For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for April 07, 2017

well said, John

Does doing yard work mean you will know how to work later on in life? Probably not. Most jobs are not like doing yard work, except the handful of jobs that are.

SPOILER the rest of this: The theme of working with your hands being real work is a running theme for Dr. John Patterson, dentist. Ultimately Mike will choose to become a writer / journalist and in the early period of his career he gets all kinds of grief from John and snarky advice like (I am quoting from one of these strips) “You can count on your fingers, Mike. It’s amazing what you can accomplish with your own two hands.”

I remember this strip from reading it the 1st time. I just can’t remember how long ago that was.

It’s true of work AND discipline. I knew a mother whose son was a brat and a bully, but everything he did (including lifting my daughter out of a snack line to take her place) she thought was “cute”…until he was about 10. Then I heard her lament, “I don’t understand; we can’t get him to behave!”

@howtheduck: it isn’t the specific job. it is the discipline that it requires to do it completely and do it well. Self-discipline is the one personal trait that can carry one successfully through any number of jobs over the decades.

It’s no fair? Fairs are for tourists, Mike. But even people work in fairs.

You’ll notice that it is John who is doing the work in this strip – washing his car – while Mike stands around and whines.

Sorry Michael but you live there and eat there. Your doing some work for your parents is your way of helping out. Every kid should have some chores to help out around the house or yard to help the parents who work to support you. It should not be excessive but there should be something.

First world problems for spoiled brats. Everywhere else at Mikes age “No work No eat”. It’s simple.

This sounds like something my Dad would have said. I will always be grateful for the work ethic that he and my mother instilled in my brother and me.

Chores completed around the home were rewarded with thank you’s and appreciations but never money. We had a roof over our heads, clothes on our back and food in our stomachs – that was our payment.

I was encouraged to make money outside the home, with lawn mowing, snow shoveling, paper routes etc. Even then, I turned my earnings over to my folks. I was given back any money I wanted to spend ( within reason ) on myself.

Lynn, again with the ’splainin hands. Michael must be double jointed to get them to bend like that.

Just be glad you were weren’t born during the industrial age in Europe where boys were used as coal miners and had bent backs for life!

When i was 12, there was this City program where boys & girls go to a youth labor pool office and wait for job assignments.

I remember my first assignment was pulling weeds around the home for a sweet old lady who served me a nice lunch!

That day is even in my Social Security records from back in 1969..

This from the man making his kids work for him.

I’m one of several people who would rather have had this concept explained to them like this. The attitude of you were told to do it leads to several different levels of rebellion.