For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for August 02, 2020

thank goodness it didn’t happen at the store

I have long been convinced that the sad epidemic of babies in rear-facing car seats being left behind actually partly resulted from the fact that most babies in rear-facing car seats fall asleep and make no noise, so a parent who is caught up in a routine in which they don’t always have the baby with them may honestly not realize the baby is still there. The front-facing car seats seemed to result in a baby staying awake and making noise (because they are often facing other occupants of the car), and this makes it much less likely that the parent will just be a ‘captive’ to their habitual behavior and overlook the baby in the car seat. Just a thought…

Bad mama bad mama

This one hits home for me. About 20 years ago, I knew a family where this happened except the ending was not a happy one and it wrecked that family. I think this is Lynn Johnston’s best comic strip from 1991. It has a very powerful message with no words needed. The third panel was redrawn from the original where April was in the front passenger seat.

Yikes! Not funny…..

Thank God she lives in Canada and not Florida!

A recipe for disaster.

Thank goodness it was not a really hot day.

Not funny.

Please, please put some things other than the child in the back seat, so you will remember. Last I heard 27 kids baked this year so far. One, the temp was 79F out. Cars get HOT!

Ever have that “I’m forgetting something” feeling?

Another change that was made to this strip was that in the original, when Elly took April out of the car, the baby was sweating, indicating that it was hot in there.

Once again we see the fallacy of the idiots who designed cars and baby seats making them in the back seat. If the child is in the front seat, they are much less likely to be forgotten. I know, someone is going to point out air bags, but there were children long before air bags. When they decided air bags were a must, they should have considered a baby in the front seat and designed them accordingly.

Sadly, this is probably how most hot-car-babies happen. Mom or Dad gets preoccupied with other things and forgets the most important one.

It can happen to the best of parents. The very best.

Baby first, then the food

Sorry, South Florida here, we don’t even see the humor in the cartoon, just the 911 call

This is too real and too dangerous to be funny.

Lynn’s Comments:

This is that awful, unbelievable situation when a parent leaves a baby in a car. I’ve done it, and remembered before it was a problem…but I sure understand how a tragedy can happen.

not funny

Don’t you know….

That’s the sound of Elly working on the chain gang

Oh don’t you know…

That’s the sound of Elly…working on the chain…gang

All day long she works so hard

Not taking time to look at a flower

Working on the highways and byways

Wearing her usual glower

She shouldn’t have left the baby in the car

Then she got arrested and is now laying asphalt and tar…

Oh don’t you know

That’s the sound of Elly working on the chain gang.

We just bought a new car this week. One of the (surprise) features is that you can program the car to sound an alarm and message to check the rear seat when you stop driving and open the driver’s door. Nice.

Probably the best activity to address this problem I’ve heard of over the years is for the driver to take off his/her left shoe while driving and leave it with the baby in the back seat. When you stop to leave, you have an instant reminder to open the back door to retrieve both your baby and your shoe.

When I was in high school our pastor and his wife had two older children and then a “late in life” baby and one Sunday they left the baby in the Nursery at the church, went home, started fixing lunch and Mom realized that baby was not there….Nursery worker was sitting at church, rocking the baby and said she knew they would be back in a bit…..was kind of funny at the time, now days you would probably lose custody…..

My first was born in 1986, and suddenly I had to take not just my purse when I left the house, but a diaper bag, an extra blanket, clothes for changing, a baby carrier, and the baby. My husband and I called it “Baby Support Stuff”. So one day, in a hurry to get the baby to my in-laws so I could go to school, I loaded the baby support stuff in the car, locked my front door, and drove to my in-laws. When I got there, I went to get the baby out of the car seat and realized I’d left him asleep in his crib at home. I raced back home, breaking every traffic law, to find him still sleeping and none the worse for wear. I, on the other hand, was a complete wreck and was still berating myself when my husband came home from work, hours later.

This is not even remotely funny!

Why would anyone buy an infant?

I know it is a cartoon but that is not even a tiny bit funny! For Better or for Worse is a rerun of a long ago comic strip when babies were in the front seat and this didn’t happen but today this is a real life tragedy that happens all to often.

For those who say it’s not funny – it’s not supposed to be. It’s a warning not to be too distracted.

Ages ago this might have been funny but there are too many hot car deaths for me to even chuckle today.

We had a big blue Volvo station wagon about 20 years ago when the gils were born. I paid extra for a vanity plate. TARDIS

I don’t think this strip is really meant to be funny. I think Lynn did it to wake people up.

OMG!!!

You will find quite a few of Lynn’s strips that are not funny or meant to be laughed at. She has a reputation for doing strips that are public service announcements, that is warnings against possible tragedies of various kinds. This was one of them.

It happens.

I always put the Ice Cream right next to the Baby, that way I didn’t forget either.

My wife would do little tricks like put her purse in the baby’s lap, or her left shoe. That way, she never left a baby in the car.

The few times it was me, I put everything in my pockets in a small sack, and put that in the baby’s lap.

Not funny.

This is/was a cautionary tale. This sort of thing happens on a daily basis, somewhere. I’ve read some terrible news stories of the results. :(

Story on Etiquette Hell where a mom left her two kids and their friend in the car while she ran in a store. Guy walks up to the open window. “Hey kids, want a kitten? Here have another one.” By the time Mom got back, guy had unloaded an entire litter of kittens on her kids and was long gone.

John and Michael now have a Get Out of Jail Free card. Next time Elly is bitching about something that they did wrong, all they need to do is smile, point to April, then make car noises.