I must not tell lies.
I must not tell lies.
I must not tell lies.
I must not tell lies.
I must not tell lies.
I must not tell lies.
My own parents had me at eighteen-ish. They kept me, but in another life and another set of circumstances, I could've been Amanda.
….is her Mother a sociopath? :/ Kids don’t ruin your life. There have been plenty of single mothers who have made it big. Wow.
And how did Andi get a conscious if her Mother doesn’t? Learned behavior? :/
While the child them self might not, the combined stress of financial, emotional, time strain and social stigma that all comes with having a child at such a young age can certainly mess up ones life. For every mother who made it big there are many more who never get out of poverty.
Andi’s mom looks relatively young so i am wondering if shes speaking from personal experience and that is why Andi has such a wtf expression in the last panel.
I wouldn’t exactly say graying hair is a sign of being young. :/
Baby at 17 plus “9 frikken years Ma”, means Andi is 27. If Ma had Andi at 17, she’d be 44. Those three little grey hairs? I had a bunch more grey hair than that, at 44.
All right, 26 (old timer’s disease – can’t add any more), so Ma would be 43. I still had more grey than that.
At 37, I am graying everyday. My temples are silver and I am starting a skunk stripe. I know a guy that was gray before he got his driver’s license.
I started going grey around 26.
In the same boat as Antonious (24-25), though mine is because my B12 was bottoming out, and I didn’t know for the longest time. 🙁
30 here, only a handful of grey (though a couple of then have been around longer than I remember) but I have a friend who has considerably more grey than Andi’s mom, and this is back when he was early/mid 20’s.
34.
I’ve got more gray hair than my 40, 50 and 51 year old siblings. 🙁
My first grey hair appeared at 15 – my voice didn’t break and I didn’t need to regularly shave until I was 21.
Now 50 and more grey than not, but still with a full head of hair and a mid-back pony-tail.
I prefer my option to my father’s – bald by 45. 🙂
Me too, as soon as I hit 25 I noticed a few grey hairs. Now at 33 it’s not that much worse: a bit more grey strands around my temples.
Everybody in here is a bunch of old oldies! … … …yeah…me too…33
I have greying hair and I’m only 34.
I started going grey at 16 and my mother was completely grey at 25.
I had a ton of gray hair by junior high. Thankfully it went back by college. It was funny being an 11-year-old and being called, “ma’am”!
This. Exactly this.
Consciouses *can* be contagious you know? 😉 I’d assume Andi caught hers from Todd and maybe his parents and any other outside positive influences. While her mom is correct, it is *not* her mom’s place to say such a thing—or impose that decision on Andi. 17 is young, but it’s plenty old enough you need to let your child start making big decisions for him/herself.
Yes, consciousness can be contagious, especially when you wake up next to someone at the same time…
Think you guys mean conscience, conscious means being in a state of awareness whereas conscience is the aptitude to distinguish right from wrong, which I believe is what you’re talking about…
Hey, not all of us can necessarily put ourselves in another’s mindset and situation (autistic here), but that doesn’t mean we can’t feel sympathy and compassion for others. This is a clear lack of the latter.
(Though it would explain things a bit if Andi and Amanda did have some empathy issues – they feel things, they can feel bad for others, but it’s still a hard time putting themselves into someone else’s perspective. Amanda’s also a kid, and one hell of a traumatized one, so it’s not like she needs an explanation for being self-centered, but Andi is 26 and still a bit on the clueless side. Not that there needs to be a brain wiring reason for every character flaw, but it would make a lot of sense.)
……-_- I meant that Andi didn’t get a sense of right and wrong from her Mother. Seriously? Ya not get that at all?
Well, Andi does seem at least a little better than her mother, so either Patricia does have a psychological issue or maybe there is another reason for Pat’s beliefs. As far as I know, we haven’t met Andi’s father, so it is possible that Patricia was a young single mother. We still don’t know the full story yet, so we don’t know how supportive the rest of Andi and Patricia’s family is.
“There have been plenty of single mothers who have made it big.”
And plenty more who didn’t.
Having said that I must point out that ‘making it big’ really isn’t the goal, creating a loving environment for the child is. And in that regard Todd & Andi could have done just fine.
…….you really missed the point of what I was saying. Like seriously. Thanks.
No, I got it. I was just adding to it.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but I had to quit school to be able to provide for my child when I got him at 22 years old.
As a couple of 17 year olds, you’re mostly not even done with high school. So at least one of you needs to quit school to be able to provide.
Otherwise you’d be leaning on your parents who are just about to be done with providing for you.
So yeah: since not many people have parents like that, generally speaking: having kids before you’re done with school, will “ruin” your life.
Aaaaaaaannnd you really didn’t get it either. -_-
Oh, I got your point. I just chose to brush it aside with my personal experience: She’s right. In most cases, anyway. Saying it out loud like that might not be very tactful, but she isn’t wrong.
So I don’t think you got the point WE were making.
It depends on the families the kids are part of. My dad was 21 and my mom was 22 when they had me. Mom completed her Masters and Dad got a law degree. But they had to live with his parents for a few years and then heavily depended on them after they moved out. They also got divorced when I was was ten and I would not call them “parents of the year” but that has to do with many more factors than just their age when they started having kids.
Kids might not “ruin your life”, but if you aren’t ready to have them at a very young age (17 isn’t an adult in the US), then they can be a severe hindrance to your financial well-being. A teen single mom has about the hardest row to hoe, followed by a young couple, not marketable. Sure it can be done. But that’s not the norm. Poverty is on the rise in single mother families, and over 4 million of them live in poverty in the US as of 2013. Furthermore, teens who marry are twice as likely as 25 year-olds to be divorced within 10 years (48% is the hard number).
Sometimes, the best thing for the child is to give it up for adoption. Biology is mighty powerful, but the needs of the child should be the most important factor. Many loving mothers make that sacrifice every year, and as someone who might be looking into adoption in the near future, I not only applaud them, but with the research I’ve done, I tend to empathize with them as well. It’s got to be the hardest decision ever. This character has the luxury of seeing her daughter in an orphanage instead of happily living with a new family. That makes it easier for her (while also making it harder).
Yes, they very well can ruin your life. There are calculations out there of what it takes to give the basic needs to a child, and while a poor and/or single person can in fact do that with enough scrimping, it takes one’s entire devotion to do so. Maybe the parent-to-be isn’t prepared to devote their life to this.
And aside from that, Todd was clearly not ready to raise kids. A 17 year old working at a supermarket who is banking on his girlfriend becoming a super rich artist? Yeah, no, that person isn’t realistically planning how to raise a child.
Also, while many mothers become magically in love with their children, it has become anathema to say the true fact that *some do not.* Some people have their child and don’t love it, or sit there thinking “I can’t do this; I’m not ready.” This is a reality that no one seems to want to believe. I think Andi made the right decision; she was, from the very start, extremely despaired about the idea of having a child. While it didn’t work out too well for Amanda in the end, yet at least, she deserved a chance to have parents who would actively *want* her presence.
…*not so casually removes pink cardigan I was wearing* One of the very few fictional characters that creeped me out.
I’ve been witness to similar conversations. They never end well. Feel so terrible for Andi right now =/
I luled irl.
So how old was Andi’s mum when she had Andi?
Starting to wonder if her mom told her to lie about the baby now.
Hmmm… Maybe but actually if you re-read the flashback, Andi doesn’t lie at first. “She’s not with us” did not start out a lie. Todd assumed she meant the baby died. When she saw how much it hurt Todd I’m sure it was four hundred times harder to explain to him that the baby was gone, because her mother pressured her to to adopt her out.
Hmmm… So Andi is trying to do this for both Amanda and possibly Todd, too. Okay, she’s more sympathetic now—especially as we see what a controljob her mother is. Really scary how her mom seems to gloss over the facts and heads straight into gaslighting. Makes me wonder if she planted in Andi’s head (or straight out told her) to tell Todd Amanda died. My mom was like that. Didn’t see it for years. Makes me ill when I see other people doing it.
I’m starting to feel slightly bad for Andi here.
I’m infertile. I have been for a while now. And there is nothing more painful when your own parent thinks that having children is wrong for you. Giving up Amanda was hard, even with the fact that Andi didn’t want to be a mother, and the even clearly put a strain between her and Todd for years.
My own mother told me she was glad I couldn’t get pregnant. Several times. So I know what Andi is feeling right in this moment. It’s so hurtful. It really is. Andi lying was wrong, but I think the mother is more wrong for pushing for Andi to give Amanda up while Todd was running late and for condoning the lie Andi told.
Ouch. I’m so sorry that your mother said that. (For what comfort a stranger on the internet saying that is worth)
How can any mother say such a thing? I’m sorry that you had to go through that, and I hope you get a mirale baby after all. It does happen.
Family systems can be pretty screwed up. I’m lucky to have a loving, nurturing set of parents. Some people I know aren’t that lucky, and a very few have had to sever ties with their parents. I couldn’t imagine mine not being in my life.
I do get where Patricia’s coming from – while it certainly is possible to successfully manage a career and training while having a kid right out of high school, it’s a hell of a lot harder. And seventeen-year-olds are still basically kids themselves, the learning curve’s seriously rough. Even with supportive grandparents, that’s still a serious and unexpected curveball for any expectations and management they have. Plus no matter how prepared you’d think you are, newborns are not fun to deal with and that’d put another serious strain on their relationship.
At the same time? Hoooooooooly craps did she ever phrase that wrong, and it says a lot about her that that’s how she chose to phrase it. Like, not even going to pretend the diplomatic route? If she’d said “I doubt you and Todd could have managed classwork with caring for and supporting a newborn” or “you two weren’t emotionally ready for a baby then, and a relationship failing is so much worse with a child in the crossfire,” that would be harsh but fair. But this… man. That’s the kind of phrasing, taken with everything else in this scene, that suggests to me Patricia wanted to give the baby up for very different reasons entirely. She wanted what’s best for Andi, yes, but what was best for Andi in her mind is very different from reality. I don’t think she ever wanted this child to exist at all, because she had plans for her daughter and they did not involve being a teen mother. Andi coming back for Amanda now means that no matter how much Patricia wants to pretend otherwise, her daughter did get pregnant in high school and did have a baby and that baby is here. (Never mind the emotional trauma Amanda’s going to go through with all this.)
And it casts her actions in a very different light if that’s true, because what would have been only just realizing how freaked out Andi was while she was in labor turns into a calculating attempt to get rid of this and forget it ever happened since she has the chance and Todd’s gone. If she had these concerns at the time (and given the way she’s phrasing it, I’m sure it’s a thing she thought of before), she should have brought them up with Andi BEFORE then, and brought Todd and the Smiths into the conversation too.
Meanwhile, this DOES confirm that the reason why Andi wants Amanda now (or at least a major factor) is because she’s had this guilt eating at her for years and wasn’t sure she was doing the right thing at the time. She might still be trying to get Todd back, but it’s also possible she knows things didn’t work out and wants to try and make things right with Amanda at least, even if it brings up a lot of shit between her and Todd the next time they run into each other.
(And meanwhile, oh dear lord this is going to be a TRAINWRECK for Amanda. I hope Andi’s in good shape to pay for therapy, because that girl needs it already and this is only going to make her issues ten times worse.)
I retract my comment on the previous page about Andi blaming her mum, who was only trying to provide her distressed daughter with options. RETRACTED!
I knew it had to be Andi’s mother that pressured her to get rid of the baby “quick while Todd’s gone”, that’s what it really looked like to me in the flashback. I’m not getting the impression that Andi was more seeking reassurance from her mom at the time of the birth and her mom took advantage of that uncertainty to get rid of Amanda. I’m also wondering how old Pessimist Patty was when she had Andi? Also, if she was about that age herself when she had Andi how much more of a slap in the face would that little bombshell statement be? “Gee thanks ma, I never knew I ruined your life…”
gah, typing too late and working on character-sheets… that “not” shouldn’t be in there… I DO get the impression that Andi was seeking reassurance and her mom took advantage of that to ditch the grandchild she didn’t want.
Yeah, and re-reading the flashback, Andi really didn’t lie at first, did she? She just didn’t give details on why “Amanda is no longer with us” and Todd filled in the rest.
nice mom, success through a lie = worthiness and a good person
truth and life experience with a child = unworthy and bad person
Everyone is going to say they don’t care and that’s fine, but I am removing this from my comics bookmark – I generally check all the comics on there once a day after work.
What started off as a comic that kind of had my interest is just, I don’t know, annoying? Forgettable?
If it weren’t for the shallow, shitty characters, their awful dialog, the idiot author’s attempts at taking what is clearly an adult story and making it child friendly? All of it?
This ‘what the crap’ thing was just kind of the straw that broken the camels back. Some of the character designs are just awful and I tried to ignore them, but the dialog in the latest update is just awful. And I can’t just see this conversation the way it is going for any self respecting adult.
Have fun writing your ridiculous story, with unrealistic characters, asinine dialog, fucking terrible self censorship and the author’s weird ass obsession with having every single fucking color of person and sexuality represented. It all feels way to god damn forced.
Okay, bye.
And nothing of value was lost.
Don’t let the door hit you on the way out!
Geez, what a jerkbag. Whatever shall we do without you, I wonder.
One, you must live is a very sheltered world if you think age has any bearing on people behaving like they do in this comic. Age doesn’t make you any less selfish, small-minded, bitter, nor does it make you smarter. You spend 10 years working a simple dead end job and doing very little else with your life I doubt you’re going to be much different to how you were at the start of that 10 years. Experiences and a personal willingness to change is what makes the difference. Not just raw time.
Two, yes I agree it can feel forced at times for the gender identity and sexuality side of things (if race really bugs you then you really don’t spend much time outside or live in a back water town coz I can’t go out my house without seeing like 6 different races on average). The problem is just that much of the side people feel like tokenism given how rapid fire they are in the story. This isn’t so much the fault of the writer just so much as where we are in society. Minority representation is still sadly a novel thing which means it draws more attention than it should.
Thank THE GODS. ‘TheJerk’ is correct. I’m pretty sure we’ve all been waiting for you to leave.
“the author’s weird ass obsession with having every single fucking color of person and sexuality represented.”
That’s not an obsession, that’s a realistic representation of REAL LIFE, because people of every color, sexuality, and gender identity all exist in real life.
You know for some reason your rant reminded me of the song Coney Island Baby. I mean it sort of fits you to a “T” except it’s not about a foul mouth child. So long and farewell. http://youtu.be/XoBBuzRlQlk
you want to leave fine. but your thoughts on this don’t give you a right to insult an artist based on your biased opinion, do you have anywork to show.
Promise us you’ll stay away forever this time? Please, please pretty please with a cherry on top?
I always have to wonder why people feel the need to announce that they’re leaving. Are we supposed to care? Wail and tear our hair out over them? Mourn lost opportunities to please them? If you don’t like a comic, stop reading it. There’s no need to be all dramatic about it.
My two copper pieces? I think it’s a need to take one last swipe. Or in his case, recycle the same complaint. He hasn’t really added anything in his attempt at trolling and since not many people weren’t taking the bait he decided to leave and leave us with the same whining he used when he was here.
A dime a predictable dozen of him.
Don’t feed the trolls.
I actually was very nearly Amanda. My mom got pregnant with me at 17 with my dad who she was only with because her dad hated him. She found out she was pregnant and weighed her options. A few weeks in or so, she began to file for adoption. She then finished all the paperwork, and it just had to be sent in by the adviser, or whatever.
She very nearly gave me up.
It was actually kind of a miracle that when she felt me kick, she realized she had to keep me, and called the adviser, hoping he hadn’t send in the paperwork yet. He told her that he knew she wasn’t going to give me up, and that he hadn’t sent anything in.
Good for your mom!
I think it’s up for grabs whose life was or wasn’t destroyed.
That’s something my mom taught me…no matter how little the lie (or any bad thing I did, really), you always end up hurting yourself just as badly as the other person.
I’ve been rereading the archive and I was wondering Dave, How long has it been since Todd and Andi broke up? Because with Andi calling his phone almost like clock work I’m thinking maybe a year at most before he answered the phone and the met again.
Seems like it was around half a year.
https://selkiecomic.com/comic/selkie103/
I would generally prefer if the only people with kids were people who bothered to study ECE/ECD… so I certainly see the core idea as proper.
On the other hand, I believe Todd is/was rational enough that this would make sense to him as well, and the manner in which is was executed was in no way a good idea.
This is how good ideas are polluted and corrupted by shitty people claiming they mean well.
Fuck that bitch.
Oof, we walked into a real minefield here, didn’t we?
On one hand, their career success was possibly due to them being free to pursue it, so the better lives they have were because of that.
On the other hand, it’s not like they couldn’t succeed while having a kid… it would just be much harder, and Todd probably wouldn’t have decided to go to school for anything if they had to raise Amanda.
If you can’t take care of your child, it is only responsible to give them up. The idea that it is noble to keep a child you cannot afford is irresponsible, given that there are programs and laws designed to handle that.
But Amanda didn’t find a family in the meantime, and now that Andi CAN take care of Amanda… and Amanda’s not adopted into another happy family, then it seems like the problem solves itself.
But Amanda is clearly not happy where she is, so she’s bound to be unhappy with Andi for giving her up, since she would imagine the life with her real parents would be with low-income but happy, instead of the real chance that it would be low income and the stress would cause a dysfunctional childhood with parents who are not prepared for her.
Well, actually it may have meant Todd went to school part-time and they lived with family for a while longer. They could have “had it all”—just not at once.
It might just be me, but I think Andi’s reaction is a little OVERreacting…. I mean, yeah, “what the crap” all the way, but her face looks more like she’d just heard her mother say “I club seals and eat infant meat”. Being of the opinion that foisting all that responsibility on a couple of naive TEENS would’ve ruined their lives isn’t a bad thing…. ma kinda has a point. >> I dunno about any of YOU, but I don’t remember being particularly smart at 17…..
I assume she’s reacting like that, because her mom was a teen pregnancy. It’d be one thing if her mom was telling her this before she got pregnant, but since the baby already existed it probably makes her wonder if her mom wished she could have gone back in time and given her away.
I get her opinion, but like I said the way she’s saying it really says a lot about it, especially since Andi’s discussing how she lied to Todd and those two decisions have been weighing on her the whole time since. Patricia responds by referring to Amanda as “that girl” – she’s only used her name once – and using the strongest term possible to say how much this would have derailed their lives. Not the way to convince your daughter she made the right choice when she is clearly still attached to the child she gave up, especially since she’s still using this logic to tell Andi not to come back into Amanda’s life.
Also, she says “BOTH of your lives”, not all three of them. Patricia’s demonstrating she really doesn’t care about this child while Andi’s saying she herself certainly does, which undermines her “are you sure this is what’s best for Amanda Marie” point.
Actually I think it re enforces it. she did not say it for Amanda’s sake but for Andi’s. What I get from this is: This girl will be nothing but trouble for you Andi, as much as you my think you want her you will regret this.
So she more said it as a “I hope you got more on this then a rose tinted view of getting you baby back.” She dose not care about Amanda at all, never has, probably never will. She cares about Andi and honestly believes Amanda would have ruined her.
How wrong she is to think this way is debatable but its still callous as hell.
Yeah, and that callousness is not going to do anything for Andi but convince her her mom can’t be trusted. Since she’s been wracked with guilt and going with “what if”s, saying “it was good, it gave her a chance, it gave you a chance, and you would almost certainly have been in a much worse position if you had kept her” might actually help. Saying “it would have destroyed your lives” immediately puts Andi on the defensive.
And she’s not really sticking to one argument here. If I were trying to convince my hypothetical daughter not to claim her hypothetical daughter she gave up at birth, after the Todd option’s been dismissed I would address the guilt gently (“it’s okay, you made the right choice in giving her up, we can’t go back now”) and then go back to the present. Amanda having a lot of questions and a lot of issues over her mom giving her up IS a very valid argument, and the only reason I think this might actually help her is that I don’t think the orphanage has the funds to get her the therapy she very desperately needs. Andi is in a much better position now than she was then. If you want to convince her not to do this, you would have to convince her that not only did she do the right thing the first time, but that claiming her would be the wrong thing now as well.
Andi’s really overreacting here, as are some of the commenters. Babies having babies destroys babies’ lives.
Except her mom was probably a “baby having a baby.” And—no—it doesn’t necessarily “destroy lives,” but it does make accomplishing big goals (like finishing college) a bit more difficult. So whether or not it destroys lives, depends on the kids having the babies and also their families. And then? It’s really not the process of “babies having babies” it’s more the circumstance it happens in.
I think it’s less the “having a child that young would have made it difficult to accomplish your goals” so much as the nasty phrasing of “that girl” which sounds like a blaming of the kid. Not to mention she is ignoring The guilt over lying. To. The father. Of. The. Child. Who had his own rights. Andi could have given up her rights and let Todd keep the child instead. That is the issue here. The rights of the father were trampled into the mud.
“Made more difficult” ≠ “Destroyed”, “Mom”.
Also, considering you’re having this conversation with YOUR OWN daughter, what are you implying?
Oh man, that could make the next page really awkward.
Is she speaking hypothetically, or from personal experience?
Yup. That’s what I’m getting from it, too. The reason for Andi’s reaction is that Andi knows her mother had her young, too, and her mother has effectively just told her that giving birth to Andi destroyed her life.
It feels as though her mother is pretending the “If he wanted her, he’s had as much time as you to find her.” part of the conversation didn’t happen…
You clearly are better now, without Todd in your life and with this load of guilt.
What the actual crap indeed. Not cool, Andi’s Mom.
When someone comes to you for emotional support while going through a stressful process they feel will help make up for some aspect of their past they feel guilty over, that is not an appropriate time to disparage their current course of action by trying to justify the very thing about which they feel guilty.
Read that as Toss became the antichrist.
I am totally on the Mom’s side with this one.
Andi was clearly not ready for the responsibility of parenthood. Some people who choose to become parents still aren’t actually ready when they make the decision. Some people are never really ready to become parents, but decide to do so anyway because they are irresponsible fools.
Not everyone is cut out for parenthood. Some people take a decade or two longer than others to grow a sense of responsibility and eventually become great parents in their later years. Some are ready in their early 20s and turn out to be great parents. Some people never grow up emotionally, raise children anyway, and are horrible self-absorbed fools who are blind to how awful they are as parents.
Learning responsibility before parenting is inherently more responsible than trying to learn responsibility through parenting. Especially when some people manage to avoid learning actual responsibility in spite of being parents.
Now, do I think Andi is an awful mother? No. She does seem like she might be ready now, and she’s certainly more ready than she was. But her mom is probably right that keeping her child would have made things harder for Andi than she would have been able to cope at eighteen.
I’m betting her mom is speaking from experience.
I’m 32 and deep down, I’m still not ‘ready’ for kids. Trying my best to raise my 10 year old son on the weekend that I have him, but he wants to live with me and that scares the crap out of me.
I’m so confused as to why everyone is so upset with Andi’s mother. Is she just supposed to pretend that being a mother at seventeen years old is an optimal situation? What she said was not a lie, and in fact, the story I hear over and over again from young mothers is “Have safe sex, because even though I would never trade my child for the world, having a child at such a young age severely hindered my life. Don’t do the same as me.”
As Regalli said, it’s not so much what Patricia said but how she said it and the implications of what she said.
Not to mention neither she nor had Andi had ANY right to make that decision for Todd.
I think the issue is, she’s dismissing Andi’s guilt as unimportant, and seems to be trying to discourage Andi from reclaiming Amanda even though Andi already decided to try and do this and came to her mother (presumably) for emotional support.
Honestly, not feeling her mother wrong here, if perhaps a bit tactless.
Young Andi didn’t look ready to become a parent, and didn’t even look willing to become a parent. I can only imagine how hard it is to become a parent at 17. Becoming a parent at 17 while you clearly are not on board with this… yes, that does seem like life-destroying stuff. And considering Andi’s mom likely knows Andi pretty well, I’m inclined to say her analysis of the situation carried weight.
The lying on the other hand, yeah, that’s another matter. And the mother does seem to defend it. Perhaps she’s trying to undermine the guilt because she’s afraid that Andi is trying to reclaim this kid for all the wrong reasons. Guilt and a desire to fix things with Todd aren’t good reasons. She doesn’t seem like a horrible person. Flawed, and indeed a bit callous about Todd’s right as a parent, but not evil.
If this is one of those “Don’t make the same mistake I made” moments, then this is about to get even more awkward…