Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for December 22, 2010

Well, he’s trying.

A paternal “swing and a miss”.

It occurred to me She’d grown up just like me My girl was just like me

This sounds sooo familiar….

Sounds like every father I ever knew. Don’t have time for your kids? Wait awhile; they won’t have time for you!

That song (Cat’s in the Cradle) is the reason that I was Cubmaster when my boys were in the Scouts. I wanted them to know that their Dad gave a d@mn, and they do.

My Dad was active as a youth baseball manager and always came to our other events. His father could have cared less but Dad wanted us to know he cared. And we do.

@gimmickgenius - yes, he’s very trying.

“For of all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these, it might have been.”

Returning from a war and treating her dad like a cab driver seems a little extreme, no matter what issues she has about the past. Personally, I’m finding Mel a very unsympathetic and humorless character.

She may have come by it quite naturally. See Cat’s Cradle lyrics (by Harry Chapin) for how that goes. Been there, sadly, done that.

Hint: she joined the army instead of going to teaching school for a reason, dad.

Vet center for the Holidays? I sense a message coming down the line.

luckylouie, That’s the same reason I learned how to play hockey and coached soccer for seven years and help lead the youth group at church.

not the generation gap, the generation chasm. wonder if Mel had a mother….

Seems to me like Melissa’s taking the high road and bowing out before they get into a big fight about DADT.

This doesn’t explain enough of the past. Her dad may be just like me, we did a lot of things together, and I was very active in my childrens lives growing up. But those things are only memories now, you cannot relive the past. They grow up too fast.

I find more fault in her in this strip. She has been away for a long time; her dad is trying to reconnect but she is brushing him off.

Some of us joined the army looking for that sense of family that for various reasons wasn’t felt at home.

I made my share of mistakes raising my three sons, but none of them would every claim I didn’t spend time with them. We went camping, hiking, make toy rockets and did all manner of other things that we found interesting. Now that they are all grown men, we still spend time with each other and talk on the phone frequently.

I guess the “Cat’s in the Cradle” works both ways! We all still find time to get together.

Most guys “don’t want to talk about it” when they come home from the war - but they do want to be with people who understand. Why should Mel be any different? And she carries the additional memories of a command rape.

She’s got issues, and she’s allowed to have them. If her father has two brain cells to rub together he’ll figure it out, but he’s still trying to treat her like a kid who wants to go to the zoo.

fbsr, I compliment you on distilling the Mel pattern.

However, I would add that Mel got help with the issue with her boss, reenlisted and got promoted, got her co-workers on board again, and didn’t allow the video gamers to impact her performance (I hope).

I love the smell of conflict in the morning. I’ll bet we smell… victory… soon in improving her relationship with her father.

OK dad. Try this.

“Mind if I go with you to the vet center? I would like to understand”

Mean = is it okay for me to share a bit of YOUR life?

My father had lots of time for me. More than enough and I needed it all. Then, forty eight years ago when I was thirteen he died in a car crash.

I hope that had he lived I would have been able to return more than enough time to him.

This looks like GT’s contribution to the “Christmas story” genre that Charles Dickens perfected in A Christmas Carol. Christmas stories are about homecomings and memories of Christmases past, and they end with the younger generation and old Ebenezer Scrooge forgiving one another.

Nemesys may be right: Mel’s conflict with her father is prelude to their reconciliation. After all, Mel came home to rediscover her life outside the army, so we’d expect her initial shock at civilian life and her impulse to rush off to the Vet center.

What’s clear is that she and her father belong to two distinct political worlds that have nothing in common—except maybe a need to distort each other’s history in order to make sense out of it.

Time really flies. Kids find this out much later in life as an adult - they come to realize how much time, attention and money parents actually gave to them (for the most part). My son is 19yo and joined the Air Force. We recently went out to dinner as a family (I paid) and noticed a comment he made on Facebook - “dinner with the family… made me realize life used to be so much easier”. ;)

sandfan said, Returning from a war and treating her dad like a cab driver seems a little extreme, no matter what issues she has about the past.

I think she had every intention of going home with him until he badmouthed someone she respects.

I don’t fault Mel for wanting to hit the Vet Center. She may not even be particularly sore at her dad, either. She may be trying to stave off a crisis, or she may just need a breather. It may just be the equivalent of an AA member who thinks “I could use a meeting”, and if you think you need a meeting, it’s a good idea to find one.

That being said, GT so far has written Mel almost exclusively as a victim (not that she isn’t a battler, but her storylines have pretty much been one dam’ thing after another). I like her as a character, but I’m hoping to see something nice happen in her life. Maybe a satisfactory romance (and not with Jeff).

Merry Christmas to you and yours…

My son was in middle school and his sister in high school before I got with VA and discovered how “bad” my relationships with my kids had been due to PTSD. I made changes, and things improved- a LOT! My son now has PTSD and physical disabilities after Bosnia, Iraq and elsewhere. My “been there done that” has helped him, and me. Our relationship is now very close, and he’ll be “home” for Christmas– That’s why even as Buddhists’ it IS a happy holiday.

Merry Christmas, or what ever you celebrate to honor and love your families!

I was at the VA clinic today just for blood preasure. It had been scheduled when I had pneumonia. Last Friday it was for something very serious. They dropped everything they were doing and told me at that time don’t worry I was the most important person as far as they were concerned. About 2 hours laterafter talking to everyone from the receptionist to the psychiatrist, feeling like I had my whole family around me I walked out of the clinic. They are my family and they know it.

On the other hand, going to the zoo in a snow storm is the best time to see the penguins and the polar bears.

I inferred from yesterday’s strip that Mel’s dad was also a Vet. Would it not be possible for him to also go to the Vet Center? Or is it really only for the younger set?

Vet centers are for all ages. Not everyone takes advantage of them. Mel’s father strikes me as the kind who won’t admit he could use or contribute to any of their services.

My dad, WWII vet, and I never got along. He was a control freak, still trying to dictate to me when I was 30. That said…

I came home from Nam in 70 to be one of those assaulted with spit in SeaTac. And yes, in denial of PTSD for many years. I think my dad also suffered from it from his time in the PTO. His greatest “pleasure” was drinking, and usually at a bar. While I am on leave, he took me to one. Because I was not yet 21, I could drink Coke. Someone asked me about “what’s it really like, over there.” I knew what the man wanted, skip the narcs and the “baby killing,” and tell me what the Hell the US is doing there? So I started to. And dear old dad told me, “Shut the Hell up! Nobody wants to hear it.” So I did, I shut up for another 25 years.

I wish to whatever Higher Power there is, that we had had a Vet Center to use when we came home from there.

I do not care if any of you remember nothing from this strip in 5 or 10 years, just never forget that Veteran’s are people that hurt too, and sometimes they need help that you may not be able to give, except as a warm LISTENING body.

Thanks

Teresa,

Could be, could be. But, a) he could have said so, and b) please note that one only capitalizes words of importance, in this case, dad is of no import.

He is trying, but he did just alienate her right when she got into the car. That’s not what you do if you really want to reconnect with your kid. Dads like him need to work to find common ground in the now, not just digging it out of their history.