Sunday, November 23, 2008

My Son Does This

My son plays the blame game, just like Michael Patterson does in today’s For Better or For Worse. Actually he doesn’t play it exactly like Michael Patterson. Mike realizes he is missing his painting shirt while he is on the school bus. My son would realize this a few minutes after he was in art class and the teacher would ask him to put on his painting shirt and he wouldn’t be able to find it in his backpack. In reality, my son’s school doesn’t have painting shirts. They have these long apron-like things they wear when the art in art class is going to get messy.

Assuming Mike’s school is not like that and they use painting shirts, then the question is: Whose responsibility is it for the painting shirt to end up in the backpack? For someone in Grade 1 and 6 years old, in my kids’ school, the responsibility fell to the teachers to inform the parents and to the parents to make sure the painting shirt was provided. While some 6-year-olds are very competent and responsible, the bulk of them are not.

Older kids are considered to be that much more responsible. This is yet another case where Lynn wants to do a joke and applies it to the most likely choice for the joke (in this case, Michael), without respect to whether the joke will make sense. Certain jokes go with certain characters. She did the same thing with Elly’s grandkids, where Robin got stuck with all the toddler eating dirt-kind of jokes, and Merrie got all the jokes with the kids misunderstanding words-kind of jokes. Given that this is the case, the next step is to evaluate the joke, assuming that Michael Patterson at age 6 is actually considered to the one responsible for making sure his painting shirt is in his backpack.

And that leads me back to my son. At 13, he is old enough to be responsible for his school work, but if something goes wrong with it, the blame game appears. “I didn’t have time to do that” or “The teacher didn’t teach us that” or “My sister distracted me.” The blame game is true-to-life with kids (and most adults). Does it work in this case? Here’s how it would work in my house:

My wife to my son: Are you sure you don’t need your painting shirt today? It is Wednesday.
My son to my wife: The teacher said we didn’t need it today.
My son’s teacher to my wife: Your son didn’t have his painting shirt for art, so we left him borrow of the ones the school has as an extra.
My wife to my son’s teacher: He told me he didn’t need it today.
My son’s teacher to my wife: Oh. That’s next week.
My son to my wife: The teacher told us it was this week. That's what she said.

In today’s For Better or For Worse, the joke is because of the ironic contrasts. We see Elly pushing a backpack, lunch, hat, gloves and pizza money on Mike. Look how responsible Elly is for all those things Mike should be handling himself! We see Mike missing his painting shirt and blaming his mom for it. The laugh is because we saw how Elly was so responsible for Mike, therefore the person Mike blames is the one person he shouldn’t blame.

The problem with the joke is because Elly is so responsible for Mike, he has no need to take responsibility for himself. After all, if Elly is going to handle his backpack, lunch, hat, gloves and pizza money; then why couldn’t she pack his painting shirt too? In fact, Mike’s attitude reflects this. He is ready to walk off without his backpack, lunch, hat, and gloves without a second thought. What is a painting shirt compared to that?

6 Comments:

Blogger DreadedCandiru2 said...

howard,

The problem with the joke is because Elly is so responsible for Mike, he has no need to take responsibility for himself. After all, if Elly is going to handle his backpack, lunch, hat, gloves and pizza money; then why couldn’t she pack his painting shirt too? In fact, Mike’s attitude reflects this. He is ready to walk off without his backpack, lunch, hat, and gloves without a second thought. What is a painting shirt compared to that?

This, of course, is why Mike grew up arrogant, selfish, lazy and filled with entitlement. Her desire to protect him from screwing up and thus learning from his mistakes turned him into an ungrateful boob who expected women to scurry around and keep him from having to do things for himself. Ah, well. At least the rest of the week won't be about her complete failure as a mother and human being; we're about to be introduced to his Twoo Wuv, Deanna. We can thus look for signs that she too will keep him from having to live and grow as a person.

11:54 PM  
Blogger howard said...

This, of course, is why Mike grew up arrogant, selfish, lazy and filled with entitlement.

Absolutely correct. Boys want to marry girls like their mom, and Mike would have an expectation that Deanna should be like Elly was. Fortunately for him, not only does Deanna not seem to have a problem with that but, unlike Mike’s mother, she doesn’t shriek and scream at her kids, she keeps a cleaner house, she’s better-dressed, she works a full-time job, and she is quite attractive in a “never change my hair style” kind of way.

And just to make sure we don’t run down the “poor Deanna the doormat” path, I am reminded that although Deanna has given Michael everything he wants in a wife; she has also scrupulously avoided the one thing about Elly that Mike would not like. Deanna is not a whiner and complainer. Unlike his father, who runs in fear of his wife when she is on a rampage, we never see Michael running from Deanna. This is because Deanna is a master manipulator. Unlike Elly, who gets what she wants by creating such a commotion that no one would dare cross her for fear of her, Deanna gets her way without ever having to raise her voice. She is so good, she managed to get Elly’s house out from under her without ever having to speak to Elly about it. That’s good.

If Lynn Johnston had decided to do as she suggested at one point, to have the strip continue where the focus was on Mike’s family, there are definitely some humourous possibilities there, showing Deanna’s ambitions, especially with the predicted future of Mike’s wealth. There are things there which would have played well with Lynn’s own life. After all, Lynn is a celebrity who lost her husband to a younger woman. There is a lot about that which could have been used. Instead, we get this new-run stuff.

At least the rest of the week won't be about her complete failure as a mother and human being; we're about to be introduced to his Twoo Wuv, Deanna.

Where did you get this idea? Inside source? If anything, between Sunday’s strip and today, it looks like we are headed for a week of “things Mike should have or could have done for himself.”

6:25 AM  
Blogger InsertMonikerHere said...

apart from the painting shirt, how many kids at age 6 are responsible for money?

I don't mean that a Grade 1 student can't take an envelope of money for book fees or pizza day - but by the way the question is asked, it sounds like Mike is expected to have a source of money, keep track of it, count it up and make sure he has the right amount for pizza. Have they even done the "money addition" unit in his Grade 1 class, I wonder?

If the alternative to being helplessly taken care of is to be expected to do things he isn't prepared for, no wonder he grows up feeling entitled to have others take care of him.

7:16 AM  
Blogger howard said...

InsertMonikerHere,

apart from the painting shirt, how many kids at age 6 are responsible for money?

When I was 6, I was handed my lunch money at the beginning of the day and expected to hold onto it until lunch time. “Have you got your Pizza Day money?” could be interpreted as “Have you already lost the money I gave you for Pizza Day?” or as you suggest, money Mike is to provide for it. It’s difficult to say which is supposed to be the case, because if the painting shirt is within Mike’s capabilities as the strip suggests, then Pizza Day money may be too.

9:39 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Aw, memories. It doesn't stop at grade school or exclusive to boys! How many times I heard one of my daughters say "The teacher didn't tell us....!"

My stock answer became, "so not one kid in the entire class had the assignment? Oh, you were the only one who didn't? So how you figure they found out?"

Boy, did that tick them off.


DebJyn

9:50 AM  
Blogger howard said...

DebJyn,

My stock answer became, "so not one kid in the entire class had the assignment? Oh, you were the only one who didn't? So how you figure they found out?"

Unfortunately with my Asperger’s Syndrome boy, that response won’t work. The nature of his condition is that his mind wanders. However, despite this fact, when confronted with missing work, he still blames other people, even though his Asperger’s is the perfect excuse. Maybe I could use that line with my daughter, but she’s the kid who has her work done on time.

2:21 PM  

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