For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for January 26, 2013

What freedom?

♪♫ Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose….♪♫

It’s amazing how Ellie can be working with the laundry in the second panel and in the kitchen in the third panel, all during John’s same sentence! Supermom…

John always knows how to say just the wrong thing!

Yes, John, as usual, open mouth, insert foot!!!

I realize that this is from a different generation, but even my dad (now 80) worked his 8 hour shifts, then came home and worked several more hours on our house. Guys do not just come home and relax. In fact, before I go to work I’ve usually made breakfast and done the dishes.

why is John just leaning on the counter in panel 2 when he could take that basket from her and go put those clothes away so she can get onto some other “freedom”. I was a work outside the home mom and believe me it took about 14 to 16 hours a day, 8 spent outside the house and the rest spent making sure the house and children were taken care of.

I think this will all lead to a divorce a few years down the road. Art imitating life??

I think working outside the home would produce more freedom,,,just a thought.

@Elsie Rose Lynn Johnson ended the original run with the marriage intact. However, she had gotten divorced about a year or so before the strip ended. She was asked if art was going to imitate life and she said it wasn’t going to.

and thats when the fight started…

She’ll probably make barely enough money to cover babysitting — and will have to do the same amount of housework during her “free” time because John certainly is incapable of doing it. I don’t see this lasting long.

if we have freedom why do we pay taxes?

Because they thought taxation without representation was unjust.(And they didn’t realize what taxation would be WITH representation!)

Anyone else remember the Sunday strip, with similar background where a pollster knocks on the door:“Question 1: Do you work outside the house?”“No”“OK, as a non-working housewife—-”(Door gets slammed in his face)

Every mother is a working mother.

So like a guy to not know what the hell he’s talking about. ; p

Yhea she will have rest working away from home

I don’t know why so many married men I’ve known, including a couple of my exes, figured their contribution to the household was completed upon returning from their job. Aside from taking out the trash once a week, supervising the kid mowing the lawn, and the occasional changing the oil in the car or other simple repair, it was just taken for granted that ALL of the housework was the wife’s responsibility, even if she ALSO worked at an 8-hr./day job. I not only worked at a job, but I was the one who took time off from work to bring my son to doctor appts., attend parent/teacher meetings, etc., until in order to take a sick day I had to call in dead and vacation time was time off w/out pay because all my sick and vacation days were spent. I also volunteered at our church, tended my vegetable garden, dehydrated fruit from our fruit trees for healthy snacks, and froze flats of peaches and strawberries bought at local orchards to enjoy as cobblers during the winter. It wasn’t until I came inches from stepping off the cliff into a nervous breakdown that my then-husband, who was strumming his guitar in the living room while I was simultaneously cooking dinner and doing laundry after work, comprehended that his wife shouldn’t HAVE to do it all. I was, in fact, hysterically crying, “I just can’t do it anymore! I just can’t do it anymore!” Upon his panicked question of, “What can’t you do anymore?”, I made an all-encompassing gesture and wept, “ALL of THIS, ALL of the TIME, ALL by MYSELF! I just can’t do it anymore!” With that revelation, he made some soothing, “There, there, it’s OK, I’ll take care of it, why don’t you go lie down for awhile” comments and FINALLY stepped up. He did, in fact, continue to pitch in around the house and, I learned how to ask for help when I needed it. Sadly, the marriage only lasted another few years, but there were other factors involved.

Irony thy name is husband.

Yes wives work away from home and than come home and cook clean up put kids to bed do laundry etc etc etc

What I’ve always hated about housework, other than it’s the same thing day after day, is how it starts when I get up in the morning and goes on all day and evening. Sure I steal little moments here and there for myself, but I never have large chunks of time for something like a craft project or an hour long TV show. And I’m still doing mundane chores when the spouse, who has put in 8 solid hours at work and 2 or 3 solid hours on some project, is done for the day and relaxing in front of the TV.

Yeah, a couple more days before you have 2 jobs.