Clearly they are eating Little Ceasars pizza, hence the trademark Pizza! Pizza! Yes? 😛
Andi is finally gonna change her hair? Aside from how happy that makes me, she should nip Amanda’s snarky attitude in the bud. She’s allowing Amanda to be disrespectful towards her even if she doesn’t realize it. Common Andi, you allow everyone to walk all over you. Amanda will never learn any boundaries, respect or manners at this rate… I don’t mean yell at her or punish her, but at least point out how hurtful and rude some of her comments are.
Snipping Amanda’s snarky attitude in the bud would require a time machine — she was long past the “bud” stage before this comic started. You can’t just push the reset button on a kid and tell them, hey, from now on they’ve got to be respectful. Well. you can, but you shouldn’t expect it to work.
Actually, I think mother and daughter are getting along pretty well here. Andi’s casual, laid-back bohemian attitude is refreshing, and I think it’s going to work a lot better for Amanda than any sort of martinet approach. She’ll insist on limits when they’re important, but a little bit of snarkiness here and there…? Not important. Mother and daughter are actually very similar here.
I shouldn’t have said bud, yeah that was definitely the wrong choice of words. I meant that she needs to stop letting Amanda be so rude in her speech, it’s why so many people get upset with her. And I’m worried Andi is going to do the friend first mother second approach with Amanda.
I think Andi’s going to be her own style of mom… which is shaping up to be roughly equal parts of “Definitely not gonna act like MY OWN mom, no way,” and “Amanda has too many big issues, I’m not gonna sweat the small stuff.”
I think she is, in fact, using a “friend first” approach. Or maybe “older, wiser sister.” Why does that worry you? It’s pretty much what Todd used with Selkie, too, in the beginning. Eight year olds are not infants. You can’t just automatically BE their parent. You have to show that you respect their individuality. You have to earn their trust.
I’ve had a lot of bad experiences with mom’s attempting to be their child’s friend over their parent. It always ended really badly. Sure, it seems really fun at first, then you find yourself wishing your parent had actually attempted to parent you and give you good advice instead of, “Do what you want and what you think is fun.”
Or worse, the child ends up having to parent the parent and be the responsible one.
Pick your battles. Drawing a line in the sand leaves you with little options. The most important thing a parent can do is teach a child how to distinguish things. As long as Andi reigns Amanda in when it matters, a little gentleness at other times is okay.
This situation is a little different. I am not defending the “Friend with child” approach but Andi hasn’t been a mother to Amanda for her whole life. The Friend with Child is bad when it starts when the child is a toddler and such but Amanda is a 8-9 year old who is very independent. She is picking the battles, not letting her run wild on her. Do I believe she should have been punished for the morning events? Yes, I believe that but she is doing what she needs to do.
I think a big part of Andi’s character development is going to be that she has to learn how to be a mom. It’s an adjustment period for anyone, and considering Andi doesn’t seem to have had any experience with kids – “Eight year olds don’t still need diapers, right?” – well. She’s trying, but it probably doesn’t occur to her that Amanda’s language and tone could be problematic … especially since ‘feisty opinionated free-spirits’ abound in the art world and the punk scene, which seems to be Andi’s peer group.
I think what she’s doing is making a conscious effort not to treat Amanda like a baby, and so is defaulting to treating her like an adult when there’s not a clear-cut “This is what a parent should do” scenario in front of them, like the ‘late for school’ issue earlier.
That said, how a kid wears their hair is much less of an issue than a kid turning off their parent’s alarm clock on a school/work day.
Don’t you remember the advice she was given at the orphanage? She’s picking her battles to win the war. She is not jumping down Amanda at every small thing, but she does discipline for the big stuff. Given Amanda’s adoptive parents and siblings abused her, that’s what she needs. It takes time (and a crapload of patience) to “re-program” a kid like that from not existing in an angry distrustful state.
But honestly? I see nothing disrespectful over what Amanda is saying here. She is being honest about her feelings and asking pretty legit questions.
Yeah, I had a friend who had to call her dad “sir” and stuff, and… yeah, well, it was creepy.
I ignore a lot of stuff from my kid, verbal-wise. (Her: *angry GRRR!* Me: *grouchy GRRR right back!*) She doesn’t run wild. Amanda’s being a little cranky, but lords, kids get cranky. Trying to nitpick their behavior when they’re cranky isn’t going to help. Give them more time to build trust and Andi can probably do something like, “Hey, you’re being a crab — can you try to be a little nicer to the surroundings, kiddo?” and maybe Amanda will be able to see it as “I love you and have your back, even though you’re not being very likeable right now” instead of “If you don’t constantly fake being happy, I will stop loving you and you will be ALONE.”
Am I the only one who thinks Amanda looks older in panel 4? Like, teenager-ish? Though maybe that’s a combination of the snarky expression and lack of other characters for size references.
Sha na na na na na na na na
Sha na na na na
Sha na na na na na na na na
Sha na na na na
Autumn turns to winter
And then winter turns to spring
It’s not just for the seasons you know
It goes for everything
It’s even true for voices when boys begin to grow
You gotta take a lesson from mother nature
And if you do you’ll know
When it’s time to change, then it’s time to change
Don’t fight the tide, come along for the ride
Don’t ya see?
When it’s time to change, you’ve got to rearrange
Who you are into what you’re gonna be
Sha na na na na na na na na
Sha na na na na
Sha na na na na na na na na
Sha na na na na
Day by day it’s hard to see
The changes you’ve been through
A little bit of living, a little bit of growing
All adds up to you
Every boy’s a man inside
A girl’s a woman too
And if you want to reach your destiny
Here’s what you’ve got do
When it’s time to change, then it’s time to change
Don’t fight the tide, come along for the ride
Don’t ya see?
When it’s time to change, you’ve got to rearrange
Who you are into what you’re gonna be
Sha na na na na na na na na
Sha na na na na
Sha na na na na na na na na
Sha na na na na
When it’s time to change, you’ve got to rearrange
Who you are into what you’re gonna be
Sha na na na na na na na na
Sha na na na na
Sha na na na na na na na na
Sha na na na na
I don’t see anything here that’s past a suggestion. Andi knows how much fun it is to mess with your hair, and she’s hardly gonna crack down on hairstyles when she can’t manage to crack down on… well, hardly anything else that really ought to be cracked down on.
Yes, she was just making a suggestion…. Plus maybe it’d make Amanda less uptight not having her hair up every day. Pony/pig tails can pull on the scalp. She’s also right. Part of the fun of having long hair is being able to change things up once in a while.
yeah, I also feel like the pigtails are not so much a part of Amanda’s core personality as it was part of her ploy to land some good parents. Remember the very first time we saw her she was nonchalantly telling Selkie (ironically enough about Todd) “parents like that love pink and pigtails, he’ll be back for me in a week!” I’d seriously love to see Amanda show up at school with purple forelocks (if I hadn’t been crazy busy I would have drawn that for the guest-strip week… maybe next time…) and I hope Andi keeps up dyeing hers, that to me is an important part of her character and who she is as an artist (though I *might* have some slight personal bias), sure the Power Point (lol) could be changed, think of how much money and time are saved by not spiking your hair up every day, or at least think of the environment!
I remember that! I totally agree with you. It’d be nice to seen Andi keep her hair unique and colorful even after she changes it—and see something that reflected in Amanda. It’d also be fun if a bunch of us did fanart to guess what Andi’s and Amanda’s new hair styles will be. I may have to try that this weekend given how much I will be inside as it is (we are encountering blizzards). 🙂
I think stopping to wear the punk haircuts she and Todd had as teenagers would be symbolic for her realizing she needs to grow up and start acting like an adult.
What I’d like to see is a shift to a different type of outrageous hairstyle.
Because as much as I love me some symbolism, to use “mature” hair as a symbol for growing up is kind of like saying people who are mature don’t ever do cool things.
It’d be like having Theo and Mari sell all their board games because “what sort of grown-up plays Monopoly?”
I’ve had enough people in my life try to define what adulthood is like. And maybe some of the things they’ve said have been true, but a lot of them have been merely one generation looking down on things the other generation enjoys. I like xkcd’s take on it: https://xkcd.com/150/
Hair styles can set up a ‘just us girls’ bonding. If you remember, one of the first things Mari did when trying to build a relationship with Selkie was to offer her a new hair style – French braids. (They looked pretty, too, and one day, maybe when Selkie is less sensitive about her lack of visible ears, she might go for it.)
In the case of Andi, the question is, why did she hang on to her high-school hair style for so long? It was rebellious back then, but judging by the last frame here, she’s realizing that it doesn’t mean that to her any more. It has turned into nothing but habit. She’s ready for something different.
For that reason, I don’t think she’s going to want just some minor variation on punk-outrageous. If she does go for some version of “mature hair” for a while, please don’t be disappointed in her (or in Dave). She’s an artist who stabs shoes into a wall — I don’t think she’s in any danger of running out of cool factors.
As for “growing up” meaning not allowing oneself to play any more… well. Maybe you hadn’t heard. It’s true, I can vouch for it: If you get to fifty without growing up, you don’t have to.
Hmmmm… Judging someone based on their hairstyle (minus people who do thigs like shaving swastikas in their hair) seems kind of…childish.
And kind of behind the times, too. It not uncomon for women of all ages to dye their hair “candy colors” where I live (DC area–and people usually dress conservatively out here). None of the folks I know who do it act irresponsible or stuck in adolescence.
It’s not just her hairstyle though, there’s also the vanity car plate from while back. or just the way she acts in general – my read is that all that trauma she carried around kind of left her stuck in a certain mentality she never matured out of, but now that she’s a mother she’ll have to work through it and learn.
Mikael- I’m 40 years old and I still dye my hair blue (though it is more turquoise than the dark blue of my avatar, and longer now too), does this make me not an adult? I’m going to art school finally (and paying for it myself!) and a few of my even older professors have dyed bright hair, are they not adults? Professors with tenure? I’d like to see your rubric for adulthood- if it involves killing your soul and becoming a corporate of Stepford zombie you might want to rethink it.
Only since you ask, as per your picture I would have assumed you to be twenty-something. That said you and everyone else is free to look however makes them happy, my opinion on this shouldn’t matter.
To be fair it is an older picture, but I am still 36 in that one. I suppose that may be the reason many do dye their hair is to be mistaken for a younger person, I’ve been mistaken consistently lower than my age for far longer than I’ve been dying it (partly I suspect because I am really short). My reason for coloring is partly self-love and partly PSA: Here is Not a Normal Person. But I change it up, cut it short, grow it long, go through different colors (I was hot pink with purple tips in my first year in art school, and I was pretty middle of the road there).
I still remember till I was 18 my mum forced me to get my hair cut super short I mean Jamie Lee Curtis short cause she felt I looked better with it short and girls like me should have short hair. Now I let my hair grow long! I’ve had it all the way to my mid back a few times!
I’m a mom now and my daughter hasn’t had her first hair cut yet she’s only two but it took that long for her to stop looking like a bald baby. I’m going to at least give her options and not catholic guilt her like my mother did. Guilt doesn’t equal choice mum!
Dave, please, please, as a joke for the next frame, have her show up in a neon green spike mohawk and look at the readers saying perfect! Then the next day show the real comic. That would just be hillarious.
Oooo… Will this lead into a Mother-Daughter date at a hair stylist for new looks? If both are into their ‘dos that can be pretty fun. In Amanda’s and Andi’s case I could see it being liberating—ushering in a new life and change—showing on the outside they are both healing.
Clearly they are eating Little Ceasars pizza, hence the trademark Pizza! Pizza! Yes? 😛
Andi is finally gonna change her hair? Aside from how happy that makes me, she should nip Amanda’s snarky attitude in the bud. She’s allowing Amanda to be disrespectful towards her even if she doesn’t realize it. Common Andi, you allow everyone to walk all over you. Amanda will never learn any boundaries, respect or manners at this rate… I don’t mean yell at her or punish her, but at least point out how hurtful and rude some of her comments are.
Snipping Amanda’s snarky attitude in the bud would require a time machine — she was long past the “bud” stage before this comic started. You can’t just push the reset button on a kid and tell them, hey, from now on they’ve got to be respectful. Well. you can, but you shouldn’t expect it to work.
Actually, I think mother and daughter are getting along pretty well here. Andi’s casual, laid-back bohemian attitude is refreshing, and I think it’s going to work a lot better for Amanda than any sort of martinet approach. She’ll insist on limits when they’re important, but a little bit of snarkiness here and there…? Not important. Mother and daughter are actually very similar here.
I shouldn’t have said bud, yeah that was definitely the wrong choice of words. I meant that she needs to stop letting Amanda be so rude in her speech, it’s why so many people get upset with her. And I’m worried Andi is going to do the friend first mother second approach with Amanda.
I think Andi’s going to be her own style of mom… which is shaping up to be roughly equal parts of “Definitely not gonna act like MY OWN mom, no way,” and “Amanda has too many big issues, I’m not gonna sweat the small stuff.”
I think she is, in fact, using a “friend first” approach. Or maybe “older, wiser sister.” Why does that worry you? It’s pretty much what Todd used with Selkie, too, in the beginning. Eight year olds are not infants. You can’t just automatically BE their parent. You have to show that you respect their individuality. You have to earn their trust.
I’ve had a lot of bad experiences with mom’s attempting to be their child’s friend over their parent. It always ended really badly. Sure, it seems really fun at first, then you find yourself wishing your parent had actually attempted to parent you and give you good advice instead of, “Do what you want and what you think is fun.”
Or worse, the child ends up having to parent the parent and be the responsible one.
Pick your battles. Drawing a line in the sand leaves you with little options. The most important thing a parent can do is teach a child how to distinguish things. As long as Andi reigns Amanda in when it matters, a little gentleness at other times is okay.
This situation is a little different. I am not defending the “Friend with child” approach but Andi hasn’t been a mother to Amanda for her whole life. The Friend with Child is bad when it starts when the child is a toddler and such but Amanda is a 8-9 year old who is very independent. She is picking the battles, not letting her run wild on her. Do I believe she should have been punished for the morning events? Yes, I believe that but she is doing what she needs to do.
I think a big part of Andi’s character development is going to be that she has to learn how to be a mom. It’s an adjustment period for anyone, and considering Andi doesn’t seem to have had any experience with kids – “Eight year olds don’t still need diapers, right?” – well. She’s trying, but it probably doesn’t occur to her that Amanda’s language and tone could be problematic … especially since ‘feisty opinionated free-spirits’ abound in the art world and the punk scene, which seems to be Andi’s peer group.
I think what she’s doing is making a conscious effort not to treat Amanda like a baby, and so is defaulting to treating her like an adult when there’s not a clear-cut “This is what a parent should do” scenario in front of them, like the ‘late for school’ issue earlier.
That said, how a kid wears their hair is much less of an issue than a kid turning off their parent’s alarm clock on a school/work day.
Don’t you remember the advice she was given at the orphanage? She’s picking her battles to win the war. She is not jumping down Amanda at every small thing, but she does discipline for the big stuff. Given Amanda’s adoptive parents and siblings abused her, that’s what she needs. It takes time (and a crapload of patience) to “re-program” a kid like that from not existing in an angry distrustful state.
But honestly? I see nothing disrespectful over what Amanda is saying here. She is being honest about her feelings and asking pretty legit questions.
Ditto on the last part, you shouldn’t have to be all formal around your parents, you should be able to speak to them naturally and relaxed.
Yeah, I had a friend who had to call her dad “sir” and stuff, and… yeah, well, it was creepy.
I ignore a lot of stuff from my kid, verbal-wise. (Her: *angry GRRR!* Me: *grouchy GRRR right back!*) She doesn’t run wild. Amanda’s being a little cranky, but lords, kids get cranky. Trying to nitpick their behavior when they’re cranky isn’t going to help. Give them more time to build trust and Andi can probably do something like, “Hey, you’re being a crab — can you try to be a little nicer to the surroundings, kiddo?” and maybe Amanda will be able to see it as “I love you and have your back, even though you’re not being very likeable right now” instead of “If you don’t constantly fake being happy, I will stop loving you and you will be ALONE.”
Also, nitpicking about a kid sighing and being negative actually can feed into that behavior so Andi is doing a pretty amazing job.
True. There’s a lot to be said for ignoring a bad behavior so it doesn’t get rewarded. Negative attention is still attention.
*dies laughing at ‘Power Point’
Having been a PowerPoint Ranger for 20+ years, I’m right there with you! 😀
Am I the only one who thinks Amanda looks older in panel 4? Like, teenager-ish? Though maybe that’s a combination of the snarky expression and lack of other characters for size references.
It’s the hair. Pigtails make some look much younger.
(Except old dudes. It just makes them look MUCH OLDER.)
From The Brady Bunch:
Sha na na na na na na na na
Sha na na na na
Sha na na na na na na na na
Sha na na na na
Autumn turns to winter
And then winter turns to spring
It’s not just for the seasons you know
It goes for everything
It’s even true for voices when boys begin to grow
You gotta take a lesson from mother nature
And if you do you’ll know
When it’s time to change, then it’s time to change
Don’t fight the tide, come along for the ride
Don’t ya see?
When it’s time to change, you’ve got to rearrange
Who you are into what you’re gonna be
Sha na na na na na na na na
Sha na na na na
Sha na na na na na na na na
Sha na na na na
Day by day it’s hard to see
The changes you’ve been through
A little bit of living, a little bit of growing
All adds up to you
Every boy’s a man inside
A girl’s a woman too
And if you want to reach your destiny
Here’s what you’ve got do
When it’s time to change, then it’s time to change
Don’t fight the tide, come along for the ride
Don’t ya see?
When it’s time to change, you’ve got to rearrange
Who you are into what you’re gonna be
Sha na na na na na na na na
Sha na na na na
Sha na na na na na na na na
Sha na na na na
When it’s time to change, you’ve got to rearrange
Who you are into what you’re gonna be
Sha na na na na na na na na
Sha na na na na
Sha na na na na na na na na
Sha na na na na
Sha na na na na na na na na
Sha na na na na
I really _really_ hope Andi doesn’t end up MAKING Amanda change her hair. That’s… not… a thing… that a parent should do… really not.
I do, however, hope that they decide to change their hair together 😮
I don’t see anything here that’s past a suggestion. Andi knows how much fun it is to mess with your hair, and she’s hardly gonna crack down on hairstyles when she can’t manage to crack down on… well, hardly anything else that really ought to be cracked down on.
Yes, she was just making a suggestion…. Plus maybe it’d make Amanda less uptight not having her hair up every day. Pony/pig tails can pull on the scalp. She’s also right. Part of the fun of having long hair is being able to change things up once in a while.
yeah, I also feel like the pigtails are not so much a part of Amanda’s core personality as it was part of her ploy to land some good parents. Remember the very first time we saw her she was nonchalantly telling Selkie (ironically enough about Todd) “parents like that love pink and pigtails, he’ll be back for me in a week!” I’d seriously love to see Amanda show up at school with purple forelocks (if I hadn’t been crazy busy I would have drawn that for the guest-strip week… maybe next time…) and I hope Andi keeps up dyeing hers, that to me is an important part of her character and who she is as an artist (though I *might* have some slight personal bias), sure the Power Point (lol) could be changed, think of how much money and time are saved by not spiking your hair up every day, or at least think of the environment!
I remember that! I totally agree with you. It’d be nice to seen Andi keep her hair unique and colorful even after she changes it—and see something that reflected in Amanda. It’d also be fun if a bunch of us did fanart to guess what Andi’s and Amanda’s new hair styles will be. I may have to try that this weekend given how much I will be inside as it is (we are encountering blizzards). 🙂
I think stopping to wear the punk haircuts she and Todd had as teenagers would be symbolic for her realizing she needs to grow up and start acting like an adult.
What I’d like to see is a shift to a different type of outrageous hairstyle.
Because as much as I love me some symbolism, to use “mature” hair as a symbol for growing up is kind of like saying people who are mature don’t ever do cool things.
It’d be like having Theo and Mari sell all their board games because “what sort of grown-up plays Monopoly?”
I’ve had enough people in my life try to define what adulthood is like. And maybe some of the things they’ve said have been true, but a lot of them have been merely one generation looking down on things the other generation enjoys. I like xkcd’s take on it: https://xkcd.com/150/
Hair styles can set up a ‘just us girls’ bonding. If you remember, one of the first things Mari did when trying to build a relationship with Selkie was to offer her a new hair style – French braids. (They looked pretty, too, and one day, maybe when Selkie is less sensitive about her lack of visible ears, she might go for it.)
In the case of Andi, the question is, why did she hang on to her high-school hair style for so long? It was rebellious back then, but judging by the last frame here, she’s realizing that it doesn’t mean that to her any more. It has turned into nothing but habit. She’s ready for something different.
For that reason, I don’t think she’s going to want just some minor variation on punk-outrageous. If she does go for some version of “mature hair” for a while, please don’t be disappointed in her (or in Dave). She’s an artist who stabs shoes into a wall — I don’t think she’s in any danger of running out of cool factors.
As for “growing up” meaning not allowing oneself to play any more… well. Maybe you hadn’t heard. It’s true, I can vouch for it: If you get to fifty without growing up, you don’t have to.
Sorry, Sessine. My comment was meant for Mikael.
Hmmmm… Judging someone based on their hairstyle (minus people who do thigs like shaving swastikas in their hair) seems kind of…childish.
And kind of behind the times, too. It not uncomon for women of all ages to dye their hair “candy colors” where I live (DC area–and people usually dress conservatively out here). None of the folks I know who do it act irresponsible or stuck in adolescence.
It’s not just her hairstyle though, there’s also the vanity car plate from while back. or just the way she acts in general – my read is that all that trauma she carried around kind of left her stuck in a certain mentality she never matured out of, but now that she’s a mother she’ll have to work through it and learn.
Mikael- I’m 40 years old and I still dye my hair blue (though it is more turquoise than the dark blue of my avatar, and longer now too), does this make me not an adult? I’m going to art school finally (and paying for it myself!) and a few of my even older professors have dyed bright hair, are they not adults? Professors with tenure? I’d like to see your rubric for adulthood- if it involves killing your soul and becoming a corporate of Stepford zombie you might want to rethink it.
Only since you ask, as per your picture I would have assumed you to be twenty-something. That said you and everyone else is free to look however makes them happy, my opinion on this shouldn’t matter.
To be fair it is an older picture, but I am still 36 in that one. I suppose that may be the reason many do dye their hair is to be mistaken for a younger person, I’ve been mistaken consistently lower than my age for far longer than I’ve been dying it (partly I suspect because I am really short). My reason for coloring is partly self-love and partly PSA: Here is Not a Normal Person. But I change it up, cut it short, grow it long, go through different colors (I was hot pink with purple tips in my first year in art school, and I was pretty middle of the road there).
I still remember till I was 18 my mum forced me to get my hair cut super short I mean Jamie Lee Curtis short cause she felt I looked better with it short and girls like me should have short hair. Now I let my hair grow long! I’ve had it all the way to my mid back a few times!
I’m a mom now and my daughter hasn’t had her first hair cut yet she’s only two but it took that long for her to stop looking like a bald baby. I’m going to at least give her options and not catholic guilt her like my mother did. Guilt doesn’t equal choice mum!
That’s very cool. I don’t think that’s what Andi’s doing to Amanda, though.
Clap clap clap! And it’s not even a golf clap!
They should switch hairstyles. I’m gonna draw that one day.
Dave, please, please, as a joke for the next frame, have her show up in a neon green spike mohawk and look at the readers saying perfect! Then the next day show the real comic. That would just be hillarious.
Needed one more panel and that little white image on the pizza box would have made it to the other side.
I see that, too. Awesome:)
The two Z’s on the top of the box are also backward. Z looks the same upside-down as right side up.
Oooo… Will this lead into a Mother-Daughter date at a hair stylist for new looks? If both are into their ‘dos that can be pretty fun. In Amanda’s and Andi’s case I could see it being liberating—ushering in a new life and change—showing on the outside they are both healing.
Yes! New hair – pretty, psychedelic nails – Amanda’s first pedicure… 🙂
pot, meet kettle
I like the symbolism here. Having a kid didn’t change her.