For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for May 02, 2021

April is such a daddy’s girl.

Maybe Aprils just too tired to scream anymore.

Sometimes I think, “What if?” Then I look at scenarios like that and breathe a sigh of relief. Parenting is not a job for everyone. My hat is to those who do it.

That’s a lot of crying. At a certain point a parent should be reaching for their baby thermometer to see if their child is crying because they are sick.

Ah, the joys of always being a bachelor.

Though mother are irreplaceable, sometimes babies also need a welcome change.

This is normal. I’ve noticed with most babies – even ours – go through a period of time when they will go to NOBODY except one specific parent. We refer to these times as “Mommy Moments” and “Daddy Moments”.

Then she slaps him upside the head and he starts crying!

My parents did it 7 times.

I have noticed that some people are confident enough around people who are devoted to them to be total azzes all the time, but when they get around people they are unsure about they are on their best behavior. …sad how that works.

Good! Then you do everything next time.

Husband strangled by wife! News at 11!!!

If I’d been Ellie, I would have traded April off by the third panel.

Dads always like to think this.

Guess who’s watching April and guess who’s going to a movie? Double feature, picture show…

April just wanted a change of scenery. We ALL need to get away from Mom every now and then.

This is April at her finest. Really makes her more endearing, doesn’t it?

Babies aren’t * that * bad.

She just needed a change of face……

Well, we all know that Elly’s ‘way’ with children is to hold unreachable standards, yell at them for things they had nothing to do with, and restrict fun an independent thought for no reason. Michael, Elizabeth, and April would have fared better in Foster Care.

I owe it all to the football carry.

If Elly was always touching me that much, I’d be screaming too..

finally tired

I think April just wore herself out crying all day, and now dad takes the credit. ;-) That said, there are people with a magic touch with babies. My grandpa had it, and my youngest brother does too. They just pick up a baby, make some soothing noises, bounce around a bit, and the baby settles right down.

He’d have “a way” with her for the rest of the day if he were my husband.

I have to agree, parenting is not for everyone. Our culture certainly grooms us as children to: grow up, get a job, get married and reproduce. In myself and my wife as well as much of the younger generations choosing not to have children. Many of the reasons I have seen for this include overpopulation (someone mentioned this earlier), decreasing resources and climate change, corruption in politics, high cost of living, lack of jobs, more shootings and, of course, personal choice.

I hear many people make comments such as, “I never wanted kids, but once I had them I realized how great they were”. To me this seems more of a matter of cognitive dissonance, which occurs when a person holds contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values, and is typically experienced as psychological stress when they participate in an action that goes against one or more of them. In order to avoid cognitive dissonance a person would need to change their beliefs to loving children and being happy they had them or there would always be that psychological stress.