For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for September 05, 2020

yeah, John, what was the question?

Elly is trying her trick question, but John plays it smart and puts the guilt for the decision right back on Elly. It won’t really matter which way she goes. I suspect April will be stuck with a mother who is guilty AND crazy no matter what the answer is.

The best part is how John reacts to Elly putting her arm around his neck in affection with a short term memory loss. Given this reaction, I wonder if John even remembers when April was conceived.

It’s around six months and most parents send their babies to daycare around six months when the Mom is anxious to head back to work.

Uh Oh. That’s how April was made.

There’s other aspects to the “working” mother or the “stay-at-home” mom. My wife worked and we had arrangements for our child. As time went on she volunteered at church to teach Sunday School and, along with several other “working” moms prepared and put on a successful program. Then one Fall, she received a phone call that her services were not needed. The priest (newly appointed) decided the program should only be handled by “real” mothers (ie, stay-at-home). Disappointed but a dutiful RC, she accepted the decision, but noticed months later that the “real” moms were disorganized and totally unprepared, and the priest had to call the old crew back to salvage the year.

Part time? Job sharing?

Sometimes we talk ourselves to just where we need to be without knowing where we are going. Congratulations.

I come from the old-time when a Mother’s job was the kids and work was Dads. I would never leave my cat with a stranger to care for her when I am out, how can you leave your own baby. Times sure have changed.

The view of Dr Laura Schiessinger is that the baby benefits from the Mother being at home to give the baby love and care that it won’t get at a day care. Dr Laura is SiriusXm channel 111 from 1 to 5 pm and it repeats at 1 to 5 am each day.

Why would you have a baby just so you could put it in a kiddie kennel for someone else to raise? I heard a working mom say that she only spends less than an hour a day with her baby. By the time she gets home from work, feeds and bathes the baby it is bedtime. Children are our greatest possessions and we put them in line behind big houses, new cars, etc. Sad.

And who would “romp” (a yesterday’s reference) with him!!

It’s too bad that more of the larger work places…hospitals, schools, factories, etc., don’t have on site daycare for their employees. Free would be nice! Isn’t this sort of thing done in other countries?

I grew up with a working mother – in fact, she didn’t retire from her last job as a school secretary until she was in her 80’s. She stayed home with me until I was old enough to go to nursery school and then went back to work. She did the same thing with my younger brother. I seem to recall that when we were both small, she worked part-time so she could be there when we got home. As we got a little older, we’d walk from school to my grandmother’s for lunch and go there after school until my Dad picked us up.

When I was old enough to be responsible enough, we’d take the school bus home and I’d immediately call, my mother, at work to let her know we were home, and then do our homework and/or go play in the neighborhood until dinnertime. I guess they’d call us latch key kids, nowadays but it gave us a good sense of independence and self-responsibility.

Somewhere in their, Joan ignored her hubby’s insult.

Elly is a dropout. She is ineligible for almost all jobs, except the most degrading and worst-paying. (This comment brought to you by the public school teachers’ union).

Elly is, was, and always will be, a narcissistic, self-absorbed, crazy-ass nutjob.

I never met a mother who would rather work that raise their child. We usually HAVE TO work which is an added stressor. I had my first in Gymboree and all of that living with my mother. If you enjoying working PT as just fun to pay for daycare, cool, if you know it’s a good daycare bc babies aren’t able to talk to say how their day went.

I was one mom who did not go back to work, the distance of driving from small town to large no more then I was paid would take my paycheck. Husband did not want to help.

I’m recently retired. Staying at home is A-OK with me.

You got credit for a right answer…. don’t worry about what the question was..