No mention of manipulation there,Andi went with it because she felt she wasn’t ready. Mature but afterwards wasn’t mature.
And…oh lord. Amanda was there. Kid could be a secret agent…I wish she hadn’t heard it like this. There are so many ways to tell her. This wasn’t one of them. Might be wrong. She could be doing something. Please be that.
I really don’t think this is her discovery moment. I hope I’m right. For one, I don’t think she’d be screaming like that. I think she’d be too stunned and hurt to do anything. If she did yell, I’d expect there to be words. Second, Andi’s panic doesn’t look like the absolute horror I would expect to see in someone whose kid just found out something so awful in such a terrible way. I’d also expect HER yell to contain words other than ‘Amanda’, like ‘oh my god’ or something. To me looks more like a typical parent reaction to a screaming child in the next room; look towards the source and call out for her.
Something is probably just going on in the living room. Maybe someone surprised her. Maybe Clyde peed on her. He’s known for peeing on things.
I agree, I don’t think this is a “I just learned what happened” Scream… this is a scream that gives Andi a chance to show that she has changed and she is ready to be a mother and honestly wants the best for Amanda now.
Curious. Is she playing down her mom’s involvement to protect her mom or is it all genuinely her? If it really is 100% Andi, it’s a real stretch of the imagination that someone changes that much so quickly.
Dude. Patricia only suggested it. She wasn’t being manipulative and nothing in the flashbacks suggested it. Also this does prove it. Andi panicking is plausible as to why she lied.
The truth is we don’t know. We don’t see an actual dialog in the flashbacks with her mom—just pictures. She was *very* unsupportive and inappropriately pushy when Andi brought up getting Amanda back.
Not really. Just in general telling Andi it would be difficult. It very much has been. Especially with the lie overhead. Also Andi’s kinda been lieing here too. She tells Todd that Patricia was being pushy. Here she says that she only suggested it.
Patricia wasn’t emotionally ready to see Amanda. It probably would open old wounds.
And there’s the metaphorical ripping off of the band-aid (that’s been holding down a festering wound for the past 8 years). Now to get to that same level of starting to heal with the rest of the Smiths 😛
Given the scene we last saw Amanda in, I’m thinking this is an angry/frustrated yell, as opposed to a pain/injury yell (but things happen, who knows?). Mayhaps seeing Andi go into “mother-mode” will further the healing with Mari?
Love the bandaid analogy! Not sure but methinks whatever happened in the next room involves perhaps a nip from a doggie? A shriek of jealousy because Antoine’s beau sjowed Amanda something she has been dying to have? Who knows LOL
For as “bratty” as she has been, it sure seemed like that little guy liked her and she was being surprisingly gentle with him. Makes me wonder if she had pets with her adopted family.
Yeah, that’s going to leave a mark. Amanda had to be told (or “has to” if the AAAHHH! wasn’t her overhearing that) but this wasn’t/isn’t the way it should be done. This is the way I feared she would find out if Andi didn’t get her act together and tell her.
So is that Amanda screaming because she overheard what Andi did, or screaming for some reason from the other room (possibly puppy related)?
Also, um no Andi, you are far beyond an idiot. You are selfish and shortsighted.
“I didn’t know if *I* could handle being a mother” – Fine, thats a legitimate belief to have and recognizing it and providing for your child in another fashion would have been fine BUT, and this is a HUGE but, YOU LIED TO THE FATHER ABOUT IT SO YOU COULD KEEP HIM AS YOUR BOYFRIEND. She put her own needs before her daughters and Todd’s with that selifsh decision. Sorry Andi, you still clearly have not understood the degree to which you messed up, before you can be forgiven and move forward you need to acknowledge what you did.
“You lied to the father about it so you could keep him as your boyfriend.”
This is the big problem, for sure. Andi’s character at the time was such that she could not put her boyfriend’s RIGHTS above her own COMFORT. This is a serious character flaw and it persisted for almost a decade.
Oddly, the part leading up to the birth was trying to avoid a certain type of discomfort (Todd being disappointed, lots of discussions she preferred to avoid, etc.) by putting up with another discomfort (emotional distress and long-term physical burden).
I mentioned on the last page that Andi is likely an Ennea 9, disintegrated to 6. She’s stuck in the fear of abandonment and loss, of being shunned, of losing her support structure. She chronically avoids negatives, such as necessary conversations about uncomfortable topics, and tries to keep from rocking the boat even when the boat seriously needs some rocking.
Being unwilling to take some discomfort in order to ensure that your loved ones can freely choose from a position of Informed Consent — that’s a deal-breaker when it comes to relationships. It may in fact be one of the most serious character flaws there IS.
i stand by my previous comments: the initial lie, while certainly a biggie, can be explained as the actions of an overwhelmed teenager, but the years of lying afterwards? not to mention using the ‘death’ of their daughter to emotionally blackmail/manipulate todd? nope, sorry, i´m still not forgiving andi.
besides, i say she needs to move on and not cling to the past aka todd, for her own sake as well as his. yes, they can and should stay friends, for amandas sake, but a couple? never ever again.
As little as I want to, I have to partially defend Andi here. Or if not defend, than at least empathize — she put herself into a shitty situation (having lied to her boyfriend and his family about something this big) out of a fear of the consequences of coming out with the truth, and every day that went by where she didn’t come clean, the lie got a bit bigger and the feared consequences got a bit worse, so the imagined barrier against telling the truth got a bit bigger.
That kind of situation is a self-perpetuating feedback spiral that’s almost impossible to get out of without an external impulse — in this case, the one supplied by Todd adopting Selkie.
Of course, none of this excuses anything, neither the initial lie or the eight years’ of silence while sitting at their table. But it’s an insight in how she probably was thinking.
Correction after quick archive binge: The impulse was Amanda telling Todd she was Andi’s real daughter, after which the lie became impossible to maintain.
Andi’s predicament is reminding me very strongly of a song we grew up on:
When you tell one lie, it leads to another
So you tell two lies, to cover each other
Then you tell three lies, and, oh brother,
You’re in trouble up to your ears
So you tell four lies, to try to protect you,
Then you tell five lies, so folks won’t suspect you,
Then you tell six lies, and you collect
A life full of worry and fear
‘Cuz you can’t remember how many lies you’ve told
Half the things you say aren’t true
And sometime you’ll slip up, you’ll trip up, and then
Whatever will become of you?
Soon you lie and lie, without even trying
And each lie you tell will keep multiplying
Till the whole wide world will know you’re lying
And you’ll be suspected, detected, rejected
It’s right that you should!
When you lie, you’re closing the door on everything good!
…I’m not sure on the final wording there. Another version that comes up when I search for lyrics is definitely not what my brain remembers at the end. AND the song uses slippery-slope reasoning, that telling one lie will definitely lead you straight to a life full of lies, which I don’t think is true. But it’s a good principle in general.
These songs were made by a Mormon gal, Janeen Brady. We’re not Mormons, but in general the songs were good, as instead of trying to teach Mormon doctrine, they taught life principles.
For example, the Standin’ Tall series used neat stories to demonstrate virtues: honestly, courage, service, dependability — 12 in all, including cleanliness (which I always found an odd inclusion).
The Safety Kids went over personal safety and staying away from drugs — and had a multicultural cast, without really calling attention to it; I think that was my first exposure to a cast where the white kid was the minority. Similar to Captain Planet or the Burger King Kids’ Club.
And they even had an entire CD celebrating being a woman and a mother. My first exposure to anything about being proud to be female (“I’d be a woman again, for I like who I am — wouldn’t want to be a man”). I still grin when I think of “Pickles for Breakfast” (about pregnancy cravings).
If it were a “in the heat of the moment” decision, possibly, but putting her child up for adoption would require more than a split second panicked decision. And it would require actively lying to hospital AND adoption personnel to pull it off. A momentary lapse of judgement, such as lying in the heat of the moment about something, is one thing, but either she and her mother planned this before hand which indicates lack of panic, or she panicked and lied to Todd and THEN had to make a concerted effort to conceal the lie from him. Either way its hard for me to forgive that kind of selfish and intentional lying.
This is true. *AND* almost every state has rules (or did 9 years ago) that the mother OR father could change their mind during the first 3-6 months (I know years ago at least in 1 state it was a length of 18 months). So Andi could easily have said when not running high on emotions from just giving birth that this is what happened. The Smiths would have been angry, but they would also have been able to claim and raise Amanda if they wanted to.
What is it they say in the bible?… “And The Truth Shall Set You Free…”
FINALLY, a major portion of her side of things comes out into the open…
and i am SURE that the red-backgrounded ANGRY yell we hear IS Amanda standing there listening to this conversation… probably coming to find out what treats that Mom and Grandma are getting ready, and taking soooo looong (to an eight year old) to bring out. it isn’t Todd, as he already found out she lied, i highly doubt any of the other family, Selkie… nah, just doesn’t make sense why she’d BE angry… so, by Occam’s Razor, it’s …Amanda… NOW, to find out HOW LONG she was listening…
I don’t really think that Amanda was listening. There is no big reveal to be seen by her just watching them talk or anything that could cause her to scream over their conversation. Amanda might not know the significance of what Andi is holding right now unless she was told “This is an urn. Your dad and his family got it because they thought you’d died.” If a fight broke out between the girls, we’d have heard two shrieks. So this is either a) scream of frustration at something or b) as scream at something that scared her or gave her discomfort happened like being touched or grabbed. I’ve not seen anything to say she has an aversion to touch, but after the other family’s actions might not be too far out there. Or she may have noticed that Andi doesn’t have a stocking on the chimney and is thinking it’s another way to bully her mom.
Ok but let’s also keep in mind
1) Her mom pretty much forced this on her. We all saw it.
2) Todd is NOT innocent here. He ignored ALL of Andi’s feelings because he was so ready to be a dad. Not a single time did he ask what she wanted to do with her OWN body.
Like yeah obv Andi messed up in lying to Todd & giving into peer pressure from her mom. We know that.
Buuuuut none of this would have happened if at least ONE of the two aforementioned people had stopped to ask Andi her feelings on the matter and/or gave her autonomy over her own body.
A classic example of how women’s reproductive health is taken out of the hands of the woman herself because everyone else thinks they know what’s best for her.
Would it have resulted in abortion? Maybe. Maybe not.
But I do know one thing. If you’re going to gloss over the fact that Todd had everything to do with leaving Andi at the mercy of her mom just because he was a teenager…. Well, you might as well gloss over the fact that an 8 year lie resulted from his negligence just as much as Andi’s decision itself.
They were in a relationship for how long at that point??
Todd should already have been well practiced at listening to Andi’s feelings. Instead he was completely selfish on the matter leaving her completely lost & alone with an evil mother who he had to have known about already (again- date for how long & you know nothing about the personality of your gf’s mom? Doubtful.)
In my opinion, Todd is just as much at fault here as Andi is. And her mom is pretty much entirely to blame because she was supposed to be the responsible adult. Thank God Andi is nothing like her.
I will give you her mom forced it on her and I will give you that Todd was oblivious during the pregnancy. But I will never say Todd is at fault for the 8 years of lies. That’s a horrible stance to take. She lied because it was convienient. She didn’t want to lose what she had. Todd can’t be held responsible for the decision to give his family a jar of tree ashes. She is a horrible horrible person for the lie.
The lie wouldn’t have happened if Andi could handle pressure and wasn’t being so damned selfish. She knew the lie was going to hurt him, but she did it anyway to “protect” his feelings. Then gave him an urn. Yeah, this was her and her mom. It is despicable to put the 8 year lie on him.
Besides, what was he supposed to do about her mom? They were still minors, she was living under her mom’s roof, he couldn’t just take her away. The laws governing this are quite complex and he couldn’t just do anything without getting into some kind of trouble.
Besides, I have never asked any of my girlfriends what they want to do with their bodies, I trust them to be mature enough to tell me. That’s how it should be even as teens, and if she is too afraid to tell him herself, that is her own fault. A woman has no control over her reproductive health if she does not take command of it. That goes with anything.
Well, at this point, Andi says her mom ‘suggested’ adoption. Whether or not she suggested it in a way that’s less of suggestion and more of emotional manipulation and taking advantage of someone during a moment of weakness remains to be seen… We now know Andi is the one who came up with the initial lie, not her mother, which is good. We don’t know how much of a hand her mother played into keeping up the lie though, if any at all. I still maintain that if she wasn’t aware at all of the lie, her mother would’ve shown some sort of shock when she was told for the ‘first’ time at the table with Andi. But as it is, we know very little on what her mother did and said until she or Andi says otherwise.
Yes, Todd was oblivious to Andi’s feelings. People can’t play the, ‘oh he was just a kid’ card if they don’t give Andi the same card for her panic and desperation. As far as we know, he never once asked Andi how she felt about the whole thing… that being said, Todd’s character shows that he very easily gets tied up in his own happiness and assumes everyone and everything else is equally happy if he is. It’s a character flaw, but he doesn’t do it on purpose. Yes, he should be more aware of it as several things have gone wrong for him because of it, Selkie’s frustration, Andi’s pregnancy, his daughter’s teacher’s romantic feelings and impulsive kiss. He assumes everyone feels what he feels and as an adult he should really know better and learn from his mistakes just like Andi should. His mistakes aren’t as heavy as hers, but he’s also got a lot of maturing he needs to do as well.
We don’t have enough evidence to pin it all on Patricia. Everything we know is mostly circumstancial or assumptions. I personally believe she had a heavy hand in the whole thing and that she was neglectful and repressed Andi, but we don’t know that fully yet. We just have small hints to it being a possibility. And even if she did playback huge role in the lie and pressuring Andi into giving Amanda up, she can’t be fully blamed. Andi still made the call, even in a moment of weakness and hormones and fear. I still wonder if Andi had told her earlier in the pregnancy she had misgivings about it or if she blurted it out all at once during labor. Even so, if she had told her mother just then, her mother should have known better than to do what she did. Todd was a part of it and she excluded him, from what we can gather anyway. Not only that, a lot of women in labor shout things they don’t mean. Certainly, Andi was unhappy about having a child, but did her mother know that before or just then? If it was just then, she should have seriously considered that fear and hormones were kicking in and not have assumed that giving the baby up was what Andi had always wanted. If she knew before, then she had no right to tell Andi to go ahead without Todd’s consent. The problem is, we just don’t know what exactly happened yet.
And I wouldn’t say Todd is equally to blame. Yes, he neglected Andi’s feelings, but that’s not 100% his fault. Andi never told him. Yes, he should have seen the visual cues, but just like Todd should have known to be more attentive to Andi’s feelings because she has trouble speaking up, Andi should have known Todd gets so easily thrilled with his own happiness that he neglects others. They BOTH failed in this. They were children though. Andi should have talked to Todd and Todd should have seen the clear unhappiness and unease in her body language. Sadly, they both missed their chances to do so.
In that moment, neither of them were ready and neither of them were fully to blame for what happened. Now, the lie being kept up for so long, while understandable, is on Andi and possibly her mother. It was a terrible, thoughtless lie, but it wasn’t her trying to be a monster. I highly doubt she wanted to hurt Todd. In fact, she probably thought it better NOT to tell him to avoid him being hurt. Yes, she also did it to save herself and avoid her own pain and losing him, but I believe she also, at one point, probably thought it was better this way. They were probably happy for a time, but… then Todd wanted children. Thought adoption was the way to go, to avoid the trauma that was inflicted on them. Andi WANTED kids eventually, just not yet. The lie became less plausible, less of it for their own protection. But Todd wanted kids now and he didn’t want to, presumably, risk losing another live birth. Andi didn’t want to adopt, she wanted something that was part of both of them, but worded it wrong and Todd took offense. She realized her lie hadn’t been for Todd’s well being at that point, but by then, the lie had gone on for so long…
Doesn’t make any of it right though. Hell, that’s mostly baseless assumptions on my part. I’ve no idea how either of them felt during the time AFTER the lie. I only assume they were happy for a good while and Andi assumed the lie was a good thing for a few years, until Todd brought up wanting kids. By then, it was ‘too late’ to tell him and whenever she tried, she got too scared to fess up. We know that last part is true anyway.
Anyways, we can’t fully blame anyone here, nor can we brush aside Andi’s actions simply because she was scared.
Well, it’s not just the lie, it’s also the fact that she adopted Amanda out without giving Todd the opportunity to have any say. That’s pretty awful—and in some states—illegal. It’s not like Todd was an abusive person or even irresponsible. The fact she was with him and part of his family for about 7 years afterwards is pretty twisted. I’m very curious to see where this goes. Unless her mom turns out to be involved, it’s rather difficult to find her to be a character one can sympathize with.
Oh, yes indeed she shouldn’t have given up their child without involving him. We know practically zero information about that whole time frame or who they were then. Todd very well may have been irresponsible. I doubt he was abusive, but he could have had a really bad temper back then still.
I still can sympathize with Andi, even if it turns out this was mostly on her, simply because fear is something everyone can understand. Doesn’t make her actions right in my eyes, but it explains them and makes me believe she deserves a chance at redemption. Another chance with Todd? No. A chance to be his friend again? Certainly.
Unless I see that Andi did this solely to spite Todd and his family on purpose, I will never condemn her to being scum. Just as I will not condemn Amanda and write her off as a simply a selfish bully. I love flawed characters, I love villains. Their actions are often not just black and white and are far more interesting to me than the selfless, valiant, protector of righteousness and justice that most protagonists seem to be. Protagonists are often times so one dimensional and without flaws that I cannot relate to them. My favorite protagonist is one who either starts off very selfish and grows into a better person or one who starts off so good and just and slowly becomes more jaded once they see sunshine and rainbows cannot fix everything. Why? Because those are realistically written people! Relatable ones! I love that.
Selkie, herself is a bit of a brat and is prone to anger and spite. I LOVE that about her. She’s a typical 8 year old, but also very good hearted. She’s not immaculate in her character and that makes her so interesting!
Sorry about the tangent haha. I just don’t want people to think I’m simply defending the ‘bad’ characters just for the sake of starting a disagreement. I truly do love the flawed characters.
Not at all. You are very articulate and I like that. 🙂
I feel the same way about character flaws. I do have a thing about dishonesty and people who do things that harm kids, but that’s my own thing. I’m kind of on the fence with Andi—from comic to comic. I mostly like her, but the idea of someone doing something that destructive all on their own (even if they meant no harm) is kind of hard for me to completely grok. This doesn’t mean I want her mom to take all the fall either. It struck me she was trying to do her best by Andi—even though it wasn’t the best way to go about it.
Her mother did not force her into anything, shown in the comic itself and confirmed here by Andi herself. Reading this comic I hoped that “discussion” would be put to rest. *sight*
Also it’s not Todd’s fault that Andi didn’t talk to him or anyone else about how she was feeling about the whole thing. If Andi wasn’t 100% on board with having a kid she should have said something rather than remain silent.
Todd isn’t a mind reader. Pregnancies make people prone to mood swings. There is no way Todd could’ve known what was bothering Andi unless Andi said so. For all he knew it was the pregnancy hormones making her upset.
It’s still very open as to what her mother’s involvement was. I think at this point she’s very likely to have been involved somehow, but it was less of her emotionally bullying Andi and taking advantage of her daughter’s weakness at the time and more of her being thoughtless of Todd. I see some heavy projecting coming from Patricia. I believe she disregarded Todd’s feelings 100% and that she merely thought she knew what was best for Andi, because something similar happened to her. She was probably also thoughtless of Andi as well, subconsciously anyway.
I think she didn’t care about Todd at all. She unintentionally took advantage of Andi’s state of mind and used it for what she assumed was her daughter’s benefit and completely left Todd out of it. While I think she was neglectful of Andi and didn’t allow Andi to be creative as a child, given we have a little hint of that here and there, I no longer think she forced Andi to lie or give up Amanda. Nor do I think she consciously manipulated Andi and took advantage of her. Andi clearly learned this behavior from someone, but whether or not that someone did it intentionally remains to be seen.
And no, it is Todd’s fault for not talking to Andi during pregnancy, just as much as its Andi’s fault for not talking. It takes two people for these things to work. They were both wrong in that respect. What happened after the whole fiasco? Absolutely not, none of that is on Todd at all. What happened during the pregnancy though? From what we know, Todd never once asked Andi how she felt or if she was happy. Now, if he tried TALKING to Andi, then yes, he cannot be held liable for that. If she put up a good front and faked her happiness and lied and said she was thrilled and made it seem true? Absolutely that is on her. But from what we know, which is very little for that entire time frame, he did no such thing.
One thing we know is her mom suggested it (or more) and her mom was also there with her when Amanda was adopted out. At the very least her mom is partially responsible. It seems like a mother (to a teenager) who was a decent person would at least discourage her daughter from sending the baby off without talking to the father first.
Absolutely. The fact that she disregarded Todd and his family completely boggles my mind. Even if Andi didn’t tell her she lied, her mother should have said to wait for Todd. I truly think something happened to her mother prior and that she was biased against Todd from the start.
Or at the very least she figures Todd’s feelings are completely on the back burner compared to Andi’s. Mari and Theo would not have been that way. They’d have told Todd to respect Andi’s feelings and talk to her. In a relationship, both people are equally important.
Seems odd that Andi didn’t suggest this or a nurse. I mean I know so many nurses who would suggest Andi wait to talk to Todd. Why didn’t any of the other adults in the room speak up?
No clue. I don’t think Andi was in any state of mind to suggest anything nor decide anything right at that moment. The fact that her mother or even a nearby nurse (I hadn’t even thought of that.) didn’t wait for Todd is baffling. Perhaps the nurse thought that there wasn’t going to be a father present, but her mother damn well knew. Unless her previous man ran out on her and left her alone in the hospital after saying he’d be there for her, the way she treated and regarded Todd has no real reason behind it.
Well if that were true. It could be she has trust issues with men or mistaken Todd’s anger issues as something bad for Andi? We don’t know. Andi isn’t exactly tripping over herself to explain her mom.
Well, mathematically, if Todd and Andi are equally at fault for the miscommunication, and Andi is completely at fault for the adoption without telling Todd and for the lie about Amanda’s death, then what we have is:
Todd’s Fault: 1/2 M
Andi’s Fault: 1/2 M + A + L
So regardless of Todd actually being at fault for SOMETHING, he’s got a MUCH smaller burden than Andi. “I didn’t realize you felt bad” is not even on the same elemental plane as “I gave away your baby without asking you,” let alone “You know how I told you she was dead? Yeah, that was a lie.”
I never argued that at all. I specifically said Todd is equally to blame for the lack of communication as Andi. Not once did I ever say Todd was at fault for Andi giving up Amanda. And Andi being more at fault for something else doesn’t excuse Todd’s fault. It’s not a game for who’s done worse and why one fault is now absolved because someone else did something worse. That’s childish.
Andi is absolutely to blame for the adoption part. Possibly her mother too, depending on what went down. Her mother is absolutely at fault for disregarding Todd and his entire family’s feelings in the matter though. Andi did too, but to a far lesser extent for the initial lie. She was a child ok panic mode. Her mother could think clearly and still chose to disregard them all.
I was more responding to the idea that I’ve seen a few times here, not just in your post, that seems to equate the two. Or, at least, seems to say that we ought to be less hard on Andi *because* Todd is also to blame for something.
Has always seemed an odd line of reasoning to me, and I decided to pull it apart a bit here.
Andi’s mom’s attitude seems a bit like my grandma’s: The day after my mom’s marriage to my dad, my grandma showed up while he was at work to whisk Mom away to get it annulled (a “well you got that out of your system, let’s move on” kind of thing).
Andi’s mom seems to completely disregard Andi’s desire to be with Todd, and Todd’s role in this relationship at all. Which strikes me as very much the kind of thing that makes ElfQuest villains: “I know best, and the degree to which you disagree with my assessment is the degree to which I don’t have to care about your opinions.”
Yeah, that irritates the crap out of me, like they’re trying to find some way to let Andi off the hook, or if she has to face the punishment, it can’t be too hard, because of her feelings and Todd just must be guilty because it takes two to tango.
I was brought up to believe that even with extenuating circumstances, the choices we make are still our choices. If someone does something horrible, even if they were pushed by outside forces, they still made that decision. Andi is interesting because she was probably drugged up to the point where Amanda was probably an amusing shade of bright neon green so her mind was not there. That combined with a teen mom out of her depth, I can give her the choice to adopt out. Adoption when you have good parents to take in the child is not a bad decision.
But that still leaves us the moving around behind his back and lying for eight years.
As much as we make an ado about women’s rights to abortion, which I will not get into as that is the definition of hot button issues, it is irrelevant to the discussion as is my opinion, what we neglect is the man’s fatherhood rights a lot more. If a woman wants to keep a child but the man does not, he has no choice in the matter, even if later on it’s proven to not be his and is a case of him just being there and her wanting monetary support. If he wants the child but she does not, the child is gone. That was the case here and no matter how you feel about the matter it was not right.
So his fatherhood rights were stripped away. But so that she didn’t have to lose him, she gave him a tragic keepsake that he didn’t need to have, but got anyway to remind him of the child she took away from him and lied about. For almost a decade. And would have kept it going until she was forced into a position to admit the truth.
Neither situation was his fault. Yes, he could have asked her how she was feeling, and he might have, the strip that showed the pregnancy was not altogether clear. He might have asked and to avoid what she saw as needless drama and to not be confronted, puts up a happy front. Of this I know all about because my pride forces me to put up a happy front when inside my body is screaming in pain and agony when hurt or sick.
She made those two decisions, and many of us just want her facing the music for her choices. You make your bed, you lay in it.
I hope this explains why we are so hard on her. And sorry Kilyle, your post seemed the perfect one to post this on. To at least make the people siding with Andi think about why we may not be on her side.
Oh god no…no one has a right to that. The issue is about bodily autonomy and nothing to do with the “father”. A person with a uterus has the right to decide what to do with their body as they please. No one outside them gets to decide if they can or cannot get an abortion.
I am not pro forced abortions. In fact I agree with you that no one has any right to tell a woman if she can or cannot have an abortion. I was simply saying that if a man wants out of fatherhood he is kind of stuck, he can’t sign his rights away. Personally I don’t get why you wouldn’t want to be a father, but that’s my personal bias there.
There is little father rights where he can decide his involvement. Though I was trying to avoid the abortion issue entirely because it’s so emotional.
No he cannot. It is not his body. It is not his right. At all. He has no say in the pregnant person’s body. No one other than the pregnant person has that right.
Yeah, fathers tend to get a bad deal in the whole thing. Don’t want to be a dad? Too bad, the mom wants the baby, now have fun paying child support. The mom doesn’t want the baby but you do? Too bad, the mom doesn’t want the baby.
It’s difficult with that last part, because, well, on the one hand, the father isn’t carrying a baby inside them for 9 months, but on the other hand he gets zero say in the death of his child… very tricky situation. I don’t think there will ever be a right way to handle it either.
Also, I’ve never said Andi shouldn’t be sorry for what she’s done or that people shouldn’t be angry at her. I think it’s silly that some people have zero sympathy for her though. Some people have stated that they have sympathy for her initial choice because she was a scared teen and the timing was wrong, but that they hate her choice to lie for 8 years. Now see, I agree with them. The lying for so long part, that’s something that was just a string of bad decisions and hole digging. But the scared, emotional, hormonal teen part? Common, many of us wouldn’t have acted any better for that initial part.
I agree her lie was a shitty thing to do, but I don’t agree that she’s a monster beyond redemption. I don’t excuse her lie, but I certainly can understand it. I’m not saying she needs to be let off the hook, but there’s no sense in tormenting her for her past mistakes. Tell her how much she hurt them, tell her how they can’t trust her, tell her how much they loved her, yes, but senseless, petty, spiteful squabbles every time they see her is pointless. Andi needs to feel bad, but I think she does already. She needs to know how much it hurt them, but being venomous about it does zero good. Andi needs to know what she did was hurtful and wrong, but to punish her for the rest of her life isn’t helping a single person, it just keeps adding more hurt onto the situation.
I definitely can excuse Todd and his family for their current passive aggressive comments, because the wound is still fresh, but I’m saying down the road, they need to stop that. They are human and right now it hurts to be betrayed so badly by a person they loved and that makes perfect sense. They’re lashing our over the pain. I’m saying in the future it’ll no longer be raw emotion and will be them being senselessly spiteful over something that can’t be changed.
It’s almost as if someone else’s body isn’t your business and you can’t force someone to be pregnant or get an abortion. And unless the pregnant person demands you pay child support,you can just walk away.
I think what is being said is that while a woman can (and should have the right to) just decide to have an abortion and therefore not have to deal with the whole having a kid thing, if she decides to keep it the man is stuck at least paying child support – that is unfair, the woman can literally just walk away from it, but the man can’t just say he wants nothing to do with the kid if it does gets born.
Lady Obvious, none of what I am saying is about abortion, I had only touched it because that’s what people would think.
And that pregnant person, if she puts your name on the birth certificate, good luck fighting it because it’s going to be a hard road ahead. DNA tests take a while and if you don’t pay child support, hope you like prison.
One cannot just walk away is what I’m saying. A man cannot decide his own involvement under the laws of the land. If a woman wants an abortion or not, I don’t give a shit. But I would like, if a woman gets herself pregnant under false pretenses, I be allowed to sign my rights away as this is essentially legal blackmail.
And Spring Pop, I did not mean to make you feel I was singling you out. I was talking more about these people that have been around and talking like anything bad that happens to Andi is mean and cruel, and just plain wrong.
Not really. You can’t exactly walk away from a pregnancy. Also you gotta go through certain legal things to make a guy pay child support. He does not have to. Nor does he get to decide someone can or cannot get an abortion.
GallowsNoose,a man can walk away. A woman just doesn’t suddenly get pregnant. And there’s some legal stuff you have to go through to make a man pay child support. A man can and tons have walked from pregnancies.
Oh no, no. I didn’t mean to make it sound like I felt like I was being singled out at all. I just like the pleasant discussion lately, it’s very nice so I respond more often. I understand your feelings towards Andi and I’m not going to think you’re awful for thinking she’s awful. All of your posts are well thought out and formed and I respect that.
I’m not. But taxes aren’t like babies and literally. A man has no say in a pregnancy unless he has a uterus and is having a baby himself. Like transmen do.
You are not talking about what everyone else is talking about yet again.
This is not about the pregnancy itself but about what happens after. Like there have actually been cases of men getting raped then being made to pay child support for the child born out of this and that’s just sick and wrong.
That’s rather unfair though. That baby is half of him just as much as it is half of the mother. I know he’s not carrying it for 9 months or going into labor, but it’s not his fault his body cannot do what a woman’s body can do. It’s still 50% his child. The fact that we completely disregard that fact as a whole is wrong. I know there’s not a whole lot to be done about it, but it doesn’t make it less wrong.
I know it’d be wrong to tell a woman she MUST take a baby full term because the man says so, but is it not equally wrong that a woman tells a man he gets no say in the death of his child? Or that he gets no say in whether or not he wants a child? Sadly, there is no way to make it so both parties win in this situation ever. I do think we take men’s rights in this scenario very lightly though. They get little to no say in what occurs and have to deal with the responsibility regardless of whether or not they want to. Whereas a woman can choose to disregard that responsibility and abort the child should they choose to.
SpringPop,a fetus isn’t entitled to someone else’s body. Neither does the friggin man. And a fetus isn’t even a child it’s just a lump of cells and no one is taking a man’s rights away by the pregnant person doing what they want with their body.
Let me see if I can come up with a scenario that might satisfy you Lady. Let’s say I am at a bar and talking to a girl. Somewhere along the line the talk becomes sexual and she assures me she’s on the pill. I decide no anyway, but that’s the last thing I remember because I am so drunk I am black out.
I wake up the next morning in her room. She stayed sober but I was out and we had sex. She winds up pregnant. Now, under that circumstance, which has happened quite a bit more than people are comfortable to admit to, should I not have the right to get out? She slept with me while I had no chance to consent. Should I be forced to take care of the child despite being in all reasonable assessment raped? Should I be held responsible when I had no choice in the matter to begin with?
And I’m glad you enjoy it Spring Pop, I try to think through my statements so I don’t appear to be a raving lunatic. 😛
The way I see it, both the man and the woman have 50% right to the unborn child, but the woman also has 100% right to her own body, so as long as the child is inside her, the woman’s right trumps the mans. This is far from ideal but until we’ll have the technology to harmlessly remove the fetus from the mother so it can survive on it’s own in some future incubator that’s unfortunately the least bad option we have.
Hmm the man may not see the fetus as simply a lump of cells though. He may see it at that moment as his child. And I’m aware it’s not fair to the woman, but I’m saying it’s almost equally unfair to disregard the man’s feelings on the matter simply because he cannot biologically do the same thing. True, the strain of pregnancy is twenty times harder than something he could experience and it’d be unfair to put the mother through it if she doesn’t want to, but the fact remains that she can choose to kill something that is genetically only half hers and walk away from any parental responsibility whereas the man cannot choose to do either of the same. He does not get to dictate whether or not that child lives or dies and regardless, he can be forced to pay child support. Like I said, there is no situation where everyone wins here. One person gets what they want and the other person suffers.
Gallows is not saying the woman should be forced to get an abortion, but that the man should be allowed to say he wants nothing to do with this and not pay child support or otherwise take care of the child, which in some cases, male rape victims have been required to do.
Lady, from your own link: Also, some states (Arkansas, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Kentucky, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming) still allow child support to be collected when the custody and visitation rights have been restricted. However, in Hawaii and Oregon, child support is still required even though parental rights are terminated.
Except the pregnant person’s body is their own. The father has no right to force them to stay pregnant or anything. Also he can have another kid later on. It’s not like the pregnant person is never having kids or like he can’t have kids ever again.
I don’t see what mother’s rights of body autonomy have to do with a father’s rights to not being a father when I am discussing signing away the rights, not grabbing the nearest wire hanger.
When someone does that,they’re doing it because they’re unable to get an abortion. At all. It’s because they’re desperate and they could friggin die from it.
“A fetus isn’t entitled to someone else’s body. Neither does the friggin man. And a fetus isn’t even a child it’s just a lump of cells”
So when does it gets rights? When does it become a person? 1 minute before it’s born? 1 day? If you do something that causes a mother to lose her child that she wants, should you be charged with murder? If it’s only a “lump of cells” then clearly the answer is no right?
Did you know the youngest premature baby to survive was born just shy of 22 weeks gestation? Full gestation being 37 week that means at least 60% of the way along you are talking about a human being, not simply a “clump of cells”.
There are many valid and reasonable arguments to be made about abortion rights and where we, as a society, establish the line between different peoples rights. However if you are going to break out the “clump of cells” argument you are going to need to do some serious research to back up your position, not to mention be aware that the way you phrase it makes you sound heartless.
You ASSUME the mothers right is paramount. You can certainly argue it should be but there is no ethical or logical reason to treat that as an absolute. As a society we make decisions alll the time about where the rights of one person or group and another have to be decided. And history is replete with examples of ASSUMED rights for one group denying another’s (whites over blacks, men over women, etc.).
By all means, if you feel strongly for your position, support it. But I encourage you to do so with logic and evidence, not absolute declarations of what you decided is the “truth”. People aren’t simply going to agree with you just because you say so.
Yeah, no one is suggesting a woman get that. Like you have repeated, what a woman does with her body is her choice. There is nobody saying that a woman should do anything with her body she doesn’t want to. If she wants to run skyclad down times square pregnant she can do that, well, not legally but you know, she could.
You are really looking for drama where there is none needed. You are telling people to respect a woman’s autonomy and the people are trying to tell you that they already do.
Smarter people have tackled the “when does personhood begin” argument so I won’t, but if something can only survive by deriving nutrients from someone else’s body, that someone should not be required to provide them. This is another of those unfortunate realities where no outcome is ideal and someone’s rights have to come out on top because there is no possible compromise.
“and no one is taking a man’s rights away by the pregnant person doing what they want
with their body”
I’m afraid you are incorrect. It’s incontrovertibly true that the fathers rights are being infringed. In the US at least a father doesn’t legally have a say in whether the child is carried to term or not (a position with which you clearly agree) but is held financially responsible regardless of whether he wants to be a father or not. Thus his rights of freedom and property are unquestionably being limited.
You can certainly make the case that such imposition is necessary or desirable for any number of reasons (which so far as a society is the current status quo), however it’s erroneous to ignore that such a legal inequality exists.
Keep in mind admitting it’s existence is not conceding that it’s wrong. Limitations on rights exist all over the place because there are simply situations in which two peoples rights can’t simultaneously exist.
For example one persons right to safety can trump another’s right to say, build a factory in their backyard. Or my right to live trumps another persons religious freedom if they want to practice ritual human sacrifice. Even small things such as noise ordinances restrict rights in favor of one group over another.
So it’s reasonable to argue that a woman should have the right to an abortion but a man should be required to provide financially (or to argue against that). It’s not reasonable or accurate to say that women in this situation don’t have more legal rights than men. The former is an opinion, the later is an objective fact.
But what about the fact that it was through the mothers choice that the fetus/baby was there in the first place. Unlike, say, a parasite which invades the host, the child is an expected outcome of a chosen action. Should that not also factor in to the decision? Assuming personhood (because otherwise it’s a moot point) one could argue the fetuses right to life would trump the temporary imposition on the mother.
What if it wasn’t a chosen action, or if they did consider the possibility and used protection which nevertheless failed? Too many possible scenarios and variables to consider there. There are going to be edge cases for which your argument would not apply, which itself would already be case of someone else getting to decide what the woman may or may not do.
And just to clarify, I do think the “personhood” argument has it’s place too, there obviously is a point at which the fetus is just a lump of cells and a point at which it is a human, I just don’t feel qualified to determine where those points are. But my above argument does apply to the lump of cells stage.
Like I do feel abortion after a certain point in the pregnancy is no longer alright, though I couldn’t tell you at what point that should be.
It’s getting difficult to find where to respond since this discussion has gone on for so long now! lol
There are so many valid arguments here. Yes, at one point the child is merely cellular mass, but one can also argue that, that the moment of conception that one of the parents may feel differently. Scientifically speaking, not so much. I’m sure Todd would have thought Amanda was his precious baby the moment he figured out there was something growing inside Andi. Maybe Andi didn’t feel the same and didn’t even consider it a child until much, much later.
Abortion is such a touchy, tricky subject with a lot of grey areas. Pregnancy in general is the same. It’d be so simple if it was all black and white. Some argue conception is when it becomes a child, some argue much, much later. There is no real right or wrong answer, because if you take feelings into account, then the whole matter gets flipped upside down and science is no longer part of it.
I just want to say again, I am thoroughly enjoying this conversation with you all!
I will say it is nice to have a long conversation here that isn’t a pure shitstorm.
On abortion, it is such a complicated hot button issue where everyone has feelings one way or another. No matter how you cut it, it is not a clean issue with easy answers. Whether you feel that they’re just a mass of cells, a surprise parasite, or a life growing everyone has a different answer.
I myself hate abortion but I realized a long time ago that my personal feelings don’t factor in because it’s not my body and since women have died in childbirth, admittedly a long time back when medicine wasn’t as good as it is now, it is not my place. Now, I may suggest if I get a woman pregnant to keep the baby, but I personally can’t make that decision for her. At the end of the day she has to make that final choice.
@Mikael – Absolutely when choice for the woman is taken out of the equation it changes the discussion completely (and of course that usually involves some pretty tragic circumstances for her as well).
However, in regards to birth control, its well known by now that its not 100% effective. When you choose to engage in an action and there is a risk of different outcomes, even if they are somewhat small, I find it difficult to buy that you should be able to violate the rights of another person to avoid the consequences (again assuming personhood and rights apply).
This avoidance of responsibility is one of the aspects of the pro-Choice position that I’ve always been somewhat uncomfortable with. Of course trying to legislate whether or not people can have sex is a non-starter, and obviously legislating abortion is a complicated issue already.
For my part I think the most effective thing we can do as a society is to improve conditions for mothers such that people are less inclined to choose or feel compelled by circumstances to choose abortion. Whatever the moral arguments for/against it, I certainly think that simply banning abortion won’t be an effective solution, and will come with some pretty negative consequences too.
Yea we are definitely in agreement about the last part at least, adoption should be the preferred outcome and I’m down with our society incentivizing it over the alternatives.
Not just adoption either, but more support for mothers as well. Paid leave, medical care, access to affordable/free child supplies etc. There are lots of things we can do to improve our response as a society towards mothers. And given they are necessary for our species to continue, id say thats important. Of course I’m talking specifically about the U.S. experience as many other countries already do some of those things.
No Lady, not intended as a gotcha moment. I am just presenting a situation that has happened where the guy’s rights might come into play where he is very obviously wronged. I think you’re seeing an enemy where there is none. And I have never said yay abortions for all. And since I have explained where I don’t think an abortion should be forced on a woman
I have no idea where you are coming up with me saying that a woman should get it forced on her.
I think she’s getting the, ‘not respecting the woman’s body’ bit from me. I don’t intend to come off that way though. All I’m really saying is we disregard the man’s feelings entirely and still force things upon him, whereas the woman has no such burden. She has the burn of carrying and birthing, but only if she chooses to do so. A man has the burden of having a child and paying for it regardless if he chooses to do so.
And that there is a clear winner and clear loser on either side, depending on whom is forced to do what. It sucks for one person one way or another.
Well that was… a lot of talk while I was away. Yikes!
Seems like par for the course: Try to talk about a thing tangentially related to abortion, get swept up in a back-and-forth about abortion where nobody’s listening to what is actually being said.
I got the original point, though: A man should not be FORCED to pay for a child he doesn’t want any part of. And we have a system set up that forces the father to pay, even when he was raped — even when the child was created through deception and/or sperm-theft — even when the guy isn’t actually the real father and DNA results prove that beyond any doubt.
I was outraged to hear of the guy who’s being forced to pay child support for a kid who isn’t even tangentially related to him, because the courts got the name wrong, and then said too bad because the guy took too long to protest the ruling. I’m sorry, how many people put priority on protesting something they know has nothing to do with them? If I got mail that said I was liable for child support, and I were a virgin or monogamously married, I wouldn’t pay it much mind either.
I don’t get why the kid being taken care of is tied to the father paying support, anyway. Our government (in the U.S.) is bound and determined to throw money every which way but sensibly, and yet in one case where it could be argued that the money is necessary — paying for a child who doesn’t have a dad in the picture — suddenly it gets tied up in trying to make sure a dad gets tied into it?
I mean, from a social standpoint, I can see forcing “dead-beat dads” — the guys who knock a girl up and run, the ones who want to breed but leave society to pick up the bill — to shoulder the burden, but if the guy can’t or won’t, the kid shouldn’t suffer for it.
And on those occasions where the biological father isn’t at fault (which usually, though not always, means the mom has committed some sort of crime against the father), there should be an absolute exemption from child support. With no effect on what the kid receives, though possibly a closer eye on what the mom is up to (making sure the money is spent on the kid, not on the mom).
And when I say “absolute exemption,” I mean the kind where you fill out a form one time (or the court does it for you), and you are cut loose from any ties with the kid. Not one where you have to fill out a form each year to prove the situation is still going on like that (like the “are you still old enough to qualify for our elder program?” nonsense).
No wonder she get’s that feeling, you’re talking about burning the hypothetical mother. 😉 Though maybe she’s made of wood.
I don’t think anyone will do anything about the father’s rights side. Maybe no one should I don’t know. All I know is the whole deal with birth, the politics, the complications, it’s a damned jungle and I am glad to be out of the game so I never will get sucked into it.
Pleasant (for me) if this is due to overhearing (rather than unrelated), and Amanda is finally getting a peek into the minds of the people with a grudge against her mother (for no previously-comprehensible reason).
I may be seeing something different than everyone else. Here Andi is moaning about having made a bad decision and how she’s not sure she can be a mom — and then the moment Amanda screams her reflex is apparently to protect and care for her.
The thing that’s really really really bothering me about this lie is how unclear it is whether Patricia knew about it. Or if she participated in the deception? Because she doesn’t seem surprised in the conversation with Andi that the Smiths think Amanda is dead. But Andi isn’t putting any blame on her at the same time.
Todd and Andi were together for 8 years after the “death” of Amanda. Surely it would have come up. Even if they weren’t close to Patricia. Even if they only visited her, living in the same city, once or twice a year. A stray comment made about Amanda finding a happier place to live. An odd look when Todd says “since we lost the baby” Something.
And childbirth is traumatic, both physically and emotionally. Moreso given Andi’s circumstances. How quickly did that urn arrive? Because I find it super hard to believe Andi could afford to purchase a funerary urn and sneak it home to fill with ashes from her mother’s fireplace to give to the Smiths all shortly after having given birth at 16. So much doesn’t add up there.
That’s what I had said previously. The lack of a response when Andi told her at the table that her mother was remembering things wrong deeply confused me. Any normal human being would be shocked to hear that. She had zero reaction. And spot on with the urn. I don’t think Andi could come up with such a brilliant lie.
A lack of surprise can also stem from just being beaten down enough by circumstances that you don’t react to things like a normal person would. Andi’s mom certainly seems to have that quality — jaded.
I gotta say I relate to andi in allot of ways and I think that’s why I can’t hate her or be upset with her actions I was like her when I was young and stupid, hell I might not have done exactly what she did but my mistakes were pretty up there on the list. But now looking back just to only 6 years I have major regrets I can say I was f&%$#+* stupid for what I did but now I feel more mature I work on making those better choices I should’ve made before and honestly I don’t feel like who I am now would be anywhere near the same person as before.
My biggest problem with Andi isn’t so much what she did (though what she did was REALLY REALLY bad) but that she still doesn’t seem to have taken responsibility for it even these years later. People screw up, sometimes they screw up big time, but except for some truly egregious things they can also make amends for it, still seek redemption. (Of course many religious groups teach that a diety can/does grant redemption for any trangression provided the person is genuinely remorseful, but I’m going to side step that for now and focus on human redemption).
Andi didn’t actively seek out Todd to admit what she had done and try and make amends, it was blurted out by Amanda and she had to face it. She still has yet to fully admit to what she did to anyone including Amanda (though to be fair giving Amanda the full story might not be the healthiest thing right now, Ill grant that). She still hasn’t apologized to any of Todd’s family for what she did, and I don’t recall what kind of apology she offered him when he found out. At least she finally admitted to Mari that she did a horrible thing, I mean thats a start, but its a far cry from what she needs to be doing in my opinion at least. Maybe she will, maybe she won’t but its hard for me, for now, to sympathize with the character based on her continued selfish behavior.
Ignoring all the discussion about Amanda’s screaming, and the comments of what Andi is doing…
I’m really impressed by the face change in Mari – Panel 2 – Mari is feeling her own pain, and is in ‘you will understand that panic is not a viable excuse’ Panel 4 – Mari’s face has softened and shows compassion for Andi: the person who let her mourn for a child that wasn’t dead. Mari is a GOOD person ™
This is true. Her expression is one that seems to convey that she feels like maybe she judged Andi too quickly and that maybe Andi is actually sorry and trying to change. That being said, her previous anger wasn’t unwarranted. She had every right to be upset about the situation. I’m just glad that this means she can possibly move forward with Andi as a friend and mentor in motherhood. God knows Andi needs a good role model for parenting and someone she can turn to when she has questions she doesn’t know how to answer on her own.
No mention of manipulation there,Andi went with it because she felt she wasn’t ready. Mature but afterwards wasn’t mature.
And…oh lord. Amanda was there. Kid could be a secret agent…I wish she hadn’t heard it like this. There are so many ways to tell her. This wasn’t one of them. Might be wrong. She could be doing something. Please be that.
I really don’t think this is her discovery moment. I hope I’m right. For one, I don’t think she’d be screaming like that. I think she’d be too stunned and hurt to do anything. If she did yell, I’d expect there to be words. Second, Andi’s panic doesn’t look like the absolute horror I would expect to see in someone whose kid just found out something so awful in such a terrible way. I’d also expect HER yell to contain words other than ‘Amanda’, like ‘oh my god’ or something. To me looks more like a typical parent reaction to a screaming child in the next room; look towards the source and call out for her.
Something is probably just going on in the living room. Maybe someone surprised her. Maybe Clyde peed on her. He’s known for peeing on things.
I agree, I don’t think this is a “I just learned what happened” Scream… this is a scream that gives Andi a chance to show that she has changed and she is ready to be a mother and honestly wants the best for Amanda now.
Let’s hope she didn’t hear. Cuz it looks like she’s staring at Amanda.
I thought it was a “I just fell in the firepit!” scream.
Here’s hoping it’s not a “Selkie just licked me!” scream.
Curious. Is she playing down her mom’s involvement to protect her mom or is it all genuinely her? If it really is 100% Andi, it’s a real stretch of the imagination that someone changes that much so quickly.
You mean between 15 and 24?
Not to nitpick. But that’s 9 years. XD She would either have been 16 then or she’s 23 now.
IIRC, she was 17 when Amanda was born, so eight years would have her be 25 now.
I know this. I know math dude. But that math would be pushing the age is what I mean.
Dude. Patricia only suggested it. She wasn’t being manipulative and nothing in the flashbacks suggested it. Also this does prove it. Andi panicking is plausible as to why she lied.
Flimsy excuse but still.
The truth is we don’t know. We don’t see an actual dialog in the flashbacks with her mom—just pictures. She was *very* unsupportive and inappropriately pushy when Andi brought up getting Amanda back.
Not really. Just in general telling Andi it would be difficult. It very much has been. Especially with the lie overhead. Also Andi’s kinda been lieing here too. She tells Todd that Patricia was being pushy. Here she says that she only suggested it.
Patricia wasn’t emotionally ready to see Amanda. It probably would open old wounds.
Patricia “only suggested it”?
https://selkiecomic.com/comic/selkie730/
“Why did I tell her CAN’T? Ma always told me I can’t. Can’t make the trees red and blue. Can’t color outside the lines. CAN’T KEEP MY OWN KID.”
That sounds like a little more than a suggestion, to me.
I’m taking it as Amanda screaming in the other room for a completely different reason.
And there’s the metaphorical ripping off of the band-aid (that’s been holding down a festering wound for the past 8 years). Now to get to that same level of starting to heal with the rest of the Smiths 😛
Given the scene we last saw Amanda in, I’m thinking this is an angry/frustrated yell, as opposed to a pain/injury yell (but things happen, who knows?). Mayhaps seeing Andi go into “mother-mode” will further the healing with Mari?
Love the bandaid analogy! Not sure but methinks whatever happened in the next room involves perhaps a nip from a doggie? A shriek of jealousy because Antoine’s beau sjowed Amanda something she has been dying to have? Who knows LOL
headlines: bratty child mauled by “puppy”
Or she’s losing a game. XD I think Amanda’s the type to rage quit over losing.
I’d go with learning Selkie is going to be the flower girl at the wedding.
For as “bratty” as she has been, it sure seemed like that little guy liked her and she was being surprisingly gentle with him. Makes me wonder if she had pets with her adopted family.
Hi! Long time no see:)
Yeah, that’s going to leave a mark. Amanda had to be told (or “has to” if the AAAHHH! wasn’t her overhearing that) but this wasn’t/isn’t the way it should be done. This is the way I feared she would find out if Andi didn’t get her act together and tell her.
maybe she saw this on tv http://sueandkathryn.com/
Yeah that would freak me out too. ?
I liked your haiku
Your comic is amazing
Thanks very much Dave
So is that Amanda screaming because she overheard what Andi did, or screaming for some reason from the other room (possibly puppy related)?
Also, um no Andi, you are far beyond an idiot. You are selfish and shortsighted.
“I didn’t know if *I* could handle being a mother” – Fine, thats a legitimate belief to have and recognizing it and providing for your child in another fashion would have been fine BUT, and this is a HUGE but, YOU LIED TO THE FATHER ABOUT IT SO YOU COULD KEEP HIM AS YOUR BOYFRIEND. She put her own needs before her daughters and Todd’s with that selifsh decision. Sorry Andi, you still clearly have not understood the degree to which you messed up, before you can be forgiven and move forward you need to acknowledge what you did.
“You lied to the father about it so you could keep him as your boyfriend.”
This is the big problem, for sure. Andi’s character at the time was such that she could not put her boyfriend’s RIGHTS above her own COMFORT. This is a serious character flaw and it persisted for almost a decade.
Oddly, the part leading up to the birth was trying to avoid a certain type of discomfort (Todd being disappointed, lots of discussions she preferred to avoid, etc.) by putting up with another discomfort (emotional distress and long-term physical burden).
I mentioned on the last page that Andi is likely an Ennea 9, disintegrated to 6. She’s stuck in the fear of abandonment and loss, of being shunned, of losing her support structure. She chronically avoids negatives, such as necessary conversations about uncomfortable topics, and tries to keep from rocking the boat even when the boat seriously needs some rocking.
Being unwilling to take some discomfort in order to ensure that your loved ones can freely choose from a position of Informed Consent — that’s a deal-breaker when it comes to relationships. It may in fact be one of the most serious character flaws there IS.
i stand by my previous comments: the initial lie, while certainly a biggie, can be explained as the actions of an overwhelmed teenager, but the years of lying afterwards? not to mention using the ‘death’ of their daughter to emotionally blackmail/manipulate todd? nope, sorry, i´m still not forgiving andi.
besides, i say she needs to move on and not cling to the past aka todd, for her own sake as well as his. yes, they can and should stay friends, for amandas sake, but a couple? never ever again.
As little as I want to, I have to partially defend Andi here. Or if not defend, than at least empathize — she put herself into a shitty situation (having lied to her boyfriend and his family about something this big) out of a fear of the consequences of coming out with the truth, and every day that went by where she didn’t come clean, the lie got a bit bigger and the feared consequences got a bit worse, so the imagined barrier against telling the truth got a bit bigger.
That kind of situation is a self-perpetuating feedback spiral that’s almost impossible to get out of without an external impulse — in this case, the one supplied by Todd adopting Selkie.
Of course, none of this excuses anything, neither the initial lie or the eight years’ of silence while sitting at their table. But it’s an insight in how she probably was thinking.
Correction after quick archive binge: The impulse was Amanda telling Todd she was Andi’s real daughter, after which the lie became impossible to maintain.
Andi’s predicament is reminding me very strongly of a song we grew up on:
When you tell one lie, it leads to another
So you tell two lies, to cover each other
Then you tell three lies, and, oh brother,
You’re in trouble up to your ears
So you tell four lies, to try to protect you,
Then you tell five lies, so folks won’t suspect you,
Then you tell six lies, and you collect
A life full of worry and fear
‘Cuz you can’t remember how many lies you’ve told
Half the things you say aren’t true
And sometime you’ll slip up, you’ll trip up, and then
Whatever will become of you?
Soon you lie and lie, without even trying
And each lie you tell will keep multiplying
Till the whole wide world will know you’re lying
And you’ll be suspected, detected, rejected
It’s right that you should!
When you lie, you’re closing the door on everything good!
…I’m not sure on the final wording there. Another version that comes up when I search for lyrics is definitely not what my brain remembers at the end. AND the song uses slippery-slope reasoning, that telling one lie will definitely lead you straight to a life full of lies, which I don’t think is true. But it’s a good principle in general.
These songs were made by a Mormon gal, Janeen Brady. We’re not Mormons, but in general the songs were good, as instead of trying to teach Mormon doctrine, they taught life principles.
For example, the Standin’ Tall series used neat stories to demonstrate virtues: honestly, courage, service, dependability — 12 in all, including cleanliness (which I always found an odd inclusion).
The Safety Kids went over personal safety and staying away from drugs — and had a multicultural cast, without really calling attention to it; I think that was my first exposure to a cast where the white kid was the minority. Similar to Captain Planet or the Burger King Kids’ Club.
And they even had an entire CD celebrating being a woman and a mother. My first exposure to anything about being proud to be female (“I’d be a woman again, for I like who I am — wouldn’t want to be a man”). I still grin when I think of “Pickles for Breakfast” (about pregnancy cravings).
If it were a “in the heat of the moment” decision, possibly, but putting her child up for adoption would require more than a split second panicked decision. And it would require actively lying to hospital AND adoption personnel to pull it off. A momentary lapse of judgement, such as lying in the heat of the moment about something, is one thing, but either she and her mother planned this before hand which indicates lack of panic, or she panicked and lied to Todd and THEN had to make a concerted effort to conceal the lie from him. Either way its hard for me to forgive that kind of selfish and intentional lying.
This is true. *AND* almost every state has rules (or did 9 years ago) that the mother OR father could change their mind during the first 3-6 months (I know years ago at least in 1 state it was a length of 18 months). So Andi could easily have said when not running high on emotions from just giving birth that this is what happened. The Smiths would have been angry, but they would also have been able to claim and raise Amanda if they wanted to.
It’s much harder to tell the truth after you’ve lied about it. It gets even harder the longer the lie is allowed to stand.
Actually, I don’t know that the voice Was Mandi, just that Andi heard the scream and called for their daughter.
Well it’s a start Andi, just keep moving forward.
What is it they say in the bible?… “And The Truth Shall Set You Free…”
FINALLY, a major portion of her side of things comes out into the open…
and i am SURE that the red-backgrounded ANGRY yell we hear IS Amanda standing there listening to this conversation… probably coming to find out what treats that Mom and Grandma are getting ready, and taking soooo looong (to an eight year old) to bring out. it isn’t Todd, as he already found out she lied, i highly doubt any of the other family, Selkie… nah, just doesn’t make sense why she’d BE angry… so, by Occam’s Razor, it’s …Amanda… NOW, to find out HOW LONG she was listening…
I don’t really think that Amanda was listening. There is no big reveal to be seen by her just watching them talk or anything that could cause her to scream over their conversation. Amanda might not know the significance of what Andi is holding right now unless she was told “This is an urn. Your dad and his family got it because they thought you’d died.” If a fight broke out between the girls, we’d have heard two shrieks. So this is either a) scream of frustration at something or b) as scream at something that scared her or gave her discomfort happened like being touched or grabbed. I’ve not seen anything to say she has an aversion to touch, but after the other family’s actions might not be too far out there. Or she may have noticed that Andi doesn’t have a stocking on the chimney and is thinking it’s another way to bully her mom.
Ok but let’s also keep in mind
1) Her mom pretty much forced this on her. We all saw it.
2) Todd is NOT innocent here. He ignored ALL of Andi’s feelings because he was so ready to be a dad. Not a single time did he ask what she wanted to do with her OWN body.
Like yeah obv Andi messed up in lying to Todd & giving into peer pressure from her mom. We know that.
Buuuuut none of this would have happened if at least ONE of the two aforementioned people had stopped to ask Andi her feelings on the matter and/or gave her autonomy over her own body.
A classic example of how women’s reproductive health is taken out of the hands of the woman herself because everyone else thinks they know what’s best for her.
Would it have resulted in abortion? Maybe. Maybe not.
But I do know one thing. If you’re going to gloss over the fact that Todd had everything to do with leaving Andi at the mercy of her mom just because he was a teenager…. Well, you might as well gloss over the fact that an 8 year lie resulted from his negligence just as much as Andi’s decision itself.
They were in a relationship for how long at that point??
Todd should already have been well practiced at listening to Andi’s feelings. Instead he was completely selfish on the matter leaving her completely lost & alone with an evil mother who he had to have known about already (again- date for how long & you know nothing about the personality of your gf’s mom? Doubtful.)
In my opinion, Todd is just as much at fault here as Andi is. And her mom is pretty much entirely to blame because she was supposed to be the responsible adult. Thank God Andi is nothing like her.
I will give you her mom forced it on her and I will give you that Todd was oblivious during the pregnancy. But I will never say Todd is at fault for the 8 years of lies. That’s a horrible stance to take. She lied because it was convienient. She didn’t want to lose what she had. Todd can’t be held responsible for the decision to give his family a jar of tree ashes. She is a horrible horrible person for the lie.
The lie wouldn’t have happened if Andi could handle pressure and wasn’t being so damned selfish. She knew the lie was going to hurt him, but she did it anyway to “protect” his feelings. Then gave him an urn. Yeah, this was her and her mom. It is despicable to put the 8 year lie on him.
Besides, what was he supposed to do about her mom? They were still minors, she was living under her mom’s roof, he couldn’t just take her away. The laws governing this are quite complex and he couldn’t just do anything without getting into some kind of trouble.
Besides, I have never asked any of my girlfriends what they want to do with their bodies, I trust them to be mature enough to tell me. That’s how it should be even as teens, and if she is too afraid to tell him herself, that is her own fault. A woman has no control over her reproductive health if she does not take command of it. That goes with anything.
Well, at this point, Andi says her mom ‘suggested’ adoption. Whether or not she suggested it in a way that’s less of suggestion and more of emotional manipulation and taking advantage of someone during a moment of weakness remains to be seen… We now know Andi is the one who came up with the initial lie, not her mother, which is good. We don’t know how much of a hand her mother played into keeping up the lie though, if any at all. I still maintain that if she wasn’t aware at all of the lie, her mother would’ve shown some sort of shock when she was told for the ‘first’ time at the table with Andi. But as it is, we know very little on what her mother did and said until she or Andi says otherwise.
Yes, Todd was oblivious to Andi’s feelings. People can’t play the, ‘oh he was just a kid’ card if they don’t give Andi the same card for her panic and desperation. As far as we know, he never once asked Andi how she felt about the whole thing… that being said, Todd’s character shows that he very easily gets tied up in his own happiness and assumes everyone and everything else is equally happy if he is. It’s a character flaw, but he doesn’t do it on purpose. Yes, he should be more aware of it as several things have gone wrong for him because of it, Selkie’s frustration, Andi’s pregnancy, his daughter’s teacher’s romantic feelings and impulsive kiss. He assumes everyone feels what he feels and as an adult he should really know better and learn from his mistakes just like Andi should. His mistakes aren’t as heavy as hers, but he’s also got a lot of maturing he needs to do as well.
We don’t have enough evidence to pin it all on Patricia. Everything we know is mostly circumstancial or assumptions. I personally believe she had a heavy hand in the whole thing and that she was neglectful and repressed Andi, but we don’t know that fully yet. We just have small hints to it being a possibility. And even if she did playback huge role in the lie and pressuring Andi into giving Amanda up, she can’t be fully blamed. Andi still made the call, even in a moment of weakness and hormones and fear. I still wonder if Andi had told her earlier in the pregnancy she had misgivings about it or if she blurted it out all at once during labor. Even so, if she had told her mother just then, her mother should have known better than to do what she did. Todd was a part of it and she excluded him, from what we can gather anyway. Not only that, a lot of women in labor shout things they don’t mean. Certainly, Andi was unhappy about having a child, but did her mother know that before or just then? If it was just then, she should have seriously considered that fear and hormones were kicking in and not have assumed that giving the baby up was what Andi had always wanted. If she knew before, then she had no right to tell Andi to go ahead without Todd’s consent. The problem is, we just don’t know what exactly happened yet.
And I wouldn’t say Todd is equally to blame. Yes, he neglected Andi’s feelings, but that’s not 100% his fault. Andi never told him. Yes, he should have seen the visual cues, but just like Todd should have known to be more attentive to Andi’s feelings because she has trouble speaking up, Andi should have known Todd gets so easily thrilled with his own happiness that he neglects others. They BOTH failed in this. They were children though. Andi should have talked to Todd and Todd should have seen the clear unhappiness and unease in her body language. Sadly, they both missed their chances to do so.
In that moment, neither of them were ready and neither of them were fully to blame for what happened. Now, the lie being kept up for so long, while understandable, is on Andi and possibly her mother. It was a terrible, thoughtless lie, but it wasn’t her trying to be a monster. I highly doubt she wanted to hurt Todd. In fact, she probably thought it better NOT to tell him to avoid him being hurt. Yes, she also did it to save herself and avoid her own pain and losing him, but I believe she also, at one point, probably thought it was better this way. They were probably happy for a time, but… then Todd wanted children. Thought adoption was the way to go, to avoid the trauma that was inflicted on them. Andi WANTED kids eventually, just not yet. The lie became less plausible, less of it for their own protection. But Todd wanted kids now and he didn’t want to, presumably, risk losing another live birth. Andi didn’t want to adopt, she wanted something that was part of both of them, but worded it wrong and Todd took offense. She realized her lie hadn’t been for Todd’s well being at that point, but by then, the lie had gone on for so long…
Doesn’t make any of it right though. Hell, that’s mostly baseless assumptions on my part. I’ve no idea how either of them felt during the time AFTER the lie. I only assume they were happy for a good while and Andi assumed the lie was a good thing for a few years, until Todd brought up wanting kids. By then, it was ‘too late’ to tell him and whenever she tried, she got too scared to fess up. We know that last part is true anyway.
Anyways, we can’t fully blame anyone here, nor can we brush aside Andi’s actions simply because she was scared.
Well, it’s not just the lie, it’s also the fact that she adopted Amanda out without giving Todd the opportunity to have any say. That’s pretty awful—and in some states—illegal. It’s not like Todd was an abusive person or even irresponsible. The fact she was with him and part of his family for about 7 years afterwards is pretty twisted. I’m very curious to see where this goes. Unless her mom turns out to be involved, it’s rather difficult to find her to be a character one can sympathize with.
Oh, yes indeed she shouldn’t have given up their child without involving him. We know practically zero information about that whole time frame or who they were then. Todd very well may have been irresponsible. I doubt he was abusive, but he could have had a really bad temper back then still.
I still can sympathize with Andi, even if it turns out this was mostly on her, simply because fear is something everyone can understand. Doesn’t make her actions right in my eyes, but it explains them and makes me believe she deserves a chance at redemption. Another chance with Todd? No. A chance to be his friend again? Certainly.
Unless I see that Andi did this solely to spite Todd and his family on purpose, I will never condemn her to being scum. Just as I will not condemn Amanda and write her off as a simply a selfish bully. I love flawed characters, I love villains. Their actions are often not just black and white and are far more interesting to me than the selfless, valiant, protector of righteousness and justice that most protagonists seem to be. Protagonists are often times so one dimensional and without flaws that I cannot relate to them. My favorite protagonist is one who either starts off very selfish and grows into a better person or one who starts off so good and just and slowly becomes more jaded once they see sunshine and rainbows cannot fix everything. Why? Because those are realistically written people! Relatable ones! I love that.
Selkie, herself is a bit of a brat and is prone to anger and spite. I LOVE that about her. She’s a typical 8 year old, but also very good hearted. She’s not immaculate in her character and that makes her so interesting!
Sorry about the tangent haha. I just don’t want people to think I’m simply defending the ‘bad’ characters just for the sake of starting a disagreement. I truly do love the flawed characters.
Not at all. You are very articulate and I like that. 🙂
I feel the same way about character flaws. I do have a thing about dishonesty and people who do things that harm kids, but that’s my own thing. I’m kind of on the fence with Andi—from comic to comic. I mostly like her, but the idea of someone doing something that destructive all on their own (even if they meant no harm) is kind of hard for me to completely grok. This doesn’t mean I want her mom to take all the fall either. It struck me she was trying to do her best by Andi—even though it wasn’t the best way to go about it.
Her mother did not force her into anything, shown in the comic itself and confirmed here by Andi herself. Reading this comic I hoped that “discussion” would be put to rest. *sight*
Also it’s not Todd’s fault that Andi didn’t talk to him or anyone else about how she was feeling about the whole thing. If Andi wasn’t 100% on board with having a kid she should have said something rather than remain silent.
Thank you for saying that!
Todd isn’t a mind reader. Pregnancies make people prone to mood swings. There is no way Todd could’ve known what was bothering Andi unless Andi said so. For all he knew it was the pregnancy hormones making her upset.
It’s still very open as to what her mother’s involvement was. I think at this point she’s very likely to have been involved somehow, but it was less of her emotionally bullying Andi and taking advantage of her daughter’s weakness at the time and more of her being thoughtless of Todd. I see some heavy projecting coming from Patricia. I believe she disregarded Todd’s feelings 100% and that she merely thought she knew what was best for Andi, because something similar happened to her. She was probably also thoughtless of Andi as well, subconsciously anyway.
I think she didn’t care about Todd at all. She unintentionally took advantage of Andi’s state of mind and used it for what she assumed was her daughter’s benefit and completely left Todd out of it. While I think she was neglectful of Andi and didn’t allow Andi to be creative as a child, given we have a little hint of that here and there, I no longer think she forced Andi to lie or give up Amanda. Nor do I think she consciously manipulated Andi and took advantage of her. Andi clearly learned this behavior from someone, but whether or not that someone did it intentionally remains to be seen.
And no, it is Todd’s fault for not talking to Andi during pregnancy, just as much as its Andi’s fault for not talking. It takes two people for these things to work. They were both wrong in that respect. What happened after the whole fiasco? Absolutely not, none of that is on Todd at all. What happened during the pregnancy though? From what we know, Todd never once asked Andi how she felt or if she was happy. Now, if he tried TALKING to Andi, then yes, he cannot be held liable for that. If she put up a good front and faked her happiness and lied and said she was thrilled and made it seem true? Absolutely that is on her. But from what we know, which is very little for that entire time frame, he did no such thing.
One thing we know is her mom suggested it (or more) and her mom was also there with her when Amanda was adopted out. At the very least her mom is partially responsible. It seems like a mother (to a teenager) who was a decent person would at least discourage her daughter from sending the baby off without talking to the father first.
Absolutely. The fact that she disregarded Todd and his family completely boggles my mind. Even if Andi didn’t tell her she lied, her mother should have said to wait for Todd. I truly think something happened to her mother prior and that she was biased against Todd from the start.
Or at the very least she figures Todd’s feelings are completely on the back burner compared to Andi’s. Mari and Theo would not have been that way. They’d have told Todd to respect Andi’s feelings and talk to her. In a relationship, both people are equally important.
Seems odd that Andi didn’t suggest this or a nurse. I mean I know so many nurses who would suggest Andi wait to talk to Todd. Why didn’t any of the other adults in the room speak up?
No clue. I don’t think Andi was in any state of mind to suggest anything nor decide anything right at that moment. The fact that her mother or even a nearby nurse (I hadn’t even thought of that.) didn’t wait for Todd is baffling. Perhaps the nurse thought that there wasn’t going to be a father present, but her mother damn well knew. Unless her previous man ran out on her and left her alone in the hospital after saying he’d be there for her, the way she treated and regarded Todd has no real reason behind it.
Well if that were true. It could be she has trust issues with men or mistaken Todd’s anger issues as something bad for Andi? We don’t know. Andi isn’t exactly tripping over herself to explain her mom.
Well, mathematically, if Todd and Andi are equally at fault for the miscommunication, and Andi is completely at fault for the adoption without telling Todd and for the lie about Amanda’s death, then what we have is:
Todd’s Fault: 1/2 M
Andi’s Fault: 1/2 M + A + L
So regardless of Todd actually being at fault for SOMETHING, he’s got a MUCH smaller burden than Andi. “I didn’t realize you felt bad” is not even on the same elemental plane as “I gave away your baby without asking you,” let alone “You know how I told you she was dead? Yeah, that was a lie.”
I never argued that at all. I specifically said Todd is equally to blame for the lack of communication as Andi. Not once did I ever say Todd was at fault for Andi giving up Amanda. And Andi being more at fault for something else doesn’t excuse Todd’s fault. It’s not a game for who’s done worse and why one fault is now absolved because someone else did something worse. That’s childish.
Andi is absolutely to blame for the adoption part. Possibly her mother too, depending on what went down. Her mother is absolutely at fault for disregarding Todd and his entire family’s feelings in the matter though. Andi did too, but to a far lesser extent for the initial lie. She was a child ok panic mode. Her mother could think clearly and still chose to disregard them all.
I was more responding to the idea that I’ve seen a few times here, not just in your post, that seems to equate the two. Or, at least, seems to say that we ought to be less hard on Andi *because* Todd is also to blame for something.
Has always seemed an odd line of reasoning to me, and I decided to pull it apart a bit here.
Andi’s mom’s attitude seems a bit like my grandma’s: The day after my mom’s marriage to my dad, my grandma showed up while he was at work to whisk Mom away to get it annulled (a “well you got that out of your system, let’s move on” kind of thing).
Andi’s mom seems to completely disregard Andi’s desire to be with Todd, and Todd’s role in this relationship at all. Which strikes me as very much the kind of thing that makes ElfQuest villains: “I know best, and the degree to which you disagree with my assessment is the degree to which I don’t have to care about your opinions.”
Yeah, that irritates the crap out of me, like they’re trying to find some way to let Andi off the hook, or if she has to face the punishment, it can’t be too hard, because of her feelings and Todd just must be guilty because it takes two to tango.
I was brought up to believe that even with extenuating circumstances, the choices we make are still our choices. If someone does something horrible, even if they were pushed by outside forces, they still made that decision. Andi is interesting because she was probably drugged up to the point where Amanda was probably an amusing shade of bright neon green so her mind was not there. That combined with a teen mom out of her depth, I can give her the choice to adopt out. Adoption when you have good parents to take in the child is not a bad decision.
But that still leaves us the moving around behind his back and lying for eight years.
As much as we make an ado about women’s rights to abortion, which I will not get into as that is the definition of hot button issues, it is irrelevant to the discussion as is my opinion, what we neglect is the man’s fatherhood rights a lot more. If a woman wants to keep a child but the man does not, he has no choice in the matter, even if later on it’s proven to not be his and is a case of him just being there and her wanting monetary support. If he wants the child but she does not, the child is gone. That was the case here and no matter how you feel about the matter it was not right.
So his fatherhood rights were stripped away. But so that she didn’t have to lose him, she gave him a tragic keepsake that he didn’t need to have, but got anyway to remind him of the child she took away from him and lied about. For almost a decade. And would have kept it going until she was forced into a position to admit the truth.
Neither situation was his fault. Yes, he could have asked her how she was feeling, and he might have, the strip that showed the pregnancy was not altogether clear. He might have asked and to avoid what she saw as needless drama and to not be confronted, puts up a happy front. Of this I know all about because my pride forces me to put up a happy front when inside my body is screaming in pain and agony when hurt or sick.
She made those two decisions, and many of us just want her facing the music for her choices. You make your bed, you lay in it.
I hope this explains why we are so hard on her. And sorry Kilyle, your post seemed the perfect one to post this on. To at least make the people siding with Andi think about why we may not be on her side.
Oh god no…no one has a right to that. The issue is about bodily autonomy and nothing to do with the “father”. A person with a uterus has the right to decide what to do with their body as they please. No one outside them gets to decide if they can or cannot get an abortion.
I am not pro forced abortions. In fact I agree with you that no one has any right to tell a woman if she can or cannot have an abortion. I was simply saying that if a man wants out of fatherhood he is kind of stuck, he can’t sign his rights away. Personally I don’t get why you wouldn’t want to be a father, but that’s my personal bias there.
There is little father rights where he can decide his involvement. Though I was trying to avoid the abortion issue entirely because it’s so emotional.
No he cannot. It is not his body. It is not his right. At all. He has no say in the pregnant person’s body. No one other than the pregnant person has that right.
Yeah, fathers tend to get a bad deal in the whole thing. Don’t want to be a dad? Too bad, the mom wants the baby, now have fun paying child support. The mom doesn’t want the baby but you do? Too bad, the mom doesn’t want the baby.
It’s difficult with that last part, because, well, on the one hand, the father isn’t carrying a baby inside them for 9 months, but on the other hand he gets zero say in the death of his child… very tricky situation. I don’t think there will ever be a right way to handle it either.
Also, I’ve never said Andi shouldn’t be sorry for what she’s done or that people shouldn’t be angry at her. I think it’s silly that some people have zero sympathy for her though. Some people have stated that they have sympathy for her initial choice because she was a scared teen and the timing was wrong, but that they hate her choice to lie for 8 years. Now see, I agree with them. The lying for so long part, that’s something that was just a string of bad decisions and hole digging. But the scared, emotional, hormonal teen part? Common, many of us wouldn’t have acted any better for that initial part.
I agree her lie was a shitty thing to do, but I don’t agree that she’s a monster beyond redemption. I don’t excuse her lie, but I certainly can understand it. I’m not saying she needs to be let off the hook, but there’s no sense in tormenting her for her past mistakes. Tell her how much she hurt them, tell her how they can’t trust her, tell her how much they loved her, yes, but senseless, petty, spiteful squabbles every time they see her is pointless. Andi needs to feel bad, but I think she does already. She needs to know how much it hurt them, but being venomous about it does zero good. Andi needs to know what she did was hurtful and wrong, but to punish her for the rest of her life isn’t helping a single person, it just keeps adding more hurt onto the situation.
I definitely can excuse Todd and his family for their current passive aggressive comments, because the wound is still fresh, but I’m saying down the road, they need to stop that. They are human and right now it hurts to be betrayed so badly by a person they loved and that makes perfect sense. They’re lashing our over the pain. I’m saying in the future it’ll no longer be raw emotion and will be them being senselessly spiteful over something that can’t be changed.
It’s almost as if someone else’s body isn’t your business and you can’t force someone to be pregnant or get an abortion. And unless the pregnant person demands you pay child support,you can just walk away.
I think what is being said is that while a woman can (and should have the right to) just decide to have an abortion and therefore not have to deal with the whole having a kid thing, if she decides to keep it the man is stuck at least paying child support – that is unfair, the woman can literally just walk away from it, but the man can’t just say he wants nothing to do with the kid if it does gets born.
Lady Obvious, none of what I am saying is about abortion, I had only touched it because that’s what people would think.
And that pregnant person, if she puts your name on the birth certificate, good luck fighting it because it’s going to be a hard road ahead. DNA tests take a while and if you don’t pay child support, hope you like prison.
One cannot just walk away is what I’m saying. A man cannot decide his own involvement under the laws of the land. If a woman wants an abortion or not, I don’t give a shit. But I would like, if a woman gets herself pregnant under false pretenses, I be allowed to sign my rights away as this is essentially legal blackmail.
And Spring Pop, I did not mean to make you feel I was singling you out. I was talking more about these people that have been around and talking like anything bad that happens to Andi is mean and cruel, and just plain wrong.
Not really. You can’t exactly walk away from a pregnancy. Also you gotta go through certain legal things to make a guy pay child support. He does not have to. Nor does he get to decide someone can or cannot get an abortion.
GallowsNoose,a man can walk away. A woman just doesn’t suddenly get pregnant. And there’s some legal stuff you have to go through to make a man pay child support. A man can and tons have walked from pregnancies.
Oh no, no. I didn’t mean to make it sound like I felt like I was being singled out at all. I just like the pleasant discussion lately, it’s very nice so I respond more often. I understand your feelings towards Andi and I’m not going to think you’re awful for thinking she’s awful. All of your posts are well thought out and formed and I respect that.
That’s like saying you don’t have to pay taxes because some people get away with not paying theirs.
I’m not. But taxes aren’t like babies and literally. A man has no say in a pregnancy unless he has a uterus and is having a baby himself. Like transmen do.
You are not talking about what everyone else is talking about yet again.
This is not about the pregnancy itself but about what happens after. Like there have actually been cases of men getting raped then being made to pay child support for the child born out of this and that’s just sick and wrong.
That’s rather unfair though. That baby is half of him just as much as it is half of the mother. I know he’s not carrying it for 9 months or going into labor, but it’s not his fault his body cannot do what a woman’s body can do. It’s still 50% his child. The fact that we completely disregard that fact as a whole is wrong. I know there’s not a whole lot to be done about it, but it doesn’t make it less wrong.
I know it’d be wrong to tell a woman she MUST take a baby full term because the man says so, but is it not equally wrong that a woman tells a man he gets no say in the death of his child? Or that he gets no say in whether or not he wants a child? Sadly, there is no way to make it so both parties win in this situation ever. I do think we take men’s rights in this scenario very lightly though. They get little to no say in what occurs and have to deal with the responsibility regardless of whether or not they want to. Whereas a woman can choose to disregard that responsibility and abort the child should they choose to.
SpringPop,a fetus isn’t entitled to someone else’s body. Neither does the friggin man. And a fetus isn’t even a child it’s just a lump of cells and no one is taking a man’s rights away by the pregnant person doing what they want with their body.
Let me see if I can come up with a scenario that might satisfy you Lady. Let’s say I am at a bar and talking to a girl. Somewhere along the line the talk becomes sexual and she assures me she’s on the pill. I decide no anyway, but that’s the last thing I remember because I am so drunk I am black out.
I wake up the next morning in her room. She stayed sober but I was out and we had sex. She winds up pregnant. Now, under that circumstance, which has happened quite a bit more than people are comfortable to admit to, should I not have the right to get out? She slept with me while I had no chance to consent. Should I be forced to take care of the child despite being in all reasonable assessment raped? Should I be held responsible when I had no choice in the matter to begin with?
And I’m glad you enjoy it Spring Pop, I try to think through my statements so I don’t appear to be a raving lunatic. 😛
The way I see it, both the man and the woman have 50% right to the unborn child, but the woman also has 100% right to her own body, so as long as the child is inside her, the woman’s right trumps the mans. This is far from ideal but until we’ll have the technology to harmlessly remove the fetus from the mother so it can survive on it’s own in some future incubator that’s unfortunately the least bad option we have.
Okay one,GallowsNoose. You’re explaining rape and literally trying to do a “GOTCHA” moment. But for cripes sake. You cannot force someone to get an abortion. You can argue in court that she raped you. http://www.ncsl.org/research/human-services/parental-rights-and-sexual-assault.aspx
Hmm the man may not see the fetus as simply a lump of cells though. He may see it at that moment as his child. And I’m aware it’s not fair to the woman, but I’m saying it’s almost equally unfair to disregard the man’s feelings on the matter simply because he cannot biologically do the same thing. True, the strain of pregnancy is twenty times harder than something he could experience and it’d be unfair to put the mother through it if she doesn’t want to, but the fact remains that she can choose to kill something that is genetically only half hers and walk away from any parental responsibility whereas the man cannot choose to do either of the same. He does not get to dictate whether or not that child lives or dies and regardless, he can be forced to pay child support. Like I said, there is no situation where everyone wins here. One person gets what they want and the other person suffers.
Gallows is not saying the woman should be forced to get an abortion, but that the man should be allowed to say he wants nothing to do with this and not pay child support or otherwise take care of the child, which in some cases, male rape victims have been required to do.
Lady, from your own link: Also, some states (Arkansas, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Kentucky, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming) still allow child support to be collected when the custody and visitation rights have been restricted. However, in Hawaii and Oregon, child support is still required even though parental rights are terminated.
Except the pregnant person’s body is their own. The father has no right to force them to stay pregnant or anything. Also he can have another kid later on. It’s not like the pregnant person is never having kids or like he can’t have kids ever again.
I don’t see what mother’s rights of body autonomy have to do with a father’s rights to not being a father when I am discussing signing away the rights, not grabbing the nearest wire hanger.
When someone does that,they’re doing it because they’re unable to get an abortion. At all. It’s because they’re desperate and they could friggin die from it.
“A fetus isn’t entitled to someone else’s body. Neither does the friggin man. And a fetus isn’t even a child it’s just a lump of cells”
So when does it gets rights? When does it become a person? 1 minute before it’s born? 1 day? If you do something that causes a mother to lose her child that she wants, should you be charged with murder? If it’s only a “lump of cells” then clearly the answer is no right?
Did you know the youngest premature baby to survive was born just shy of 22 weeks gestation? Full gestation being 37 week that means at least 60% of the way along you are talking about a human being, not simply a “clump of cells”.
There are many valid and reasonable arguments to be made about abortion rights and where we, as a society, establish the line between different peoples rights. However if you are going to break out the “clump of cells” argument you are going to need to do some serious research to back up your position, not to mention be aware that the way you phrase it makes you sound heartless.
You ASSUME the mothers right is paramount. You can certainly argue it should be but there is no ethical or logical reason to treat that as an absolute. As a society we make decisions alll the time about where the rights of one person or group and another have to be decided. And history is replete with examples of ASSUMED rights for one group denying another’s (whites over blacks, men over women, etc.).
By all means, if you feel strongly for your position, support it. But I encourage you to do so with logic and evidence, not absolute declarations of what you decided is the “truth”. People aren’t simply going to agree with you just because you say so.
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Yeah, no one is suggesting a woman get that. Like you have repeated, what a woman does with her body is her choice. There is nobody saying that a woman should do anything with her body she doesn’t want to. If she wants to run skyclad down times square pregnant she can do that, well, not legally but you know, she could.
You are really looking for drama where there is none needed. You are telling people to respect a woman’s autonomy and the people are trying to tell you that they already do.
Smarter people have tackled the “when does personhood begin” argument so I won’t, but if something can only survive by deriving nutrients from someone else’s body, that someone should not be required to provide them. This is another of those unfortunate realities where no outcome is ideal and someone’s rights have to come out on top because there is no possible compromise.
Meanwhile on this point:
“and no one is taking a man’s rights away by the pregnant person doing what they want
with their body”
I’m afraid you are incorrect. It’s incontrovertibly true that the fathers rights are being infringed. In the US at least a father doesn’t legally have a say in whether the child is carried to term or not (a position with which you clearly agree) but is held financially responsible regardless of whether he wants to be a father or not. Thus his rights of freedom and property are unquestionably being limited.
You can certainly make the case that such imposition is necessary or desirable for any number of reasons (which so far as a society is the current status quo), however it’s erroneous to ignore that such a legal inequality exists.
Keep in mind admitting it’s existence is not conceding that it’s wrong. Limitations on rights exist all over the place because there are simply situations in which two peoples rights can’t simultaneously exist.
For example one persons right to safety can trump another’s right to say, build a factory in their backyard. Or my right to live trumps another persons religious freedom if they want to practice ritual human sacrifice. Even small things such as noise ordinances restrict rights in favor of one group over another.
So it’s reasonable to argue that a woman should have the right to an abortion but a man should be required to provide financially (or to argue against that). It’s not reasonable or accurate to say that women in this situation don’t have more legal rights than men. The former is an opinion, the later is an objective fact.
@Mikael – See now that’s a pretty good argument.
But what about the fact that it was through the mothers choice that the fetus/baby was there in the first place. Unlike, say, a parasite which invades the host, the child is an expected outcome of a chosen action. Should that not also factor in to the decision? Assuming personhood (because otherwise it’s a moot point) one could argue the fetuses right to life would trump the temporary imposition on the mother.
What if it wasn’t a chosen action, or if they did consider the possibility and used protection which nevertheless failed? Too many possible scenarios and variables to consider there. There are going to be edge cases for which your argument would not apply, which itself would already be case of someone else getting to decide what the woman may or may not do.
And just to clarify, I do think the “personhood” argument has it’s place too, there obviously is a point at which the fetus is just a lump of cells and a point at which it is a human, I just don’t feel qualified to determine where those points are. But my above argument does apply to the lump of cells stage.
Like I do feel abortion after a certain point in the pregnancy is no longer alright, though I couldn’t tell you at what point that should be.
I think that after the fiftieth trimester, it might be a little too late. 😀
It’s getting difficult to find where to respond since this discussion has gone on for so long now! lol
There are so many valid arguments here. Yes, at one point the child is merely cellular mass, but one can also argue that, that the moment of conception that one of the parents may feel differently. Scientifically speaking, not so much. I’m sure Todd would have thought Amanda was his precious baby the moment he figured out there was something growing inside Andi. Maybe Andi didn’t feel the same and didn’t even consider it a child until much, much later.
Abortion is such a touchy, tricky subject with a lot of grey areas. Pregnancy in general is the same. It’d be so simple if it was all black and white. Some argue conception is when it becomes a child, some argue much, much later. There is no real right or wrong answer, because if you take feelings into account, then the whole matter gets flipped upside down and science is no longer part of it.
I just want to say again, I am thoroughly enjoying this conversation with you all!
I will say it is nice to have a long conversation here that isn’t a pure shitstorm.
On abortion, it is such a complicated hot button issue where everyone has feelings one way or another. No matter how you cut it, it is not a clean issue with easy answers. Whether you feel that they’re just a mass of cells, a surprise parasite, or a life growing everyone has a different answer.
I myself hate abortion but I realized a long time ago that my personal feelings don’t factor in because it’s not my body and since women have died in childbirth, admittedly a long time back when medicine wasn’t as good as it is now, it is not my place. Now, I may suggest if I get a woman pregnant to keep the baby, but I personally can’t make that decision for her. At the end of the day she has to make that final choice.
@Mikael – Absolutely when choice for the woman is taken out of the equation it changes the discussion completely (and of course that usually involves some pretty tragic circumstances for her as well).
However, in regards to birth control, its well known by now that its not 100% effective. When you choose to engage in an action and there is a risk of different outcomes, even if they are somewhat small, I find it difficult to buy that you should be able to violate the rights of another person to avoid the consequences (again assuming personhood and rights apply).
This avoidance of responsibility is one of the aspects of the pro-Choice position that I’ve always been somewhat uncomfortable with. Of course trying to legislate whether or not people can have sex is a non-starter, and obviously legislating abortion is a complicated issue already.
For my part I think the most effective thing we can do as a society is to improve conditions for mothers such that people are less inclined to choose or feel compelled by circumstances to choose abortion. Whatever the moral arguments for/against it, I certainly think that simply banning abortion won’t be an effective solution, and will come with some pretty negative consequences too.
Yea we are definitely in agreement about the last part at least, adoption should be the preferred outcome and I’m down with our society incentivizing it over the alternatives.
Not just adoption either, but more support for mothers as well. Paid leave, medical care, access to affordable/free child supplies etc. There are lots of things we can do to improve our response as a society towards mothers. And given they are necessary for our species to continue, id say thats important. Of course I’m talking specifically about the U.S. experience as many other countries already do some of those things.
No Lady, not intended as a gotcha moment. I am just presenting a situation that has happened where the guy’s rights might come into play where he is very obviously wronged. I think you’re seeing an enemy where there is none. And I have never said yay abortions for all. And since I have explained where I don’t think an abortion should be forced on a woman
I have no idea where you are coming up with me saying that a woman should get it forced on her.
I think she’s getting the, ‘not respecting the woman’s body’ bit from me. I don’t intend to come off that way though. All I’m really saying is we disregard the man’s feelings entirely and still force things upon him, whereas the woman has no such burden. She has the burn of carrying and birthing, but only if she chooses to do so. A man has the burden of having a child and paying for it regardless if he chooses to do so.
And that there is a clear winner and clear loser on either side, depending on whom is forced to do what. It sucks for one person one way or another.
Well that was… a lot of talk while I was away. Yikes!
Seems like par for the course: Try to talk about a thing tangentially related to abortion, get swept up in a back-and-forth about abortion where nobody’s listening to what is actually being said.
I got the original point, though: A man should not be FORCED to pay for a child he doesn’t want any part of. And we have a system set up that forces the father to pay, even when he was raped — even when the child was created through deception and/or sperm-theft — even when the guy isn’t actually the real father and DNA results prove that beyond any doubt.
I was outraged to hear of the guy who’s being forced to pay child support for a kid who isn’t even tangentially related to him, because the courts got the name wrong, and then said too bad because the guy took too long to protest the ruling. I’m sorry, how many people put priority on protesting something they know has nothing to do with them? If I got mail that said I was liable for child support, and I were a virgin or monogamously married, I wouldn’t pay it much mind either.
I don’t get why the kid being taken care of is tied to the father paying support, anyway. Our government (in the U.S.) is bound and determined to throw money every which way but sensibly, and yet in one case where it could be argued that the money is necessary — paying for a child who doesn’t have a dad in the picture — suddenly it gets tied up in trying to make sure a dad gets tied into it?
I mean, from a social standpoint, I can see forcing “dead-beat dads” — the guys who knock a girl up and run, the ones who want to breed but leave society to pick up the bill — to shoulder the burden, but if the guy can’t or won’t, the kid shouldn’t suffer for it.
And on those occasions where the biological father isn’t at fault (which usually, though not always, means the mom has committed some sort of crime against the father), there should be an absolute exemption from child support. With no effect on what the kid receives, though possibly a closer eye on what the mom is up to (making sure the money is spent on the kid, not on the mom).
And when I say “absolute exemption,” I mean the kind where you fill out a form one time (or the court does it for you), and you are cut loose from any ties with the kid. Not one where you have to fill out a form each year to prove the situation is still going on like that (like the “are you still old enough to qualify for our elder program?” nonsense).
No wonder she get’s that feeling, you’re talking about burning the hypothetical mother. 😉 Though maybe she’s made of wood.
I don’t think anyone will do anything about the father’s rights side. Maybe no one should I don’t know. All I know is the whole deal with birth, the politics, the complications, it’s a damned jungle and I am glad to be out of the game so I never will get sucked into it.
My phone’s auto correct often makes my life much harder lol
Pleasant (for me) if this is due to overhearing (rather than unrelated), and Amanda is finally getting a peek into the minds of the people with a grudge against her mother (for no previously-comprehensible reason).
I may be seeing something different than everyone else. Here Andi is moaning about having made a bad decision and how she’s not sure she can be a mom — and then the moment Amanda screams her reflex is apparently to protect and care for her.
Yeah, Andi is already a mom to her core.
Her being or not being a good mom was never the issue here though?
She was moaning about not being a mom way back when. Which is a fair estimate.
The thing that’s really really really bothering me about this lie is how unclear it is whether Patricia knew about it. Or if she participated in the deception? Because she doesn’t seem surprised in the conversation with Andi that the Smiths think Amanda is dead. But Andi isn’t putting any blame on her at the same time.
Todd and Andi were together for 8 years after the “death” of Amanda. Surely it would have come up. Even if they weren’t close to Patricia. Even if they only visited her, living in the same city, once or twice a year. A stray comment made about Amanda finding a happier place to live. An odd look when Todd says “since we lost the baby” Something.
And childbirth is traumatic, both physically and emotionally. Moreso given Andi’s circumstances. How quickly did that urn arrive? Because I find it super hard to believe Andi could afford to purchase a funerary urn and sneak it home to fill with ashes from her mother’s fireplace to give to the Smiths all shortly after having given birth at 16. So much doesn’t add up there.
That’s what I had said previously. The lack of a response when Andi told her at the table that her mother was remembering things wrong deeply confused me. Any normal human being would be shocked to hear that. She had zero reaction. And spot on with the urn. I don’t think Andi could come up with such a brilliant lie.
A lack of surprise can also stem from just being beaten down enough by circumstances that you don’t react to things like a normal person would. Andi’s mom certainly seems to have that quality — jaded.
I gotta say I relate to andi in allot of ways and I think that’s why I can’t hate her or be upset with her actions I was like her when I was young and stupid, hell I might not have done exactly what she did but my mistakes were pretty up there on the list. But now looking back just to only 6 years I have major regrets I can say I was f&%$#+* stupid for what I did but now I feel more mature I work on making those better choices I should’ve made before and honestly I don’t feel like who I am now would be anywhere near the same person as before.
My biggest problem with Andi isn’t so much what she did (though what she did was REALLY REALLY bad) but that she still doesn’t seem to have taken responsibility for it even these years later. People screw up, sometimes they screw up big time, but except for some truly egregious things they can also make amends for it, still seek redemption. (Of course many religious groups teach that a diety can/does grant redemption for any trangression provided the person is genuinely remorseful, but I’m going to side step that for now and focus on human redemption).
Andi didn’t actively seek out Todd to admit what she had done and try and make amends, it was blurted out by Amanda and she had to face it. She still has yet to fully admit to what she did to anyone including Amanda (though to be fair giving Amanda the full story might not be the healthiest thing right now, Ill grant that). She still hasn’t apologized to any of Todd’s family for what she did, and I don’t recall what kind of apology she offered him when he found out. At least she finally admitted to Mari that she did a horrible thing, I mean thats a start, but its a far cry from what she needs to be doing in my opinion at least. Maybe she will, maybe she won’t but its hard for me, for now, to sympathize with the character based on her continued selfish behavior.
Ignoring all the discussion about Amanda’s screaming, and the comments of what Andi is doing…
I’m really impressed by the face change in Mari – Panel 2 – Mari is feeling her own pain, and is in ‘you will understand that panic is not a viable excuse’ Panel 4 – Mari’s face has softened and shows compassion for Andi: the person who let her mourn for a child that wasn’t dead. Mari is a GOOD person ™
This is true. Her expression is one that seems to convey that she feels like maybe she judged Andi too quickly and that maybe Andi is actually sorry and trying to change. That being said, her previous anger wasn’t unwarranted. She had every right to be upset about the situation. I’m just glad that this means she can possibly move forward with Andi as a friend and mentor in motherhood. God knows Andi needs a good role model for parenting and someone she can turn to when she has questions she doesn’t know how to answer on her own.