Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for March 26, 2022

I never recognized a comic character just by hearing him over the phone before.

This is depressing. My wife and her daughter are going through this very thing.

It’s pretty obvious that JJ is a clone of her mother.

At least Joanie is willing to own up to her lousy parenting; what’s her daughter’s excuse??

Thank God—Kim will be the mother to Alex that JJ isn’t.

“The boy stood on the burning deck / Whence all but he had fled.”

Showing courage and devotion to duty? Staying at your post under relentless fire?? Where have you been hiding that moral fibre, Zeke??? Has time re-written every line?

To use an analogy that I know will resonate with [most of] the assembled: If someone voted for Trump in 2016, spent four years regretting it, and then, in 2020, urged people to not vote for Trump, would that person be a hypocrite? Or would that person be someone who admitted to having made a horrible error in judgment and wanted to discourage others from making that identical horrible error in judgment?

As several generations of my own family have shown, nobody learns from the previous generation’s mistakes. They make the same mistakes, even at about the same age, which has convinced me, at least, that it’s all how we’re wired.

Sort of a bit late for this speech. Still, you do you Mom of the ex.

Nows not the time to nag…it’s the time to console and listen, offer help

It’s always a treat to get a strip here that wasn’t in the collections I’ve read and reread.

Given what a shìt mum JJ was, I’m not sure I buy this argument. Alex seems quite happy with the current arrangement.

Once again, everybody is giving dear old dad a pass in this situation. Along with being an awful husband, J.J.‘s father clearly wasn’t much of an influence on her with regards to being a nurturing parent to her own child. But sure, let’s demonize Joanie.

“You can’t spend your life reacting to your own victimhood.” This is something a lot of people need to hear these days, and on both sides of the aisle.

Victimhood has risen exponentially since this strip came out

OK, folks, time for a little Biblical reflection. Feel free to tune out and jump over to the next comment, at this time.

The Bible says that God is a vengeful god visiting his wrath on the second and third generation. And, in truth, it often seems that a wrong started by one generation seems to be replicated in future generations. In fact, it might take three or four generations before someone realizes it’s time to make a change. Maybe, Alex will see this and think about her boyfriend long and hard before saying, I do. And, once taking the oath, sticking with the marriage to make it work, for the good of all involved.

Or, you could just blame it all on God for being vengeful. Yeah, that’ll work.

Next error, please.

He has been promoted to “whipping boy”.

Funny!

I have come to believe that Doonesbury is entitled to the preface, “Based on actual events”.

Mothers that abandon children for selfish reasons suffer so much more guilt than absent fathers. Must be 10,000 years of human behavior.