For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for October 15, 2019

no kiddin’

I KNOW

As we learned yesterday, Michael has been out with Martha three nights in a row. This makes night number four. Elly can take pride in limiting her 14-year-old son to going out to at most 10:30 pm just four nights a week. Who needs to do homework or be awake during school? That’s for the children of loser parents, not Elly.

Why not put a Lo Jack on the kid….

Here’s one: Your dad or I will drive you and Martha to the mall and bring you back home—-or you don’t go out!

Seems a bit unreasonable to me. He’s out with his girlfriend, not hanging out on a street corner getting into mischief.

I know somebody already said this but why not just drive them to the mall and stay in the parking lot until 10:30? That way he’ll have no way to escape.

Why is a 14 year old allowed to be out until 10:30 on a school night?

Just put a blanket and pillow on the porch for him if he’s past 10:30.

Tarnation, leave the poor boy alone. He’ll be just fine, so what if he fathers a child, becomes involved in a gang and goes to jail, learns some useful skills while being incarcerated, and ultimately become a success the whole family can be proud of after being successfully rehabilitated by the corrections system. The things that go through a parents head with teenagers, hopefully none of them ever will actually happen.

When I was growing up my parents wished I was more like Mike!

Three times Elly said what she wants out of Mike; three times he said “I know.” Three times Elly knew that meant “leave me alone.” I think they have to work on how they communicate. Telling teenagers to avoid the darkness is not very effective unless they know exactly what hides in the darkness.

Sometimes the only possible answer to a question is one or two words. If you say to little your not paying attention. If you say more your talking back. If you say nothing they keep talking at you until you do.

“We”,Dad?

Wow, seems like he is running the show. I would love parents like this, so easy to take advantage of.

says you ,that’s the reason that we let them go out by themselves tired of being chaperones

Now, that’s funny!

The strip is funny, which is the whole point. We just get carried away when we want to talk about the can of worms it just opened up!

When Elly and John start acting like real parents, maybe he will start respecting them – or not.

Question: “What will Elly get if she had two balls in her hand?”

Answer: “Michael’s undivided attention.”