For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for January 08, 2012

Do I hear some ‘bait’ volunteers?

I’m with you, John.

Simple solution: I don’t know how to fix things, so she can’t expect me to do it.

I’m with you, too, John!!

It’s why modern man tinkers in the garage all day.

It’s why modern woman gets tired of modern man tinkering in the garage all day while she does everything and they become modern divorcees.

John better get hip to the fact that a marriage is a PARTNERSHIP! That means, John, get off your lazy, fat tukus and do your share around there!

I like his theory !!!!!!!

Pony up John and be a father and husband the world can be proud of. We are counting on you…..or else we’ll trash you!

Just out of curiosity, how much of “his share” is accounted for by going to work every day to pay for the mortgage, groceries, electricity, gas, water, trash service, telephone, internet, cable TV, insurance, car payments, new frniture, etc.?

Although I agree that John needs to pitch in, in today’s strip, I do not agree with Ellie’s nagging approach.

It’s certainly one reason modern man hunts.

… got, to, go, KILL something…

@CarolinaGirls, Teddyr, summerdog… are we reading the same strip? The one in which Ellie (whom we must assume is doing something important and useful in panel five) commands that John do something about the fighting kids, and he obediently corrals them and limits their fighting to the topic of which story he will read them… and then she dumps a load of additional work on him? Isn’t that pretty much a summary of the strip? So ya wanna explain to me how he’s " tinkering in the garage" or needs to “get off [his] lazy, fat tukus and do [his] share” or “needs to pitch in” …? Seems to me he’s already doing at least his share (more if you count those 60-hour work weeks), and she’s adding to the unending list.

But puddleglum, he’s whining about it all!

@Puddle I believe he was implying that men started to hunt in order to get out of the house and away from responsibilities at home, or in James case, “tinkering in the garage”. That’s how I read it anyway. And I’d really love to know where this 60 hour workweek came from?? Where does it say that?

Lynn’s Notes:Settling disputes between the offspring usually fell to me and there were times when I had no patience left to work with. I was so tired of the constant, petty squabbles to care. If the kids could go outside, they’d be too occupied to start a row, but inside, the tug-of-war waged on and I would often be at the “end of my rope”.

I would envy the guys who disappeared into their workshops to “get stuff done”. It was hard to deny them the time they spent over an oily valve or a piece of lumber or a broken pipe. This was, after all, essential to the household maintenance. The cool, quiet ambience of the workshop was a perfect place to spend an afternoon. Guys dropping by to give advice or lend a hand were welcome. They’d lean comfortably against the doorframe, chewing the fat, and hoping for a beer to materialize. Sometimes they even got sandwiches and cake! It might take a day to fix a gadget or repair a hose – time well spent according to the men folk, but… an entire day?!!

Some of my friends had hunter/fishermen in the family and when the weekend came, their men folk would go off to the call of the wild. The women kept the home fires burning and the small fry in line. When we came into contact with each other, we’d compare notes about the absent spouses. What did the guys REALLY do while we held down the fort? Mystery loves company. So, while I went along with the social flow, I resented it as well. Situations like this found their way into For Better or For Worse and I was always comforted by the responses from other moms who said, “That happens at OUR house, too!” It was wonderful to know I wasn’t alone.

This was my household once upon a time. Saturday mornings were a chaos with three kids.

Kids are being kids, wife’s being a wife & husband want’s to be anywhere but there. Sounds like normal everyday to me.

They have enough money to hire someone to do the shelf and the sink. So John should stick with reading to the kids. That is extremely important for their mental development.

It is a reference, if I am not mistaken, to mesapotamian (sp?) mythology.

@Nabuquduriuzhur – in case yesterday’s “vitriol” comment was directed at me, I genuinely did not mean it that way. I only meant to say that our society and culture are completely different from the ones that existed when the various books of the Bible were written. If applying the Bible’s prescriptions and proscriptions to your relationships has lead to unsatisfying relationships, you might look to some other, more recent, sources for some additional perspectives. We’ve learned a lot about humans’ brains and behavior in the last 50 years, let alone the last several thousand.

@everyone else – Elly’s upstairs, and the fight is loud enough that it’s disrupting her work. So the kids are obviously screaming at each other. If John is just sitting reading a newspaper while that’s going on around him, I don’t blame Elly for being irritated at having to tell him to please do something about the kids.But yeah, adding two other chores to the honeydo list is a bit much.

As I did not divorce my X until the older kids (boys) were entering HS, I always handled most disputes, because when my X (before he was) got into it, he was as childish as any of our 3 sons and got WAY too physical. It was when he started physically shaking our daughter (youngest) that I went through with filing for divorce.

AND, I LOVE those good old wooden tinkertoys (and so did my cockatoo in the last couple of decades).

Honeydo projects are the bane of my life. Wish I’d never told my wife i could drive a nail straight or saw a straight line.