John’s Mom Life: Baking Cookies and Picking up Socks?
In today’s reprint of For Better or For Worse, Elly introduces the idea she has been approaching all week – a part time job. The usual questions a husband would raise in this situation are not raised by John:
a. What about Lizzie? Where is she going to go?
b. Are you going to make enough to cover the cost of child care, gasoline, and a work wardrobe?
c. Are there a lot of jobs out there which will accommodate Michael’s school hours?
Instead John does not respond at all. He sulks. And when Elly introduces the idea that she can’t spend her life baking cookies and picking up socks, John’s retort is that his mother did that. Naturally, this leads me back to our Carrie Patterson biography:
The crucial lines are below:
Fortunately, since male teachers had become a scarcity in wartime, Carrie was given permission by the school district to continue teaching despite being married. It was a concession that would have been unthinkable just a few years earlier. 1948 marked a major turning point in their marriage. Mark, who had grown into a broad-shouldered and handsome man, married a girl who brought him a quarter-section of good farmland as her dowry. With the additional land and five good crop years behind them, the junior Pattersons no longer had any need of Will's financial aid. Will and Carrie celebrated by adding another room to their house, and began to prepare for their long-delayed family. John was born in 1949, Bev in 1951 and William Jr. (Bill) in 1954.
The Patterson's life in Flin Flon came to an abrupt and unforeseeable end in 1966. Mark's wife phoned in tears to inform them that he had developed severe asthma. His farming days were over. With mixed feelings, Will and Carrie sold their house, said farewell to their many good friends in the north, and moved back to Aberdeen to take over the family farm.
In 1966, when John was 17 years old, his mom quit school-teaching and became a farm wife. Having known a few of those in my family, let me assure you that they do not spend their days baking cookies and picking up socks. Probably Carrie Patterson didn’t do too much of that as a full-time school teacher either.
The question is whether or not Beth Cruikshank or Rod Johnston’s real-life mom did that. At the time the strip was written, Rod Johnston’s parents lived in the same town as Lynn and Rod – Lynn Lake, Manitoba. There would have been easy access there, for a real answer.
The more likely answer is that Lynn was borrowing from a stereotype. After all, the struggle with a part-time job is not a struggle that Rod and Lynn had in real life; since Lynn was doing For Better or For Worse. If Lynn pulls from elements which did not exist in her real life, then she is making things up out of her own imagination, which is usually deadly when it comes to Lynn.
a. What about Lizzie? Where is she going to go?
b. Are you going to make enough to cover the cost of child care, gasoline, and a work wardrobe?
c. Are there a lot of jobs out there which will accommodate Michael’s school hours?
Instead John does not respond at all. He sulks. And when Elly introduces the idea that she can’t spend her life baking cookies and picking up socks, John’s retort is that his mother did that. Naturally, this leads me back to our Carrie Patterson biography:
The crucial lines are below:
Fortunately, since male teachers had become a scarcity in wartime, Carrie was given permission by the school district to continue teaching despite being married. It was a concession that would have been unthinkable just a few years earlier. 1948 marked a major turning point in their marriage. Mark, who had grown into a broad-shouldered and handsome man, married a girl who brought him a quarter-section of good farmland as her dowry. With the additional land and five good crop years behind them, the junior Pattersons no longer had any need of Will's financial aid. Will and Carrie celebrated by adding another room to their house, and began to prepare for their long-delayed family. John was born in 1949, Bev in 1951 and William Jr. (Bill) in 1954.
The Patterson's life in Flin Flon came to an abrupt and unforeseeable end in 1966. Mark's wife phoned in tears to inform them that he had developed severe asthma. His farming days were over. With mixed feelings, Will and Carrie sold their house, said farewell to their many good friends in the north, and moved back to Aberdeen to take over the family farm.
In 1966, when John was 17 years old, his mom quit school-teaching and became a farm wife. Having known a few of those in my family, let me assure you that they do not spend their days baking cookies and picking up socks. Probably Carrie Patterson didn’t do too much of that as a full-time school teacher either.
The question is whether or not Beth Cruikshank or Rod Johnston’s real-life mom did that. At the time the strip was written, Rod Johnston’s parents lived in the same town as Lynn and Rod – Lynn Lake, Manitoba. There would have been easy access there, for a real answer.
The more likely answer is that Lynn was borrowing from a stereotype. After all, the struggle with a part-time job is not a struggle that Rod and Lynn had in real life; since Lynn was doing For Better or For Worse. If Lynn pulls from elements which did not exist in her real life, then she is making things up out of her own imagination, which is usually deadly when it comes to Lynn.
posted by howard at 11:22 PM
6 Comments:
I just want to know why Elly even wants some stinky part-time job.
The usual questions a husband would raise in this situation are not raised by John:
a. What about Lizzie? Where is she going to go?
b. Are you going to make enough to cover the cost of child care, gasoline, and a work wardrobe?
c. Are there a lot of jobs out there which will accommodate Michael’s school hours?
Asking those questions instead of sulking would not serve the higher purpose of getting back at Rod for cutting her off from the civilized world and stranding her in a town of adulterous Philistines who didn't give the Genius in their midst the proper level of obeisance. Far better to pull something out of her hindquarters. Besides, what we saw is probably how she thinks things proceed in the real world anyway.
The more likely answer is that Lynn was borrowing from a stereotype. After all, the struggle with a part-time job is not a struggle that Rod and Lynn had in real life; since Lynn was doing For Better or For Worse. If Lynn pulls from elements which did not exist in her real life, then she is making things up out of her own imagination, which is usually deadly when it comes to Lynn.
::snerk::
I think you've hit the nail on the head, howtheduck--ISTM that LJ was drawing on her own cliché-ridden imagination for the image of Carrie staying home to bake cookies and pick up socks the livelong day. Then, much, much, much later, when Beth composed the Will/Carrie bio, I suspect she drew on the actual lives of her parents.
Clio,
I just want to know why Elly even wants some stinky part-time job.
Back in those days, and I am speaking about the late 1970s, there was a strong societal push for women to work, as a show of self-esteem. I was a teenager then, but I remember many of my friend’s moms feeling that pressure and taking jobs for no other reason than they felt that was what they were supposed to do. The phrase “just a housewife” or “just a mother” was often used as term of condemnation that the woman was not fulfilling her grand destiny of being in the workplace. In the 1980s, I remember that there was a tremendous backlash from the societal push of the 1970s, and a resurgence of traditionalism.
DreadedCandiru2,
Asking those questions instead of sulking would not serve the higher purpose of getting back at Rod for cutting her off from the civilized world and stranding her in a town of adulterous Philistines who didn't give the Genius in their midst the proper level of obeisance.
I can imagine Rod’s reaction at this strip. “But, Lynn, you already work. Why do you want people to think I didn’t want you to?”
aprilp_katje,
Then, much, much, much later, when Beth composed the Will/Carrie bio, I suspect she drew on the actual lives of her parents.
That would be my guess too, but I don’t remember Lynn talking too much about Will/Carrie or Tom/Ruth’s background, aside from Ruth’s stroke and Tom’s illness in the later life. Beth did not really cover that, I suppose, since Grandpa Jim was the one ending up with Ruth’s stroke. I don’t really have a point of comparison.
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