For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for July 04, 2018

kid learns fast (when it comes to “no”)

Oh Elly, you ought be proud! She learned!

What colour books do little girls read/eat? Why purple books of course!

Between the original comic strips in 1979, this flashback in 1989 and the new-run comic strips in 2008; there have been three comic strips featuring Elizabeth’s first word as the punchline of the comic strip. In 1979, the first word was “Gookie” for “cookie.” In 2008, the first word was “Ma-ma”. Today, we have “No!”

I was almost certain her first word was “decamethylcyclopentasiloxane”.

LOL! Now that was funny!

Flashbacks should be use sparringly.

Happy two hundred forty second birthday, USA! You ROCK!

My daughter’s first word after Mama and Dada was “candy.”

I think they still use “playpens” when Lizzy was small. Doesn’t Elly have one? They sure would help with the "NO"s!

Infants….poop, tinkle, slobber, gurgle and more, 2’s NO NO NO, 3’s WHY WHY WHY, 4s Bliss (well still learning to put them all togehter but much easier to work with 16 of them LOL

Let’s hear it for a few yes’s!

It is not just these days that such things are heard (nor the 1970s or 1980s when these strips were first written). After “Mama” and “Baba” the next intelligible thing I said was an exclamation: “Ohhh, you bad girl!” I am an old fart so you can guess how long ago I learned that from my maternal grandmother.

I knew a woman, an… “interesting” mother of four (and one in the oven), who would never tell her kids “no.” She had some rubbish excuse about it hurting their self-esteem or about it teaching them to say “no”, like Lizzie in today’s strip. Instead of “no”, she would tell them “negative”.

It was the most painful thing I’ve ever had to witness.

Old single panel cartoon, exasperated mother telling her husband, “And she told her teacher her name was Mary Stop.”