For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for February 21, 2023

So nice to push your bad mood onto everyone else

Are you in such a stink over being in menopause, Elly? Over facing your age? Your mortality? Heck, you had a baby just 3 years ago. You were still fertile at an advanced age and got lucky with a healthy baby. Get over it. We all get there eventually.

must Elly do everything? John should be helping enforcing all that crud he and the kids give Elly

It looks like she started menopause

Elly knows how to put it to good use. You could power the whole block with that negative energy.

Does it make things better to encourage your entire family to dislike you?

Look, she scored a Hat Trick!

Nothing wrong with Liz putting her feet on the table as long as they won’t leave anything behind. But Michael drinking out of the carton and John just leaving his boots needed to be reprimanded. BTW, what is Michael drinking out of a carton? In Canada we have bagged milk and you have to pour it into a glass from the bag you snip off the end of. You can’t drink it out of its container. In the states you drink it out of cartons and both me and my husband had the bad habit of drinking from the carton.

Panel 1: Still no smart phones? Panel 2: Here we get to see St. Michael’s deformed head again. Panel 3: No one likes it when footwear is blocking the door. Panel 4: “Captain Crabby” rides again!

My Mom is currently going through menopause and she’s in a much better mood than Elly.

I thought milk came in bags in Canada.

I hated having to yell to get the family to listen.

Elly is just getting the most out of a bad situation

Ugh… I can’t stand people who tear into others for just being themselves!

It actually kind of makes sense. Most of the time she’s probably too lax. This will make up for it a little bit.

If Momma ain’t happy, No one is happy.

Other than drinking out of the carton, it was all just griping. If she were serious, she would take clues from professionals: drill sergeants and sergeant majors. Being emotional about matters that aren’t inherently emotional is a sign of ineffectiveness.

Of all the comics I follow, this is the only one that posters always take seriously, become offended by and feel the need to criticize the behavior of the characters as if they were real. Kudos to Lynn for being a convincing cartoonist.

And that folks is why it is called MEN o pause. Women had to have someone to blame and they didn’t want to blame themselves, so they blamed men.

Use the powers you have, Ellie. But use them wisely.

There was an old Non Sequitor comic that involved Joe’s mother going through menopause. The kids called her hot flashes “Grandma’s Super-Power”, and they sent her outside to melt the snow off the boardwalk. It was cute.

Elly would be a great mother to Calvin, that is for sure!

Misery loves company

The Pattersons are white trash. Elly is probably feeling the shame of it.

Elly, I don’t blame you, especially for panels 2 and 3. I’d ease up on feet on the furniture, especially since there are no shoes involved.

It looks like the kids don’t help Ellie any. If only they knew real responsibility instead of them depending on Ellie to “do it all”.

Momzilla Returns!!!

ooh….ouch! “ You need to get you some hormones honey and get you some of those stress tabs #9 too.” FGT

and another three friends you made…..

A bad mood is a bad mood that is all.

Ah jeez,Edith,you ain’t goin’ through “the change” again,are ya?

That’s a bad family dynamic.

It looks like Sue Thompson was a few years ahead of her time when she prophesied, “Your roar is much worse than your bite” (Paper Tiger, 1964). Old hippies like Elly sure loved to get all sanctimonious like that.

If I had anything to say to someone in the house, I either went to them or they were asked to come to me. We didn’t yell all over the place at each other.

Someone’s got to keep an eye on things…

It is true this is all made up. If this had any semblance of real life, with all the shouting she does the kids would have been orphans long ago. Nobody can have Elly’s blood pressure and live.

I think the big M might have snuck up on her.

Menopause or not your family has no right to be inconsiderate pigs.

While living at home I would talk on the phone while sitting on the washing machine.

Might be a bad mood, but all three of those situations needed to be corrected, and all three people responsible should be way more careful and considerate.

This strip is not Calvin & Hobbes. Bad moods are not helped by spreading them around.

Even Bingo gets in a bad mood. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zg5NWRudUlg