lacks the intellect and heart to do the first and the humility to do the latter.
dreadedcandiru2,
John Patterson seems to reflect very well, the possible interest in parenting, young Rod Johnston had with his new stepson. That would be Lynn's base of experience for telling this kind of story, i.e. a man who just got a new kid in his family and doesn't already know how to deal with small children. With John Patterson, it seems odd, he would not know how Michael got into things, if he had been around Michael for all 5 years of his life.
howard,
It does seem odd to say the least. It also makes him look like a complete simpleton not to mention making Lynn look silly for not explaining things better. If she were to have depicted John as Elly's second husband from the get-go, he'd be a lot easier to both understand and take.
Rod could have been in a rather difficult position, also. It might have been rather difficult to figure out the boundaries and expectations of Lynn in his role as a father; Lynn never saw her own father as an authority figure. She has depicted him as rather passive while her mother was the disciplinarian. Perhaps that model carried over to her marriages.
Another thought about John--not only does it not make much sense about his lack of interaction with Mike, but I'm also wondering how a "farm boy" like John can be such a wuss. Maybe Canadians are different, but I would think anyone brought up doing hard manual labor would be a little bit more.....manly. At least that has always been my experience, living in rural/country areas.
dreadedcandiru2,
If she were to have depicted John as Elly's second husband from the get-go, he'd be a lot easier to both understand and take.
The difference is Lynn’s seeming inability to make the subtle distinctions between her own life and the life of her characters. We have made jokes about Elly constantly talking about herself not having any more kids to raise, when April is still in the house, because Lynn has no kids in the house. It appears that even back in the earliest days of the strip, Lynn was unable to draw the difference between Rod as step-dad to John as dad. Even if she had made him the second husband, she did intentionally exclude parts of Rod’s personality with John, and put them in other characters. The flying dentist is Warren Blackwood. The guy who loved working with the Ojibway became Constable Paul Wright. John’s parenting technique with Michael and preference for baby Elizabeth can be explained by his being the second husband and father only to Elizabeth; but there would still always be something lacking.
debjyn,
Maybe Canadians are different, but I would think anyone brought up doing hard manual labor would be a little bit more.....manly.
I was brought up in the rural/country area of Western North Carolina, and there are always some kids growing up, who have a hard time with hard labour and can’t wait to get to the city. The more interesting part is why John would be portrayed as a wuss, when his avatar of Rod Johnston used to be the flying dentist, flying his plane into remote parts of Canada to do dentistry for free. That hardly seems like the activities of a wuss. Again though, this was an activity never ascribed to John Patterson.
howard,
(T)here are always some kids growing up, who have a hard time with hard labour and can’t wait to get to the city.
We have a lot of them up here too. What seems to obtain is that though they themselves fled rural life, they see no problem subjecting their children to it as a means of adjusting their attitude.
dreadedcandiru2,
What seems to obtain is that though they themselves fled rural life, they see no problem subjecting their children to it as a means of adjusting their attitude.
I am not sure what kind of hard labour to which you are referring. And I have some mixed feelings about the suggestion that parents shouldn’t expose their kids to rural life at some point. For example, I spent last week at a Boy Scout camp at the top of a mountain, where such things as iPods and video games and the like were strictly forbidden and you have to sleep outdoors in tents. There were a couple of kids new to the Scout troop whom I got to see changed during the course of the week by this exposure and, aside from getting to spend time with my own son, that is a strong motivation for a Scouter (as they call the scout leaders) to agree to deal with other people’s kids for a week.
There is another phenomenon of which I am aware, where the kids flee to the city, find a mate and then return to the rural life for the nesting and baby-making part of their lives. I have a number of friends who have done this; but this has more to do with the ability to find single people in a large city than in a small rural area.
howard,
I am referring to John's habit of shipping his children off to her sister's farm of the summer when they exhibit behavior he does not approve of. Unlike most people who would view a summer in the fresh air as an experience that would benefit their kids, John stated baldly that he was doing it to adjust Mike's attitude as if exposure to new sights and new things was a punishment. To a Lynn who hates rural life and undeveloped spaces, it probably is. To regular people, not so much.
dreadecandiru2,
I don't remember Liz's time in Winnipeg being a punishment, but there may be something I forgot.
I know with April, her first trip there by herself was right after her Grade 8 grad, and Elly was very interested in getting April away from her rekindled romance with Gerald. The 2 trips April took to Winnipeg after that, did not seem to be punishment-related.
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