For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for August 22, 2010

Elizabeth too young to be not watched in bathtub, she’ll drown.

Don’t worry about not having one, they’re SO overated!!

howtheduck, you’re ignoring the fact that the kids are a seven-year-old boy and a two-year-old girl. There is no way that Michael should still be taking a bath with Elizabeth at his age – or with any girl, for that matter – nor should she be bathing with him.

Putting it another way, by the time that her kids are old enough to take baths together without causing Elly trouble, they won’t (and shouldn’t) be taking baths together at all!

I’m thinking howtheduck was being all sarcastic over there…

I didn’t have any brothers, but remember being small enough that my sister and I could pass each other in the bathtub! We’d make whirlpools and drench the floor. That was pretty much the end of that.

Can almost bet that both kids were bathing at the same time to give mom a badly needed break…and so Elizabeth would be kept safe by Michael.

In another era, parents weren’t so worried about bathing siblings together; the psychiatrists hadn’t yet declared such actions out of bounds. Toddlers of two aren’t cognizant of sexual differences…they are just harmlessly curious. This episode won’t negatively affect Elizabeth at all.

it’s starting younger and younger…

a seven year old boy too old for taking a bath with his little sister? You must be JOKING!!! What’s the deal with Americans and nudity? Those are both still little children.

Another matter altogether is of course that a 7 years old kid isn’t old enough to look after his 2 yr old sibling in the bath. But this is a comic strip, right? not a real life situation…

It’s amazing, the critics of strip behavior who are obviously not parents……( and I’m not, either. A parent, that is)

You people are funnier than this comic by far!

spammerflaggen!

I thought that looked familiar.

howtheduck was obviously being sarcastic……..he/she just forgot to use the sarcastic font to make it even more obvious

Our two youngest found out they’re different the same way.

Beef jerky comes to mind.

nighthawks… what’s the sarcastic font? What keys do you press or what.. or are you kidding? ( I believe every thing I read.)

Burgandy2…that sarcastica key would come in handy…and in my case I could use a “boy,am I naive! ” key. Shame on me!

Ouch! LOL! Our moment was in a YMCA changing room with a poor little boy who was changing with his mommy. Mine asked, “Why does he have something, uh, extra hanging there?”

kfccanada, who said anything abut negatively affecting Elizabeth?

I have a picture of my than 5 year old son and his 3 year old sister in the tub together. They are in their 30’s now.

fun memories

thanx Lynn

MIchael is old enough to watch Elizabeth in the tub: he’s old enough to know she shouldn’t stand up, that she should be grabbed by the arm if she goes under water and that if she slips and hits her head he should yell for his mother. It’s not as if Elly left the house. Any of those things could happen with her sitting there watching Lizzie play in the tub.

Some friends and I use the tilda (~) for sarcasm - it sort of looks like twisted lips.

Barbara

Even though my kids were 5 years apart, I’ve always bathed them separately.

A 7yr old boy and his 2 yr old sister bathing together, is about as right as my old landlady bathing her 12 year old son (who was in the top percentile of his class - WITH honours)

To all the people freaking out over this: it’s not a first-run! This strip is 25-30 years old! I remember it from when I was a kid (cracked me up, BTW). It was a different time. Kids bathed together to cut down on water costs; we walked or rode our bikes all over the neighborhood without a thought of child molesters. We didn’t x-ray our Halloween loot before eating it. My older brother & I were still bathing together at 6 & 3 (I remember him keeping his back to me the whole time), and we both grew up to be productive, law-abiding citizens. Get a grip.

Ummmmmm it’s a comic folks. I’m sure that anyone reading this comic strip is not reading it for parenting advice.

I bathed with my siblings when we were young, both brothers and sisters. As we got older it was just with my sisters. It wasn’t a big deal.

kjc7823 said: Ummmmmm it’s a comic folks. I’m sure that anyone reading this comic strip is not reading it for parenting advice.

I certainly hope not because it’s full (pretty much on a daily basis) of everything you shouldn’t say or do regarding the raising of children! All the bickering, yelling, parental abuse (of each other!) … it’s just plain scary!

I always wonder: every time someone comes here, reads the comic, reads our comments pertaining to the comic, then tells us “It’s just a comic … get a life!” ………. what kind of lives do they have??? By their comments to the rest of us, it doesn’t sound like they have much of a “life” either!!!!!

Look all you spoil-sports … we’re not idiots. We know it’s a comic! Why do you have to come here and and spoil our fun and shared passion for this comic strip??? If you don’t like what we have to say, then why read any of them at all? Just skip over the comments section and move on to the next thing you’re going to look at on your computer today and leave the rest of us alone!

Thank you.

At 2, Lizzie isn’t an infant. It’s not like she’s going to roll on her back and not be able to get back up. At 7, Michael isn’t helpless. Long as mom has spoken o him about what his responsibilities are in the bath there’s no reason why mom has to be in the room every last second. I myself had bath-time duties with my 6-year younger brother. 8 & 2 to 9 & 3, at which point brother dearest took a crapper in the bath water and I refused to co-habit the tub ever again =P

For those clamoring over the “inappropriateness” of mixed sex children bathing with each other - get over yourselves and your hangups over anything sex or gender related already. Did you know there are perfectly modern cultures in which the entire family bathes together? Where there are public bath houses where you bathe with same- OR mixed- sex strangers? And unlike in America, with our uptight Puritan roots, it’s perfectly acceptable AND non-sexual.

OMG! This is the exact one where I started reading this comic 29 years ago. Mind you I missed a number of years in the middle where I stopped getting the paper and didn’t follow it on the internet.

So Weird

Don’t know why GC is replacing the original strip with ones that don’t have the throw-away headers, but the original can be seen here:

https://fborfw.com/strip_fix/strips/10/fb100822.jpg