For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for December 18, 2022

Wait a minute, this is supposed to be all about me

Okay, before anybody here starts calling her a brat, can we all keep in mind that she’s less than three years old.

How selfish of you, Aypo. Don’t you want other kids to have something you already have?

Just tonight did gift distribution with my Boy Scout Troop’s Sub for Santa. Over a period of eight weeks, we raised $1761, got a $250 corporate grant, and were given 30 meal cards by Chick Fil-A. Every sponsored kid got a nice shirt, toys, a Chick Fil-A card, and a bag of Boy Scout Karmel Corn. Since our Scouts are also low income, they also received the same gifts, although they did not know it when they were shopping. It was a fantastic night!

Never give your child the charity gift

Shouldn’t the sign say ‘Charity For the Children?’ The way the sign reads you’d think that parents with large families can give up their surplus children to new married couples who medically have trouble trying to conceive!

At this age, it’s better to let her just OBSERVE than to participate.

Morning Lynn, thank you for a meaningful story everyday, we wish you and family a wonderful Christmas and a great New Year.

I was just checking the toys our church collected, and one electronic toy didn’t work. The battery case was badly rusted. Please test whatever you donate, and check the best before dates on food items. Thanks.

Geez! Does every kid have this natural instinct to embarrass their parents in front of the whole town?!

The poster child for self-absorbed brat.

It’s a common scenario; don’t make too much because…her tantrum will die down and she will learn the significance of giving, in the long run. I think most of us went thru giving something away that we wanted for ourselves. It can be a nourishing sensation.

Reminds me of my kindergarten ‘graduation’ (decades ago). We practiced beforehand – walk across the stage, receive the diploma and exit. During the practice sessions we returned the mock diploma; during the real ceremony a number of us (me, who remembers?) tried to return the real diploma and didn’t understand adult logic.

I guess I completely misunderstood this. I thought April turned around, saw the entire congregation looking at her, and that’s what upset her.

Each one of my kids had a Christmas like this at around 3. They got over it.

Altruism is a learned virtue. All people start out looking out for #!.

She gives ’til it hurts.

That’s gotta be from first-hand experience.

Yup. All that time and effort just to give it away. Welcome to life April. Ironically, your mom will probably feel the same way about you in 20 years or so.

Is that Penn Jillette in the last frame?

It ain’t easy being a kid…sometimes!

This is the most wonderful comic strip ever! I save it for last of all the strips I follow each day because it leaves me with a smile. It’s all about life.

Can I ask… Is it even any point to have a child at that age give to charity? Seems to me that she’s too young to understand that another kid will get the gift.I’ve got no kids, so I gotta ask: Is charity, and sharing in general, something that they understand because they get older, or because they’re made to do it?

Some mothers can be so cruel…

No kidding? I saw this coming before I finished the strip. What horrible planning on the church’s end. Are they brainless? Whose brilliant idea was this? I’m 100% sure April wasn’t the only child crying that morning.

Selfless giving comes later in life…. A youngster like April is still in the ‘All About Me’ phase.

Ah April, it is so hard to understand the concept of giving at such a young age. Give it a few years and you will grasp the concept in your mind. Hopefully you will grasp the concept in your heart as well.

Who didn’t see that coming?

There was a Disney comic; a one-page story where Donald Duck is in church with his nephews. Donald demands the nephews do their part to help the poor by tithing. Huey, Dewey, and Louie then sulk, thinking each how a baseball, candy, and ice cream have spouted wings and flown away. The last panel shows the three handling a church collection plate of their own before a surprised lady.

This one made me LOL. It is also beautifully depicted…what a genius to craft a complete, rather complex, totally intuitive story without a single line of dialogue. To me, that’s mind blowing.

I love how Lynn can tell a story without any words.

Where is Michael?

I think this comic should be renamed “For better or for April”

April is too young to grasp the concept of giving. The real selfish brat of the strip is Elly, who is demanding April do this because everyone thinks she looks cute.

Be thankful she didn’t do what I was thinking. I was expecting her to put down her gift and just pick up another.

And the early cult indoctrination starts early for church nuts in Canada eh?

Probably not the only kid who did that.

Also the 2nd panel seems out of order. Here, April is at the end of the pew with the gift and it looks like she’s about to leap out into the aisle, while John and Elly look startled. The next panel, she’s right next to Elly. Just seems an odd sequence of events. Oh, and she’s not wearing her hat, boots or snowsuit that she was obviously wearing in the first panel, so where’s all that stuff?

How to create an unutterably selfish adult: Continually force the child to ‘share’ without reciprocation at every stage of early life.

We played a white elephant game where you had to roll the dice and get a 6 to unwrap or steal a present. My brother took his 2 year old daughter to the stpre and had her picck out a stuffy. He wrapped it without her knowing. My sister pickedd the present an unwrapped it. She showed it to my niece in a little bit of teiasing just as my niece was handed the dice. She dropped the diece and grabbed the stuffy, we all laughed when the dice showed six.

The panels are in the correct order. In panel 2 April is running across the pew to her seat on the aisle, showing off the present while her parents and Elizabeth haven’t entered the pew yet. As for the coats and hats, if you will notice, no one is wearing them inside the church. I would assume that means they have a cloak room. In a snowy climate, I would think that is common.

Some people don’t have a problem with embarrassing their children as they have a laugh from the kids looking cute. If everyone thought that exploiting family members was wrong, Lynn Johnston would be looking for her next meal by foraging garbage cans.

Should’ve convinced her that it was empty.

it is nice to see Canadians worship at churches instead of burning them.

At first I thought they were giving away children as charity to needy families ;)

I expect more children to behave like April.

I am a little surprised that Michael and Elizabeth are not there.

Thank you all for explaining this specific comic strip! Several panels were omitted from my Sunday paper, and I really couldn’t understand what was going on!

She’s a little kid