For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for June 15, 2010

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    Wolfdreamer250  over 14 years ago

    This reminds me of something that happend to me as a kid. I was older then Elizabth though. I was 8 and at a video store with my dad. He said it was time to go and I said in a minute. He then said, I’m leaving in the car with or without you. Once again I said, in a minute. Well when my “minute” was done I looked for my dad in the store and couldn’t find him. Then I looked for the car in the parking lot. It was gone too!!

    I learned something that day. A three mile walk home when your 8 makes you listen to your parents the first time they tell you to do something.

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    hildigunnurr Premium Member over 14 years ago

    Wolfdreamer250 yes one probably would be thrown in jail or something now. Lizzie’s 2 or 3 years old though, not 8.

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    cdward  over 14 years ago

    *I suppose with an 8 year old it depends on if the kid knows where they are or if they’d ever walked the path before. In our neighborhood - well, there’s just a highway where people get killed walking along it - I don’t let my kids walk home - and I don’t do it either.

    However, there are better ways to get the kid to move. (NEVER make a threat you won’t keep, of course). Grab the kid’s hand and start walking. Eventually, the kid will either walk or be dragged. That does NOT constitute child abuse, I promise (from experience as both recipient and giver of said treatment.).

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    cutiepie29  over 14 years ago

    Cdward, I was going to say exactly what you just said. Never make a threat that you aren’t willing to keep. That way just lies more trouble.

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    cluciana  over 14 years ago

    What I want to know is, if she’s walking that far with a little one , why doesn’t she have a stroller????

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    stuart  over 14 years ago

    I did that with our 3 year old. But I walked just out of sight, then hid behind a fence to keep an eye on her and see what she would do. It took a good 10 minutes for her to even notice I was gone. Then she ran around in a panic, then sat down in the middle of the path and started bawling. Some people came up and asked where her mommy was, so I had to come out of hiding. Object lessons are so difficult these days.

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    DolphinGirl78  over 14 years ago

    Since she’s too big for the backpack (see previous strips in the past couple of days), then she could be too big for the stroller. Back then, they didn’t make them adjustable (as I recollect).

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  8. Anishnawbe
    Allan CB Premium Member over 14 years ago

    when I was 8, I wanted to get away from my mom, and the Church Bus didn’t show up … so I walked there. All 5km.

    When I got home, my hide was tanned. :(

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    Kyrrdis  over 14 years ago

    Downside: contributes to child obesity. Upside: ELLY is getting good cardio…

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    ejcapulet  over 14 years ago

    My 2-year-old was like Lizzie, I regularly had to haul her along by the hand while she screamed and howled. Then my mother-in-law came to stay and at first she carried my kid all over; then her back went out and the doctor told her that the kid could walk (hey, I warned her). After that, my daughter had to learn to walk without pitching a fit.

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    longandgreen  over 14 years ago

    trust me they hang on like a leech… lol love my kids and love my grandchildren more.. but when they want they can hang tough.

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    Templo S.U.D.  over 14 years ago

    [sigh] One of these days!

    I bet the social workers will get a laugh out of that. “I wasn’t really abandoning my child; I was trying to show her how to walk on her own!”

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    Wildmustang1262  over 14 years ago

    If I were in Elly’s shoes, I would spank her butt for not walking with me. (Just kidding) I would suggest Elly to get “S T R O L L E R” so Lizzie can sit on it and Elly pushs and walks on longest sidewalk around the block. Is that easy to do like that? I don’t know when the stroller was created new for all the babies and toddlers to sit on it and parents push the stroller? Any knows when it was created?

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  14. Silverknights
    JanLC  over 14 years ago

    The stroller is an updated version of a baby buggy (or pram). I don’t know when it got updated, but the buggy has been around at least since the 19th century.

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    kab2rb  over 14 years ago

    I must be fortunate when my 2nd first started walking at a Dr.’s office for an appointment I never had to carry her. She thought she was a big girl walking. Thrilled her. Both my kids didn’t want to be carried loved the stroller this was over 25 to 23 years ago. Now there 24 and 27. The oldest no job tried to get him to go to tech to learn but needs to go someone where to catch up on math skills.

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    kab2rb  over 14 years ago

    Okay all I tried to flag the spam but didn’t go red tried 3 times.

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    mancocapac  over 14 years ago

    Thank you for giving me another reason to never have kids

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    angelnurse  over 14 years ago

    My oldest is now 33 years old and I had a stroller for her, one large enough even when she was 2, so they were around in 1977. I’m sure they were available in Canada also.

    mancocapac…everybody else’s kids are impossible but when you have your own it’s completely different. My husband swore up and down he didn’t want kids and wouldn’t take care of them if we had them. Well, we did have them and the look in his eyes when he first saw the oldest told me I had nothing to worry about. He took care of both of ours all the time when I was working and now gets upset if he isn’t asked to take care of the grandkids, all 6 of them. He is also as excited as I am about #7, due next month. You don’t know what you’re missing until you have your own.

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    RinaFarina  over 14 years ago

    That’s what they call “tough love”?! To me that’s just normal - tough love would be something a whole lot more rigid and unreasonable (to my mind) than that.

    One of the few things in child-raising that make smoke come out of my ears is seeing a parent make a threat for some time into the future (say, “ok, then we’re not going to rent a movie for tomorrow night”), and then when the time comes, changes their mind and doesn’t carry out the threat (“I felt so bad for those poor little kids”). One thing I know a child needs is consistency. How? From my own life.

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    jump4joy  over 14 years ago

    “You don’t know what you’re missing until you have your own.”

    So true, angelnurse!

    I was never very fond or interested in other people’s children. When I had my own two girls in my 30’s, I absolutely adored them…still do. Looking forward to my own grandchildren in the not too distant future. ;-)

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  21. Willy wonka factory
    dsom8  over 14 years ago

    OK. Here’s your S T R O L L E R!

    http://catalog.fborfw.com/indexdate.php?q=1992-07-07

    I hope you’re satisfied.

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    jamadison4  over 14 years ago

    ’ This strip has become BORING,,,,,really STUPID,

    /

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    dsom8  over 14 years ago

    Actually, my point was that today’s strip didn’t need a stroller, because it wan’t about pushing a baby (Elizabeth *or* April) in a stroller. But thanks for the additional links!

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    Wildmustang1262  over 14 years ago

    howtheduck, Thanks! for the link. I think that the strollers already created/updated in around 1970’s. But the link for the strip was in 1979.

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    lindz.coop Premium Member over 14 years ago

    And Round One goes to Lizzie.

    cd – it might not constitute child abuse, but somebody will still call it in to Child Protection.

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    vldazzle  over 14 years ago

    The only stroller I REALLY remember Is my daughter’s (had 3 sons prior) because I made new pink patterned upolstery- so I think the boys had also used it. They were all born in the early 60s (eldest was 50 this year).

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    Gretchen's Mom  over 14 years ago

    According to Wikipedia, the first baby carriage (known as a pram) was invented in England in 1733. A man named William Kent was commissioned to make one for the Duke of Devonshire’s children.

    In June of 1889, William Richardson invented a “reversible stroller” where a bassinet could face out or in towards the parent.

    Sometime in 1965, a man named Owen Maclaren, an aeronautical engineer, used his knowledge of “aeroplanes” and designed a stroller with an aluminum frame, creating the first true umbrella stroller. From there, newer features, safer construction and more accessories has brought our more modern-day strollers where they are today.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_stroller

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    FunkyMunkey1  over 14 years ago

    After the previous comic, Wildmustang1262 complained that parents put children in shopping carts, and the kids sit there lazily. Today, Wildmustang1262 thinks that parents should put kids in strollers. Difference?!

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