For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for February 09, 2016

Melody Morrison must be a stuck-up

If you find out, let me know. I’d sometimes love to comment on ‘9 Chickweed Lane’. I’ll wager that Brooke probably shut down the comments because they’d get too racey.

“Nowadays,..”

Nothing new. My 3rd grade class did that back in 1969.

The only difference is that we had our self-named brown paper lunch sacks (decorated with Valentine’s themes earlier during a creative art session) thumb-tacked to the wall at the front of the classroom, just below the chalkboards.Policy was to provide a card for every fellow student so that nobody felt left out.

Lynn’s Note*There always has to be a villain and I created Melody Morrison in opposition to Elizabeth. Again, I thought Melody would play a larger role, but it was hard for me to make a character all bad! To me, there is good in everyone and when you show both sides, you’ve got a character that demands the spotlight. I had no room to add more characters.

This is how ‘participation’ trophies started………

When I was in school, you could give valentines to just the kids you wanted to give them to. I was usually the one who didn’t get any. On the other side, my daughter’s class has to give one to everyone…but my daughter would anyway, ‘cuz that’s just the way she is. (She learned about Pokemon just because the least popular kid in her class liked it.)

This makes me think of giving awards to every kid on the little league baseball team rather than just the achievers because otherwise, it would hurt kids’ feelings. OK, I know it’s not the same, but this ritual makes kids lie about liking people they really don’t.

When I was in school, we passed them out only to the kids we liked, too. This was the era before all that nonsense of “no child left behind” and “every child gets a trophy”. Uh, life isn’t like that. However, I LOVE that idea of the brown bags and kids can look at their Valentines at home. In this way, nobody has to know that one kid got ONE Valentine (from the teacher, no less) and another got 25. And it still would allow kids to be true to themselves and only give Valentines to those they liked.

I like Brooke’s style of drawing. As an amateur artist I have used his drawings to help me create my own style. And I don’t have a problem with the sexual content of his comics since all the commenters here SEEM to be adults and there are other strips that contain sexual content as well. Like Last Kiss.

We had the bags for each student back in the 60’s for each student. And for my kids, now 24 and 18, they have pretty much stopped any giving of cards so no one will have ‘hurt feelings’

My son always got some of those mystery unsigned cards, too.

The teacher should give a val to each student with a unique compliment. Then BE DONE WITH IT!

My sister when in school were did not like Valentine’s. Fellow classmates got very mean and wrote a bad word about her. Hurt her deeply.

I can remember getting mimeographed lists of my classmates back in elementary school and that was between 1955 and 1962. We were expected to bring a valentine for everyone on the list, and yes we used the “bag system”, too. That way you had a way to carry them home. It was always fun to see the variety of cards, whether you liked the sender or not.

As for Pibgorn & 9CWL, it wasn’t so much that Brooke didn’t want the criticism, it is that he dislikes the off-topic, often brutal comments that became more important to fans than the comics themselves. Here at FBoFW, we sometimes do that, too, but not nearly to the extent that Brooke’s fans did.

Mceldowney on comments:

“So, I objected and objected and objected as time went on and the tenor of posts became subject more and more to abuse. I wanted my work to appear as it did in the beginning, alone, without a raging public forum affixed to it. It was like looking at a work of art with the walls about it scrawled densely with graffiti.”

I thought Brooke was a woman’s name! Now I get it! Confusion gone!

Yes there is. http://image66amarillo.com/phpBB3/index.php

I’ve heard the participation award argument from both sides. Back when I was into science fiction/fantasy costuming (before they called it “cosplay”), I remember a few, especially a schoolteacher costumer, insist that all in the young fan division (kids under 16) in the masquerade had to have an award. Otherwise, you were telling them that they weren’t good enough, or worse-yet “Mommy” wasn’t good enough in regards to making their costume (for some reason, Daddy didn’t come into it although I knew many Dads who created the costumes for the kids). Similarly, my old figure skating club always handed out participation trophies along with 4 or 5 actual awards (skater of the year, most improved, sportsmanship, perseverance) so that the kids who didn’t win the big awards wouldn’t feel left out. Heck, the participation trophies were bigger than the award plaques and the kids liked them better! The issue is those trophies are just meaningless after the ceremony and gather dust and really aren’t worth more than 5 feel good minutes.

As for 9 Chickweed, I always read the strip and sometimes love it and sometimes find it tiresome when he goes on and on and on with storylines that rival Mary Worth for dragging things out. I can, however, understand why the artist opted not not allow comments. Ever read some of the comments on Doonesbury, especially from persons on the extreme ends of both the liberal and conservative aisles who only appear to read it to comment and stir things up and promote their own beliefs and attack those on the opposite side?

just give nosirrom ydolem a enitnelav sdrawkcab.

This teaches children the valuable lesson of faking feelings for people one has no feeling for.

I think the first time they did Valentines in first grade I got three. I didn’t even notice what anyone else got.

Even if the kids do have to give a valentine card to every kid, that doesn’t mean they can’t give ‘special’ cards to the ones they really like.

The thing is, it’s very much a popularity contest if you only give cards to the people you like. Kids shouldn’t be subjected to that at such an impressionable age. At any rate the holiday is mostly about giving Hallmark money!

Also, no one can say “I only got one card and that’s the way I liked it. Barely having any friends at age five sure was character building; I’m so grateful for that.”

Valentine cards come in boxes with many cards. They are small and it is easy to give one to each child in the class. A box is less than $2, no big expense. Why intentionally hurt a child’s feelings at this young age.

Life isn’t fair, Mom. You tell us that all the time!