For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for October 12, 2017

kids can be so cruel

A few thing I noticed:

It’s been a long time since I jumped rope, but I have this vague recollection that a person was out when you failed to jump over the rope and it was stopped by your foot. I don’t remember being out for forgetting a jump rope rhyme.

Apparently there are no organized playground activities or teachers in the playground at Elizabeth’s school. Possibly this is because her school is populated by the meanest kids in Canada and the teachers are afraid.

This is the second bullying comic strip in a row. Because Elizabeth is walking around and taking abuse along with Dawn Enjo, the only Asian girl we have ever seen in this comic strip, the bullying takes on an unexpected air of racism. I don’t know if this was Lynn Johnston’s point, but if so, there is an additional punch in the punchline.

The assholes you meet on the third grade playground will still assholes when they are adults.

I almost forgot she was still that young. These third graders are really tall.

Sometimes, recess/playground IS the hardest subject.

I’d spend my recess in the library to avoid those bullies.

At least, ‘back in the day’, there was no drive to get ‘kids’ outside to play—that is all we had and there basically no childhood obesity. Now it is a major catastrophe if a child gets hits by a red rubber dodge ball which could also be used for a rousing game of ‘kickball’ but today the school could be sued for a child stubbing their toe and charged for child abuse ! !

Glad it wasn’t like this when I was in the third grade. The most you had to do was ask, “can I play?” Nobody got kicked out for anything. The boys’ marbles games were the toughest to get in, but you could if you showed them you had some nice ones to lose.

Basketball twerp should watch his mouth, there’s one of him and two of them.

Lynn always seems to give the pushy kids, an overbite in her strips. She must think they look more the bulling type.

At least she has ONE FRIEND that will talk to her! Some of us weren’t that lucky!

grades 1-9 can be so brutal. I went to school with real animals….and we lived in a decent neighborhood. Highschool was about brains, beauty and sportsmanship….it was much easier although there were a few she-bears. Thank goodness they were vastly outnumbered.

Looks like some kids here need to learn about sharing and playing together.

When I was in third grade the teachers turned a blind eye to the boys forming “gangs” and engaging in actual fist fights on the playground. But move from your spot on the cafeteria floor before classes started and they’d line you up against the wall and paddle you.

I think there’s a reason Mississippi lagged so far behind in, well, everything.