For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for November 19, 2017

But within the Pattersons’ budget, can they afford descent furniture?

We have seen “the family room is messy” strip two times before this year. Here they are:

One from January

http://www.gocomics.com/forbetterorforworse/2017/01/08

One from August

http://www.gocomics.com/forbetterorforworse/2017/08/27

You can tell from those comic strips, Elly seem to take the messes very personally, so why doesn’t her family care? No matter how much Elly complains about it, they do not change their ways. You can draw the conclusions that:

1. Elly’s family realizes that Elly loves complaining about things so much, they are providing her motivation to do something that she genuinely enjoys and so they are really showing they love her.

2. Elly complains so often that she has lost her ability to motivate her family by complaining and she needs to try a different method.

3. There’s no getting around it. Elly’s family is kind of mean.

My family had rules about what we could and could not do. We couldn’t eat in our rooms or jump on the couch, nor could we eat on the couch unsupervised. Our furniture lasted for decades.

Well why is it Elly’s problem to fix or get decent furniture? That seems rather misogynistic. Wow that family needs to learn to take care of their home.

The frequency of this subject tells me that this is a REAL issue in the Johnston household. It’s her therapy to share it with her audience.

I always thought of the family room as Michael, Liz and (later on—spoiler) April’s personal space. Like their rooms, they had to keep it clean in order to keep using it. The only difference between the family room and their bedrooms is that they can go back into their bedrooms if it got that messy.

Always thought the Pattersons did a good job raising and disciplining the kids, the strip throws that thought away.

And that, Elizabeth, is the story of how you became an only child.

Elly missed the immediate, obvious teaching moment: “You won’t get new furniture because you can’t care for this furniture properly.”

Just imagine the children behave after this and as they get closer to what some might call “perfection” what do you get? A less entertaining strip certainly. But some people see it the wrong way and get aggressively mean about the characters like Ellie gets most of the brickbats for it. Totally wrong way to see the strip.

Lynn’s Notes:

I can’t write anything about this strip. I would get crabby about it all over again!

And repaired,

I can’t write anything about this strip. I would get crabby about it all over again!

Buy some decent furniture for the TV room. Riiight.