For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for September 14, 2014

Yer next John-Boy!

Aww let them play. They’ll dry off. Water never hurt anyone despite our grandparents’ telling us that getting wet in the rain will “cause the death of you”.

Rain doesn’t kill you-the electricity does.

Where’s Farley? Bet he can shake, & get them all wet.

Who takes kids to the beach and tells them they can’t get wet?

Either way, she couldn’t win. If she doesn’t take them to the beach or if she is stricter, then people criticize. If she does take them to the beach but tries her best to do the right thing without screaming at them, people criticize. Whatever, Elly, you tried to do what you thought was right and I’m sure it’ll be a day remembered fondly.

Michigan: 50 some years ago. At a borrowed cabin. Sister (about 4) fell off dock while poking stick in the water. My mother’s shrieking at father about drowning. The water barely came to her waist. Even I couldn’t understand what all the noise was about.

Most of us parents just muddle through and do the best we can and spend more time second-guessing ourselves and crying ourselves to sleep than you back-seat parents criticizing this strip could ever know.

Love this 3 stooges ditty. starts about the 4 min. mark.

I’m surprised the kids didn’t just take everything off and go swimming anyway :PSomeone did that somewhere in this strip, right?

Mom never let me get away with that kind of stuff.

tsk tsk

I did that, every time!

Elly never seems to have fun with her kids.

Back in the stone age days when I was young I went to spend the day with a friend in the park which had a creek. On the way out of the house my Mom said don’t go near the creek. So guess who did and who fell in. Kids will be kids no matter what the parents do.

This happened to us a few weeks ago. Seriously

There’s a nifty fountain feature at an outside food court near me and we see lots of kids (mostly <6ish) cavorting to their heart’s content. Many are wearing regular clothes. Not sure what parents do with the drenched kids in the car on the way home.

The J.A.M.: Not that I recall; it has caught up with where I first came in. There was a parody version in which the four went skinny dipping, with a punch line about getting to know what real people look like.

For Worse or Much Worse.