Sittum on Poe!
There are a whole host of books on potty training (or pottie training). One of the things mentioned is the “Physiological readiness signals for potty training”. This means the child is aware of the need to go. Another is the “Verbal and Cognitive readiness signals for potty training”. This means that the child knows the words for using the potty, like “poo-poo”. The other parts are the Motor Skills (Can the child undress themselves?) and the Physiological Development (Can the child hold it long enough to get to the pottie?) and Emotional Growth and Social Awareness (Does the child want to go pottie?). Interestingly enough, in the new-run from Thursday, little Lizzie met quite a few of these qualifications. And yet in today’s reprint for For Better or For Worse, Lizzie doesn’t seem to have any of these qualifications. It’s almost like Lynn realizes that she had Elly try pottie-training with little Lizzie way too young in the original series and is attempting to compensate with the new-run.
As for my own children, I remember pottie-training very well. I was told “You don’t want to push the child to start, or you will emotionally scar them for the rest of their lives.” I always wondered what kind of emotional scars those were.
Then if your child is in daycare, you hear, “Your child cannot be moved to this class until he is pottie-trained. And since he is not pottie-trained by age 3, you are a failure as a parent.” There is a little bit of a mixed message when it comes to this subject.
In this particular strip, it actually works to Lynn Johnston’s advantage that no one knows anymore how old Lizzie is. Her constantly-changing physical size, her inconsistent ability to walk, her widely-varying vocabulary skills make her a tough target to pin down. It could be perfectly acceptable for Elly to start pottie-training her, or way too early, depending on this unknown factor.
As for Elly’s phrases, the one I like best is “Big girls sittum on poe!” The tendency to add “um” to the end of a phrase is usually mock First Nations speak. “Big Chief speakum with peace pipe!” The strip itself must be fairly early, since Elly describes herself as majoring in English, when she did not actually do that in her eventual life story.
The other part I like is that pottie chair. My guess for the back-story is that Elly couldn’t find the regular pottie chair she bought, so she is resorting to using a large pitcher instead. The thing looks really unstable, and I can see a disaster looming in the future if Lizzie decides to use it.
As for my own children, I remember pottie-training very well. I was told “You don’t want to push the child to start, or you will emotionally scar them for the rest of their lives.” I always wondered what kind of emotional scars those were.
Then if your child is in daycare, you hear, “Your child cannot be moved to this class until he is pottie-trained. And since he is not pottie-trained by age 3, you are a failure as a parent.” There is a little bit of a mixed message when it comes to this subject.
In this particular strip, it actually works to Lynn Johnston’s advantage that no one knows anymore how old Lizzie is. Her constantly-changing physical size, her inconsistent ability to walk, her widely-varying vocabulary skills make her a tough target to pin down. It could be perfectly acceptable for Elly to start pottie-training her, or way too early, depending on this unknown factor.
As for Elly’s phrases, the one I like best is “Big girls sittum on poe!” The tendency to add “um” to the end of a phrase is usually mock First Nations speak. “Big Chief speakum with peace pipe!” The strip itself must be fairly early, since Elly describes herself as majoring in English, when she did not actually do that in her eventual life story.
The other part I like is that pottie chair. My guess for the back-story is that Elly couldn’t find the regular pottie chair she bought, so she is resorting to using a large pitcher instead. The thing looks really unstable, and I can see a disaster looming in the future if Lizzie decides to use it.
posted by howard at 11:14 PM
6 Comments:
In this particular strip, it actually works to Lynn Johnston’s advantage that no one knows anymore how old Lizzie is. Her constantly-changing physical size, her inconsistent ability to walk, her widely-varying vocabulary skills make her a tough target to pin down. It could be perfectly acceptable for Elly to start pottie-training her, or way too early, depending on this unknown factor.I doubt that Lynn would appreciate being told that being inept is an advantage. A competent artist would arrange things so that she knew what was going on in her fictional world instead of making it up as she went along. Crazy worked today but it hasn't most of the time.
That's the same drawn potty as in earlier original, where Elly is on the phone with her mom explaining they aren't ready to start training Lizzie, yes, they have a potty - and she'd say it's a perfect size (Lizzie in background balancing the clean overturned potty on her head like a hat).
Where in the world would she have gotten such a potty? It looks like a 19th-century chamberpot. No wonder Lizzie isn't interested; she sees big brother and her parents go to the room with the white lidded throne, never using anything like *this* :-)
Indeed, there might be cause for a criminal action here, the way she demeans In...uh, I mean, Nati...no, wait, that's the U.S. First Nations, I mean! Golly, what was she thinking?
DreadedCandiru2,
I doubt that Lynn would appreciate being told that being inept is an advantage.Sure she would. You just have to do it the right way. For example:
Lynn,
I didn’t think I would like these new-runs, but I do. They are great. You are wonderful. I have laughed and cried with the Pattersons for years. Now, could you go back to doing the modern characters? I would love to have even a little smidgen of an update on what is going with them.
InsertMonikerHere,
Where in the world would she have gotten such a potty? It looks like a 19th-century chamberpot. I suspect it was Grandma Marian’s old chamberpot she used back when she was an infant learning to use the potty. Elly might have found it in a crawlspace.
josephusrex,
Indeed, there might be cause for a criminal action here, the way she demeans In...uh, I mean, Nati...no, wait, that's the U.S. First Nations, I mean! Golly, what was she thinking?I am not sure that it is demeaning for Lynn to have Elly use faux First Nations speak to baby Lizzie, unless she is trying to indicate that perhaps baby Lizzie can understand it because she has a different parentage than we have been led to believe. On the other hand, a First Nations parent could explain why grown Elizabeth was attracted to living in Mtigwaki and her romance with Constable Paul Wright.
On the other hand, when I consider that Lynn was living in Lynn Lake when she wrote this, a place she hated and a place closely-located to a First Nations tribe, the inclusion of faux First Nations speak in order to communicate with a toddler may have been an intentional insult on the part of Lynn.
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