For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for January 14, 2021

I can so relate when it comes to my brother’s and stepsisters’ kids (I don’t have any of my own).

Something tells me that it’s good I’ve never had this experience (no cubs of my own).

I can relate. Had one who wouldn’t go in the playpen in the first place. And promptly learned how to climb out.

Connie speaks the truth. Elly, I haven’t seen you put her in a playpen. If you have one and just use it to store toys, it is time to toss out the toys and put April in it. I know because my son and his wife used their playpen for toys. They complained my grandchildren bothered them and got in their way when they need to do things. I looked at the playpen and asked what are the toys doing in there? It is for the baby and not them. I tossed them out and put my grandbaby in there. My son and his wife told me he would scream and cry. I agreed that he would but if you just walk away and get out of sight, he will stop. They told me that worked. Once out of sight, he looked at a few toys left in the playpen and proceeded to play with them. Duh. They were afraid of his screeching screams. I imagine Elly is too.

Time and patience are the virtues of a great parent. Nothing REALLY good comes easy.

Sounds like she could use Gracie from Baldo as a babysitter/mentor-for-the-baby!

A kid needs some Independent play time every day. So does the parent.

So does this mean that April is screaming her head off because El seems to have time to go over to Connie’s house to have coffee or tea?

A survey was done asking parents (of all ages) if, knowing what they know now, would they still have had kids… Guess how many said “no”? Seventy per cent !! This doesn’t mean that they don’t love their kids, but they now realize just how much they had to give up of their own lives and dreams to have some. Think thrice before having any. You might be better off without them (the planet too!)

Sorry but babies do not cry to be manipulative. They cry because something is wrong. Also is what Elly wants to do really all that important? As a dentist her husband makes enough for them to live on. Elly doesn’t have to work. They are not showing the fact that April is in day care most of the day. She is not attached to Elly right now is she? In the long run babies are only babies for a very short time. The other stuff can wait.

Try a walker

I know Connie’s daughters were sired by Greg with another woman, but I am positive that Connie gave birth to Lawrence, ergo she had a baby. The punchline does not make any sense and falls flat on its face for today.

A good wail clears the lungs, I’ve heard…

Connie graduated from college. Worth taking advice from your superiors, Elly.

My sister is 11 years younger than I am. When she was too old for her playpen my friends and I would get in to play board games so she couldn’t bother us. Her playpen was much bigger than the ones my children had.

It is always easier to parent someone else’s child …

“Oh, and make sure, when you talk to her, talk like a caveman so that she’ll be able to understand you…”

Why is it, that we don’t take good advice when it is given to us?

Sure Elly, we know you like to do things the hard way, and then whine about it, don’t ya?

Sure, like that works

Hey Elly, Connie actually wanted another baby, she told you that.

Much of the time with April, Elly has been acting as though she has never had children before. In order to make a lot of the jokes work, the reader has had to imagine that Michael and Elizabeth don’t exist and Elly is just as inexperienced as she appears. In this comic strip, she takes it one step further by considering Connie to be as inexperienced as she was before April came, and ignores the fact that Connie raised Lawrence as a single working mother which would have been harder than any parenting Elly has ever done.

Of course, the other part of Connie is that Lynn Johnston has regularly portrayed her as the worst mother in the comic strip, so perhaps Lynn assumes that any parenting advice coming from Connie is going to be automatically recognized by the readers as bad.

Uh, Connie raised Lawrence from a baby.