For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for October 26, 2020

Elizabeth was shown entering Grade 6 last month. She is 11 and not 10. Nevertheless, this comic strip is good reminder of the good, old days when parents used to let their kids run loose in the local mall.

My Mom didn’t let me go to the mall alone until I was twelve. I don’t know if Elly’s doing the right thing.

That was 30 years ago. Today we know pedophiles and human traffickers hunt at malls, movies, arcades – anyplace where vulnerable children are. My boys once disappeared on me in a mall. They were around 7 and 8. One of the scariest moments of my life. Huge mall. I immediately went to the security desk and they did a Public Address and told my boys by their names to meet on the first floor by the elevators. They couldn’t appear fast enough for me. Was super relieved to see them when they walked up. They were also looking for me. Apparently, we wandered apart without realizing it. Today, I put my grandkids in the stroller – no arguments. My older grandson is 5 – he goes in the stroller. He doesn’t mind because he doesn’t like all the walking anyway. Mall is boring to him. It is also lucky he is so skinny and lightweight he could ride in the stroller along with his 19 months old sister. Well, in this pandemic, obviously that’s no longer an activity. I onlygo to stores for specific reasons and leave immediately.

I’m currently work at a grocery store. Before that, a Salvation Army donation trailer attendant. Before that, a volunteer at two different thrift stores (neither was The Salvation Army nor The Good Will) which were near one another. When I moved to a different side of town while still a volunteer at those two thrift stores, I had to take two buses to/from there and at times I missed the second bus when reaching the depot in order to head home; parents had to pick me up.

I remember being that age and WALKING along a pretty busy road for a couple of miles to get to a shopping center (pre-mall days) to buy candy after school. I was also a “latch-key” kid from the time I was in second grade because my mother worked. Nowadays, someone would call social services on my mother. The area was pretty safe, but still….. just different times back in the early-mid 1960s.

Lynn’s Comments:

Looking at this, I have to smile. I used to worry about my kids going out on their own at night. Now, at 72 and not keen to drive when it’s the dark, my kids worry about me!

I just had a conversation with my granddaughter, almost 7, who hold me she wanted to go trick or treating alone this year but Mom and Dad said no. I agreed with the parents, but suggested that perhaps she could do that when she was 10. Now I am re-thinking that!

10? Alone/with friends at the local Mall? No frickin’ way! Not even in 1975!

Those were simpler times. I sort of miss them, but then I realize, these are the “simpler times” for some one else in 40 years.

I don’t worry where Masha, Salia, and my son (who looks like Trayvon) are. There is always a Secret Service agent nearby. Oh wait, you mean not every family gets that?

I assume Liz is still wearing the appliance, so why is her speech so clear in panel 3? Lynn did get in “ruleth,” but she missed “gosh” and “so.” Could it be Liz is adapting to the appliance?

The difference is known as generation gap.

This is where we get the term “Elly-coptur parent”!

She said “gosh” ok.

When I was a kid, I agreed with Liz, now as an adult, I get Elly.

“Ruleth”? Ah, so now she speaketh King James English! That should giveth her some class…..eth.

Relax Elly, it is not like Elithabes is going to Thwampscott Mathachutheths!

I would never have been allowed to go to the mall at 10…or 11 or 12.