Wanted: Referee. Must have more than one kid.
“You can’t be a referee if you don’t know the game.” That is an interesting analogy from today's For Better or For Worse and not entirely true. As I learned when my daughter played softball this past spring, there are some referees who don’t know all the rules of the game, and that’s why they carry those handheld rulebooks.
That aside, the analogy as applied here is supposed to mean, “You can’t give anyone parenting advice, if you only have one child.” The basic premise is that by having more than one child, you know the proper way for children to interact. A parent with only one child doesn’t know this.
I have mixed feelings about that statement. I think a parent with one child, whose child regularly interacts with other children, gets a feeling about the proper behaviour of children together and how well their child will respond to discipline. It doesn’t take that much to know that hitting and biting are wrong. Those other children don’t have to be yours after all. I know that with my daughter, she has some girlfriends you can leave them alone and not worry about a thing, and with other girlfriends you have to keep an eye on them, because they tend to get into fights (Verbal, not physical battles.)
On the other hand, if you’ve been around your own children long enough, you soon get a feeling for what will or will not work with them. Not all parenting techniques work with all kids, and considering Michael’s history of violence toward his sister, Elly may know that it is better for her to pick up Lizzie than to get him all stirred up trying to force him to play with her.
Ignoring the fact that asking your 5-year-old son to play with his younger sister so you can visit, is fairly ridiculous; the most fun part about the visit between Connie and Elly is that they are not visiting. They are sniping at each other over their parenting technique. It’s hard to believe these two are going to be fast friends and will one day, 29 years in the future, tell each other what wonderful parents they were.
That aside, the analogy as applied here is supposed to mean, “You can’t give anyone parenting advice, if you only have one child.” The basic premise is that by having more than one child, you know the proper way for children to interact. A parent with only one child doesn’t know this.
I have mixed feelings about that statement. I think a parent with one child, whose child regularly interacts with other children, gets a feeling about the proper behaviour of children together and how well their child will respond to discipline. It doesn’t take that much to know that hitting and biting are wrong. Those other children don’t have to be yours after all. I know that with my daughter, she has some girlfriends you can leave them alone and not worry about a thing, and with other girlfriends you have to keep an eye on them, because they tend to get into fights (Verbal, not physical battles.)
On the other hand, if you’ve been around your own children long enough, you soon get a feeling for what will or will not work with them. Not all parenting techniques work with all kids, and considering Michael’s history of violence toward his sister, Elly may know that it is better for her to pick up Lizzie than to get him all stirred up trying to force him to play with her.
Ignoring the fact that asking your 5-year-old son to play with his younger sister so you can visit, is fairly ridiculous; the most fun part about the visit between Connie and Elly is that they are not visiting. They are sniping at each other over their parenting technique. It’s hard to believe these two are going to be fast friends and will one day, 29 years in the future, tell each other what wonderful parents they were.
posted by howard at 11:26 PM
16 Comments:
howard,
Not all parenting techniques work with all kids, and considering Michael’s history of violence toward his sister, Elly may know that it is better for her to pick up Lizzie than to get him all stirred up trying to force him to play with her.
It would be better if she and John were to idenitfy and address the cause of his hostility so they can get the harmony they want but, until they do, damage control is the best option.
Ignoring the fact that asking your 5-year-old son to play with his younger sister so you can visit, is fairly ridiculous; the most fun part about the visit between Connie and Elly is that they are not visiting. They are sniping at each other over their parenting technique.
All we need now is for Annie Nichols to show up and lecture Elly only to be told that she's a doormat and we're really back in the past. Elly's "friends" were the two people she felt most comfortable arguing with.
I notice that the date on this strip appears to be "9-07." And it seems pretty familiar to me. Are we already getting reprints of the retread? Wow. That seems excessive. Cancellation in T-minus 3 months...
qnjones, did you mean you thought the strip could be a repeat of a repeat that ran in September of last year? This strip has never run before--this seems to be a lazy way to express September 7 instead of including the year. Here are the September 2007 strips. This is when the flashbackery started, but this strip wasn't in the mix.
Cancellation in T-minus 3 months...
This I agree with wholeheartedly. I can't see this misconceived mess lasting very much longer.
DreadedCandiru2,
It would be better if she and John were to idenitfy and address the cause of his hostility so they can get the harmony they want but, until they do, damage control is the best option.
We already know that John and Elly will not do this, since we know the future. Instead we know that little Michael will continue to fight with his sister and eventually when they are old enough, his parents will actually look upon those fights fondly.
All we need now is for Annie Nichols to show up and lecture Elly only to be told that she's a doormat and we're really back in the past. Elly's "friends" were the two people she felt most comfortable arguing with.
Annie Nichols would make the picture complete, but Lynn Johnston has intentionally avoided doing anything with Annie for years. It will be interesting to see if she can overcome that, or if Connie Poirier will be Elly’s only friend in the past as she is in the future.
aprilp_katje
This I agree with wholeheartedly. I can't see this misconceived mess lasting very much longer.
One of the reports said that Lynn’s syndicate reported a 2% loss of papers at the beginning of the new-run. That’s not a huge loss. My guess is that there would need to be a larger dropoff.
howard,
We already know that John and Elly will not do this, since we know the future. Instead we know that little Michael will continue to fight with his sister and eventually when they are old enough, his parents will actually look upon those fights fondly.
That never made the blindest bit of sense to me. It would seem to make more sense to fix a problem than to smile as it festers into something ugly. Then again, I'm neither John or Elly and thus have a functioning brain.
I'm being all OT again, but I'm finding just about everything else more interesting than the current strips.
Here is August 2006, and here is August 2007. Take a look at Aunt Bev in 2006 and then in the August 28, 2007 strip--especially frame two. ISTM Lynn decided to work off of a new reference pic of Beth.
That’s not a huge loss. My guess is that there would need to be a larger dropoff.
It may not be a huge loss, but it's been less than a week. Give it some more time. ;)
DreadedCandiru2,
That never made the blindest bit of sense to me. It would seem to make more sense to fix a problem than to smile as it festers into something ugly.
For normal parents, yes. For comic strip parents, where repetition of humour is the standard for getting audience familiarity, no. For Lynn Johnston, the problem is that she made a conscious decision to age the characters, without understanding that people are supposed to grow emotionally over time. While Charles Schulz can show Lucy pulling the football on Charlie Brown year-after-year, you don’t have to worry about why Charlie Brown still lets Lucy do that when they are in their 20s.
aprilp_katje
I'm being all OT again, but I'm finding just about everything else more interesting than the current strips.
It’s called, “Where do I put all my creative energy that used to go into April’s Real Blog?”
Here is August 2006, and here is August 2007. Take a look at Aunt Bev in 2006 and then in the August 28, 2007 strip--especially frame two. ISTM Lynn decided to work off of a new reference pic of Beth.
I remember that well. Bev was definitely taken from the Beth picture.
It may not be a huge loss, but it's been less than a week. Give it some more time. ;)
That’s what Lynn is counting on. Give her some time, and you will get used to her new-run style, and then you won’t care if it is set in 1979, and then later on you won’t care if the ratio of new-run to reprint is 30/70…or 10/90…or 0/100?
It’s called, “Where do I put all my creative energy that used to go into April’s Real Blog?”
Heh--you caught me. :)
I'm in the midst of the settleproposal in the Antman bio.
That’s what Lynn is counting on. Give her some time, and you will get used to her new-run style, and then you won’t care if it is set in 1979, and then later on you won’t care if the ratio of new-run to reprint is 30/70…or 10/90…or 0/100?
I think she's in for a rude awakening.
aprilp_katje,
I think she's in for a rude awakening.
She probably is. I think she was surprised at the feedback from the hybrid, and with that, at least there were some stories from the modern-day characters.
Aah. The unusual date on the strip threw me off. I thought they always put the year on for copyright? Anyway, that plus the familiarity of the message made me think I'd seen it before. But then I realized, after your reply, that I was remembering a story someone I know had told me. Her sister-in-law told her that a person with only one child was "not a real parent." Similarly, Elly's statement at the end is arrogant and foolishly dismissive. Connie might be drawing on her own childhood memories. Didn't she allegedly have six older sisters, or some such nonsense, according to the retcon bio? Elly comes off as a rude bitch in dismissing her.
Still think this is all coming to a crashing halt soon. Two percent cancelled just knowing the retread was coming up. How many more will cancel now that readers have gotten a (very sour, bitter) taste?
qnjones
How many more will cancel now that readers have gotten a (very sour, bitter) taste?
With some newspapers, the inclusion of a strip depends a lot on the individual taste of the newspaper editor. Where I live, the Arizona Daily Star does a vote from time to time over which strips to keep and which to lose. With such a paper, For Better or For Worse would only be eliminated when that time came, which is only once a year usually. I have, however, seen old stalwarts like Judge Parker get whacked away via the vote, so I don't think that For Better or For Worse is a sacred cow. Personally, my desire to see the strip disappear has more to do with Lynn Johnston's egotistical rants about "Knock me off the page" and "Young artists don't have my stamina", than anything else. She also had the temerity to openly criticize Bill Watterson for stopping Calvin and Hobbes, one of my all-time favourite strips.
Is it just me, or ... are you really supposed to leave a 1 year old to be watched ("played with") by a 5 year old (I'm making an assumption on the ages here). I mean, 5 seems just WAY too young for that to me.
Also, as the older sibling, I could not stand when my mother asked me to "play" with my little brother. I liked to read and draw and retreat into imagination, and he wanted ATTENTION. It was no fun for me, and so I wouldn't do it. So I'm sympathizing with Mike here ... for possibly the first time ever.
Nav
Is it just me, or ... are you really supposed to leave a 1 year old to be watched ("played with") by a 5 year old (I'm making an assumption on the ages here). I mean, 5 seems just WAY too young for that to me.
No, it's not just you. In my experience the older child needs to be at least 13 and preferably one with training in the subject. At my church, kids who want to work in the nursery have to go through a training in infant CPR and other things to be allowed to do that.
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