Sounds like she can’t handle Amanda’s questions and would feel guilty.
And oh,poor baby. Amanda. Patricia is a complicated matter. But you have your Mom’s love,your Dad,as well as Aunt and Uncle along with your Paternal Grandparents. Heck Selkie cares about you,even if she doesn’t always show it. You’re very much loved. You’re not a burden.
….but yeah,I think this’ll be a hang up when she hears Amanda’s voice. Ow.
As the dog said to the cabitt, “It will take only so long as one of them is in trouble that the other can rescue.” The rescued will realize what it took to reach out like that, … Love. And the rescuer will realize why they suddenly did that,… Love. And then they can become friends. But it will take an heroic, that is what will … ?set the hook? Make it so?…. Whatever.
Andrea’s Mom is the most selfish, horrible b*tch this comic has shown so far. To be so thoughtless of ANY adopted child, on their first Christmas, let alone her own abandoned grandchild, just shows how incredibly self-centered a person she is. Andrea SHOULD cut all ties with her. There are simply no excuses, no redemption for what she’s “asking” and “when”. If you need to talk that’s one thing, but expecting her to cast aside her abused child to cater to her petty desires, especially on a day like Christmas, give me a break.
Amen to that, I’ve never been Andi’s number one fan, but compared to her monster of a mother I see where she gets her issues. And watch, someone will STILL defend Andi’s mother
Well, for one thing in her defense, Pat didn’t call Andi, Andi is the one who keeps pushing for this when Patricia made her stance very clear way back.
While I am still hesitant to pass full judgment against Patricia… “I can’t deal with this, so drop your kid off and come to talk to me today because I’m needy” speaks to being a child, not an adult.
“I can’t deal with this right now, we need to talk, let’s do it while the kid’s at school” or the like would be far more reasonable, and less demanding and self-centered. Or “Will she be spending any time with her father alone? We could talk then.” Or a few other options. Not this.
I can’t speak on this point as a parent or grandparent, but I can speak as someone who has had similar issues. My S.O. was not someone my family approved of at first. I made it clear they wouldn’t have contact with me so long as they treated them poorly. Frankly I think Andi needs to do the same. If her mother wants nothing to do with Andi’s daughter then she wants nothing to do with Andi. Honestly kinda hope this is where that goes with that woman simply being shut out until she can grow up, and act like an adult.
This to me is the equivalent of a child pretending someone they don’t like doesn’t exist and doing the “oh is someone talking” thing. The fact she wants Andi to visit on christmas, without her daughter is just a massive low. This doesn’t strike me as being because she wants to talk or settle things, it strikes me as “I don’t want to be alone on christmas and everyone else has realized I’m an insufferable bitch and doesn’t want me around”
Agreed. How can anyone think it’s not asking much to have her just drop off her new daughter on their first Christmas together with no planning, to say *nothing* of all the other stuff. Boo on Patricia!
My own maternal unit is a bucket of fail on so many levels so I cut ties about 4 years ago (honestly don’t know if she’s aware I had a second child 2.5 years ago). Some parents do NOT deserve to be forgiven. Andi’s mom sounds a lot like mine- everything is about how she just can’t even, she’s the victim, she needs the emotional hand-holding because she just can’t. Cry Andi a river and float your sow-resembling tush away. Part of being a good parent is keeping toxic people away from your kids- that includes ones own progenitors or other family members if they are toxic, unkind, cruel, abusive physically or emotionally, etc. Its rough, some people will give you grief over it (happened to me at least) but if they can’t understand that you don’t want that cruelty (intentional or not) to fall on your kid, you don’t need them in your life either.
As someone who is also in the ‘mother is a bucket of fail’ camp, I agree whole hardheartedly. “You ether see Amanda and me together or you don’t see me at all.” End of discussion. She can ether suck it up or play the embittered victim card for the rest of her life, alone.
While I understand your argument, I totally disagree with an ultimatum. “You see BOTH of us, or you never see me again!”
She should see Amanda because she WANTS to see Amanda. Or because she feels she SHOULD see Amanda. But doing it because she’s FORCED TO? That will be obvious, Amanda will realize it. “Mom, why are we here? She doesn’t want to see me. Can we go now?”
If she doesn’t want to see Amanda, she doesn’t want to see her. Any force or coercion will turn out bad.
Doing it because she should and feels obligated is the same thing as an ultimatum. Saying I’ll only see you with Amanda is no different then her saying I will only see you without. Playing nice and not directly challenging there ultimatum isn’t going to resolve anything. It just lets Pat say stuff like ‘I’m not asking much.’
My sisters and I were estranged for a very long time. 12 years, in fact. I had no contact with them, or their children. I had no interest in being in those kids lives, because it meant being in my sisters lives (due to the abusive nature of the relationships I had with them).
Then my mother got sick, and I went to her. It put me in my sisters lives again. While I tried to avoid contact with them during it, I was forced into situations with my niece, and found I almost immediately wanted to be in her life. All of their lives. I reconciled with my sisters.
The point is that it was one meeting with my niece that made me want her in my life, and I in hers. Perhaps, Patricia, if forced into a meeting with Amanda, will feel that too.
‘just drop her off’….WTF? amanda is not some unwanted puppy you can drop off at the pound! the only way to answer pats ‘request’ is to cut the call, preferably after calling her some much deserved names….and then to hug the stuffing out of amanda. poor girl NEEDS it right now.
….however, even though we´re very unlikely to see it, i can´t help but wonder how pat thought that requested talk was going to go – merry christmas dear, how are you?….please refrain from mentioning ‘that thing’ in your answer.
honestly, how could pat EVER expect to settle things with a mother whose daughter she rejects. shows what kind of mom SHE is, really.
That unwanted puppy is exactly what Amanda has always been to Patricia. This mess started with Patricia pressuring Andi to give Amanda up for adoption (legitimately, Todd was simultaneously pressuring Andi to have and raise her, but that was oblivious, rather than actively selfish).
I wonder, going back eight years, how calculated Patricia was about this. Did she see Andi and Todd having their baby girl and becoming a solid triune with Amanda and the three of them growing up together, Leaving Patricia permanently in an outer ring in terms of relevance? It seems to me, that Amanda has always represented a direct threat to Patricia’s possession and control over Andi. It was bad enough that Todd came along, but that baby girl meant that Patricia was no longer the most important relationship Andi had. The very real danger was that in growing into the role of mate and mother with Todd and Amanda, Andi would outgrow Patricia, would realize that Parenthood isn’t martyrdom and a child doesn’t owe their parent for their lives.
A child doesn’t owe their parent anything. If Patricia changed course and sacrificed and worked to bring up Andi, she was only doing what she supposed to. She brought Andi into the world. She owed it to her child. Andi then became Patricia’s built in excuse and scapegoat for never achieving her own dreams. She never had to try and fail. She could point to Andi and say “life is so haaard. I gave it up for yooouuu.” And the. Close the deal with “YOU OWE ME. FOREVER.” In raising Amanda, Andi would realize that this is utter bullshit.
That puppy had to go. Eventually, due to the stress of that loss, so did the relationship with Todd. That suited Patricia just fine. Todd sticking around when Andi’s father did not implied and she was better than Patricia, more worthy or loveable. Can’t have that. Gotta keep Andi in her place.
Wow. Thank you for writing that, I’m impressed at how well you explained what is going on in Patricia’s head. I wouldn’t have realized, but what you say makes perfect sense.
Let me vent a bit of my inner-Scrooge here: “If I could work my will, every idiot Grandmother who suggests that their granddaughter should be abandoned would be boiled in her self-centeredness and buried with a stake of holly through whatever shriveled lump of jerky passes for her heart…”
I like that Patricia seems quite irredeemable here. Everything in the comic so far has been showing “bad” characters turning around, or having reasons for acting out, which is cool and shows the other side of various sorts of bullies.
But there really are human beings that are genuinely narcissistic assholes, and their loved ones have to deal with trying and never getting through to them, and I like that this character might be mirroring that.
Especially since this is already her second chance – at least!. Patricia refused to support Andi when Andi told her she was bringing Amanda back. She seems to have refused to meet Amanda since. And now she is rejecting Amanda again. Even if she has an easier time rejecting a child that may not seem quite real to her (and I am not approving of this AT ALL) Patricia is also rejecting Andi, her own daughter, in a core issue of her life. This is all in addition to whatever part Patricia played in the original decision to put Amanda up for adoption.
I can say for Andi, scarred or no, that she did TRY to give her mother another chance with seeing Amanda. She wants with her mom what she sees with the Smiths. And that hopeful dopiness she’s shown toward Todd and the Smiths was used in true form here. She truly wanted her mom to accept Amanda and it didn’t seem to be a selfish act on her part at all but seemingly all for the feelings of Amanda. Don’t really care for Andi much but bravo to her for this step.
I second this. I’ve said before I’m torn. It would be nice if they worked things out, but not very realistic. It rarely ever works that way with emotionally abusive people, and it hurts sometimes seeing things where estranged/abusive families magically fix just with communication and love.
What does she mean that SHE can’t handle it?
What is she so worried about?…
what do we know about Andi’s mother that would make her like this?
I think i do recall that they had a family motto about not leaving anyone behind?
Maybe she can’t handle that she did encourage leaving Amanda behind, and is having a full on crisis.
Plus, Dave never has characters change, they are all very static, and not one of them has a complex backstory, with painful choices made, or decisions brim filled with regret.
No, that is what you won’t find here. Dave’s characters are filled with depth, anguish, backstory, history, and redemption and joy. What was Selkie’s mom THINKING? IDK…Let us find out!! What was Patty thinking? IDK let us watch the story unwind and see!
Wait a minute, back when Patricia was first introduced she insisted that having to raise a baby as a teen would have just ruined Andi’s life and Andi asked if she was speaking from personal experience. If that’s true, that could explain why she is acting the way she is.
I still don’t think it excuses her attitude towards Amanda or the fact that she keeps trying to deny any involvement in Amanda being given up for adoption. She keeps trying to pretend that she had nothing to do with this, when she was the one who insisted that Andi give up Amanda and did nothing when Andi lied to Todd and his family.
(By the way, does anyone know how old Patricia is?)
Oh, I’m not saying she’s right, I’m not saying she’s doing the right thing. I’m just suggesting that Dave may reveal that she has reasons, right, wrong, or fudged-up, just reasons she might be like she is. If I was kicked out from my family, and had a kid, I might be desperate to hold on, even if it was evil. Desperation makes people do whack stuff, some really whack stuff.
It seemed vaguely referenced that Patricia didn’t want Andi to “throw her life away” with having a kid latched to her and Andi’s retort was something to the effect of “Speaking from experience, Ma?” So with that I would assume Patricia had Andi at a young age and was pulling the “I saved you so you owe me” card on her own daughter right up in this comic…
I’ve said my piece on Pat, and I’ve said my Peace on Pat.
Ima gonna talk about Mandy. OMG! She looks like even though Andi is standing up for her, to me it looks like either she’s hurting because Granny is rejecting her, or she’s doing what many kids do and reacting to the hurt they see in the ones they love. Her face in the last two or three pages really speaks to me that she is following the conversation, and reacting more to Andi’s hurt, than feels rejected by Pat -the she-kobold. (she-orc?, ogre?, dragon?, evil MLP?). And what about Grampa? If Pat rejects Mandy, and Andi rejects Pat, does this mean that Andi’s Dad can come out of the woodwork, now? Fud for thot, fud for trvth.
Yeah, I’m definitely seeing empathy. Not to say she won’t be hurt by the knowledge that her grandmother doesn’t want her, but… you know, she might run with that. Remember how quickly she lay into Todd when Todd attacked her mom? Maybe she’ll feel just the same about Grandma: “I don’t need a relative who acts like you; I just need my mom.”
I dunno, I think there was an implication that Pat raised Andi on her own as a teenage mother, which may be where a lot of her grief with Todd came from. He wasn’t there *at* the birth, he won’t be there later-type thing (obviously wouldn’t be true, but if it happened to her it could happen to her daughter). It’s possible Andi doesn’t know who her father is
Can I just how calm and grown Andi is being. She could and is in full right to yell at her mom but instead she is remaining diplomatic. I think it is a real good her not loosing her cool front of amanda. It shows her that angry reponces arent always the way.
I’m usually pretty good at separating fact from fiction when it comes to characters, so I can count on one hand (with fingers remaining) the number of fictional characters I get viscerally, physically, stomach-churning angry with.
Patricia has officially hit #1 on that list. It’s almost physically impossible for me to read her dialog without wanting to ball up my fist and punch the screen. I’m holding on because I want to see the conclusion of this, but it’s taking a chunk out of me emotionally.
Of course then I have to sit back and chuckle at myself; that a “sensible” middle-aged mother is getting so steamed over a web comic, but it’s a sign of good writing on Dave’s part that he’s created such “real” (if loathsome when it comes to Patricia) characters!
From what I know of psychology, when people are in full-on emotional-reaction-overwhelm mode, they can be astonishingly insensitive/uncaring about other people’s needs. It seems like Patricia may be in that mode all the time, or be triggered into it whenever Amanda is mentioned.
This is not an excuse, but may be part of the mechanism that makes her act so hatefully.
Now that she has treated Amanda so badly, it would be very hard for her to stop being “triggered” by any thought of Amanda – she’d have to see what she had been doing.
Compare and contrast with Andi, who is actually able to confront and accept that she has acted horribly to her own daughter. Andi can stay constructive most of the time even in the face of direct confrontation by angry people.
Andi must have grown _a lot_ in the years since she gave up Amanda. Patricia clearly has not.
Sorry to nitpick again but Andi has not treated Amanda badly, she’s been horrible to Todd and his family.
Giving a child up for adoption when should not be vilainized, the bad stuff that happened to her after is the fault and a failure of the system and her caretakers at that time.
I agree that giving up a child for adoption in itself is not bad nor something to be seen as negative. However that said I have to disagree that what she did to Amanda was negative and in it’s own respect horrible, she didn’t want to raise a child fine, however the father did, and rather then give Amanda to someone she knew would love and care for her decided to put her into the system. This was cruel both to Todd and his family, but even more so to Amanda. Especially since she knew Todd and presumably knew enough of that system to know how it could effect someone.
Actually, this is a known effect of human brains: Once we make a decision, all sorts of bits of our brain change to make it seem like the decision was justified and like we are a good person for making it. So even if you start out with a decision that seems like a 50/50, once you make it you’ll think it was more like 80/20 or something.
And we find ways to justify our “good person” status. So if you do something wrong to someone, you actually start thinking they deserved it. Because you wouldn’t do something wrong to an innocent person, right?
This is something I point out to other SJWs all the time when they try to use the same tactics as oppressors and try to justify it as being just desserts and showing oppressors what they look like. The fact that not only are they trying to justify doing exactly what they want people to stop doing, but they are trying to do it to people who already think that said actions are okay because the groups they do them to somehow deserve it, and they are therefore making the groups they’re trying to defend seem worse.
Often times to people that aren’t oppressive at all. But that’s part of the human mind as well to paint your enemy group with the same exact brush individually. That’s why that tactic is never a good idea, because when it is used on one bunch of people, they use it on the original group and so on.
We’ve been messed up ever since the caveman days. Many of the things we look at now as ridiculous and horrible is what we did just to survive and just kind of kept it.
I don’t think that would do any good. Probably Pat would just hang up the phone and Amanda would be hurt even more.
Plus, I can’t see Andi using her kid like that. Or rather, I don’t WANT to see her doing that, because that would be using your kid as a tool to get what you want.
No. No no no no no no no …. a million times, NO! This emotional blackmail won’t stop with “tomorrow.” Patricia will NEVER be ready to meet Amanda, there will always be an excuse, with Andi being pulled and manipulated and Amanda feeling left out and unwanted, always second fiddle to her grandmother’s demands of her mother.
Sever it now, Andi. Sever it now, walk away and never look back.
Or was pressured not to – certain churches, and certain families had a *huge* stigma on this back 30-40 years ago. (I assume some still do). If I remember what my folks found out (I was adopted as a baby) my mom went through Planned Parenthood’s adoption, but there’s such a stigma against going to anyone with those services, even now. Patricia may not have had access to those places on her own. This is me being charitable mind, and hoping it’s not just that Patricia is an actual sociopath.
Also to kind of add on to the whole “the speakerphone thing is a stretch,” I’m not sure if this was planned, but I think that while it’s a risky action, Andi knows her mom better than anyone. In the last comic, she tells her mom that they’re talking outside of the Smith’s house on speakerphone. This is a way of forcefully willing cooperation out of her mother to get her to see Amanda, as god forbid someone hears them, she has to keep her appearances.
Also, as someone with a hearing disability, it’s hard to hear anything when it’s snowing outside like that and the wind is blowing. It might be easier to get into the car, but she makes it very clear she’s not leaving Amanda and knowing her daughter’s issues might make it even more suspicious if she’s talking in the car.
Step 1. Hang up on the witch trying to extort a soul from you.
Step 2. Give Amanda a big hug.
Step 3. Say mom stuff to reassure her as much as possible.
Step 4. Enlist the Smith Family’s help to make her feel better with an abundance of love and fun.
Patricia thinks that keeping Andi “ruined her life”. (That’s how a teen pregnancy was described when and where I grew up, but if Andi and Amanda were both teen pregnancies and Amanda is now 8, Patricia must have been born in the 1970’s, about 20 years later than me, and things had changed nearly everywhere by then. So something isn’t quite clear.) She can forgive Andi for that, but not for making the same “mistake” by getting Amanda back – and she’ll only be more upset if Andi makes it work…
So I can understand Patricia – but what a fool and what a bitch! Raising a child is its own reward, but you must love each one, and you must love those they add to the family.
What year this is now is irrelevant. Comic started in 10. Amanda is 8, so she was born in 02. If Andi was 17 in 02 she was born in 85. If SHE was a teen pregnancy, that would make Patricia born in the late 60s. Hippie baby, maybe. Free love, and daddy didn’t stick around.
Honestly the comic’s setting is so out-of-sync with real time by this point that it may as well be considered sliding-scale instead of a hard and fast 2010.
Right, but setting it firmly in 2010 limits my options somewhat, regarding referential dialogue (like what books tv shows or movies people can talk about for example). Sliding-scale “perpetual now” doesn’t have that problem, but requires dancing around mentioning the year in dialogue, which is honestly easier.
While Patrica isn’t my favorite character, I have to wonder how long did it took her to get over Amanda. No, I’m not excusing her behavior but it’s not fair for her and Amanda to meet together when one of them or both aren’t emotionally stable.
Oh, I know this comment is late but why couldn’t Andi just told Amanda that she need some privacy to make a some phone call?
Interesting question — “I gotta step outside to make a phone call, so don’t worry; I’ll be right back afterwards” would’ve been a lot better for hiding what she was doing. On the other hand, Andi is absolute [i]suck[/i] at hiding things, apparently. (Probably the only reason “the baby died” [i]didn’t[/i] get found out is that one expects someone to be acting squirrelly about the topic for-prettymuch-ever.) She feels guilty about Amanda not getting to have both grandparents; she feels upset at having to confront her mom about this; she feels like she’s hiding something; she had a revelation about acceptance and family. So she hides what she’s doing. Badly.
I bet she doesn’t bluff well in cards, once one figures out what her “tells” are, too.
I’m finding it fascinating that almost everyone really hates Patricia. To me, her reaction is pretty understandable. No-one should be forced to accept anyone else.
Aside from that, I see worse issues and selfishness and whatnot around me in real life pretty often, so I guess I view that as a pretty normal thing. IMO, Patricia is just being a human, and humans often need time to deal with stuff before the happy event of them starting to think of others. She must be insecure as hell and with a ton of issues. Andi isn’t helping things by basically demanding that Patricia be ready for Amanda then and there. It seems to me that Andi is really helping to make Patricia look like a selfish bitch.
I think the clincher is the implication that Andi should drop the kid off on Christmas Day, “I don’t know, at her father’s,” and go see Patricia right away. Rather than, say, “I can’t handle this; when does she go back to school? We can talk then.” Or any other words that at least accounted for Andi wanting to spend available time with Amanda.
Logistics. Social logistics. They make the world go ’round and show that Patricia is trying to disbelieve Amanda out of existence at the moment — which is not a supportive thing. (And the lack of support for Andi’s choices and responsibility, now that Andi’s an adult parent, make for implications that Patricia has perhaps not shown herself to be supportive of “mistakes” in the past. Which leads into Andi not realizing in her gut that Todd’s parents would be supportive, and that Andi was not actually alone and about to be shoved into a “Mother” role that she didn’t have the experience or desire for.)
Anyway: Patricia would be being selfish if Andi had never had a kid till now, and simply adopted Amanda because she wanted to be a parent. The lack of respect for Andi’s emotional obligations to her daughter is, well, a lack of respect.
Sometimes, as a parent, you gotta put on the parent-pants and when your kid says they intend to do something… You take a breath, let it out, and go, “Gimme a minute.” Then you go, “I want to support you.” And, possibly, “Can I talk about the parts I’m concerned about, so they don’t hurt you?”
And sometimes you just gotta trust that your kid has enough sense and luck to get through it relatively unscathed.
Thanks for offering that perspective. To me, due to my cultural heritage (living in two European countries for my whole life where respect towards your children is NOT a thing, be they 12 or 20 or 50), all of this sounds very exotic. I’ve never ever even HEARD of anyone reacting in a ‘I want to support you’ fashion if they had emotional baggage relating to the issue. Emotional blackmail is the norm etc. So even with everyhing you wrote, Patricia’s reaction looks pretty normal to me and I would partially blame Andi for it for trying to force Patricia to accept Amanda then and there (or maybe the next day, which is still very little time to heal whatever emotional wounds Patricia is suffering from).
I don’t hate her, but this conversation goes a long way to explain what kind of upbringing she gave Andi. No doubt she had reasons. People always have reasons. Reasons aren’t excuses.
Welp.
Looks like someone isn’t going to meet the other grandma.
Sounds like she can’t handle Amanda’s questions and would feel guilty.
And oh,poor baby. Amanda. Patricia is a complicated matter. But you have your Mom’s love,your Dad,as well as Aunt and Uncle along with your Paternal Grandparents. Heck Selkie cares about you,even if she doesn’t always show it. You’re very much loved. You’re not a burden.
….but yeah,I think this’ll be a hang up when she hears Amanda’s voice. Ow.
This is good writing. Now we know why Andi is a little off sometimes- her mom is a crazy b****.
You made a good point about Selkie, too. I bet they’ll end up being friends, it’ll just take like ten years.
As the dog said to the cabitt, “It will take only so long as one of them is in trouble that the other can rescue.” The rescued will realize what it took to reach out like that, … Love. And the rescuer will realize why they suddenly did that,… Love. And then they can become friends. But it will take an heroic, that is what will … ?set the hook? Make it so?…. Whatever.
Awww noooooooooooo D:
No? Amanda just overheard Andi make it very clear that she’s not going to leave Amanda. That’s a very good thing to overhear.
She also just heard that her other grandma wants nothing whatsoever to do with her. That´s NOT a very good thing to overher.
She´ll also likely heard soon enough that said other grandma was a major part in her being given up for adoption to begin with.
Why should that matter to her, she hasn’t even met said other grandma, and has plenty of other family who do care.
She *would* have met that other grandma the next day, if said other grandma hadn´t refused.
And I assume that for someone with Amanda´s history, outright refusal by anyone who would technically be family is going to hurt.
Andrea’s Mom is the most selfish, horrible b*tch this comic has shown so far. To be so thoughtless of ANY adopted child, on their first Christmas, let alone her own abandoned grandchild, just shows how incredibly self-centered a person she is. Andrea SHOULD cut all ties with her. There are simply no excuses, no redemption for what she’s “asking” and “when”. If you need to talk that’s one thing, but expecting her to cast aside her abused child to cater to her petty desires, especially on a day like Christmas, give me a break.
Amen to that, I’ve never been Andi’s number one fan, but compared to her monster of a mother I see where she gets her issues. And watch, someone will STILL defend Andi’s mother
Well, for one thing in her defense, Pat didn’t call Andi, Andi is the one who keeps pushing for this when Patricia made her stance very clear way back.
And yet Pat has the nerve to complain about Andi not calling sooner, and all but demand she drop everything and have a chat with mommy.
Phones work both ways, mate, and you don’t get the parent without the minor child.
While I am still hesitant to pass full judgment against Patricia… “I can’t deal with this, so drop your kid off and come to talk to me today because I’m needy” speaks to being a child, not an adult.
“I can’t deal with this right now, we need to talk, let’s do it while the kid’s at school” or the like would be far more reasonable, and less demanding and self-centered. Or “Will she be spending any time with her father alone? We could talk then.” Or a few other options. Not this.
I can’t speak on this point as a parent or grandparent, but I can speak as someone who has had similar issues. My S.O. was not someone my family approved of at first. I made it clear they wouldn’t have contact with me so long as they treated them poorly. Frankly I think Andi needs to do the same. If her mother wants nothing to do with Andi’s daughter then she wants nothing to do with Andi. Honestly kinda hope this is where that goes with that woman simply being shut out until she can grow up, and act like an adult.
This to me is the equivalent of a child pretending someone they don’t like doesn’t exist and doing the “oh is someone talking” thing. The fact she wants Andi to visit on christmas, without her daughter is just a massive low. This doesn’t strike me as being because she wants to talk or settle things, it strikes me as “I don’t want to be alone on christmas and everyone else has realized I’m an insufferable bitch and doesn’t want me around”
“I don’t think I’m asking much” BWUH???
Agreed. How can anyone think it’s not asking much to have her just drop off her new daughter on their first Christmas together with no planning, to say *nothing* of all the other stuff. Boo on Patricia!
My own maternal unit is a bucket of fail on so many levels so I cut ties about 4 years ago (honestly don’t know if she’s aware I had a second child 2.5 years ago). Some parents do NOT deserve to be forgiven. Andi’s mom sounds a lot like mine- everything is about how she just can’t even, she’s the victim, she needs the emotional hand-holding because she just can’t. Cry Andi a river and float your sow-resembling tush away. Part of being a good parent is keeping toxic people away from your kids- that includes ones own progenitors or other family members if they are toxic, unkind, cruel, abusive physically or emotionally, etc. Its rough, some people will give you grief over it (happened to me at least) but if they can’t understand that you don’t want that cruelty (intentional or not) to fall on your kid, you don’t need them in your life either.
As someone who is also in the ‘mother is a bucket of fail’ camp, I agree whole hardheartedly. “You ether see Amanda and me together or you don’t see me at all.” End of discussion. She can ether suck it up or play the embittered victim card for the rest of her life, alone.
While I understand your argument, I totally disagree with an ultimatum. “You see BOTH of us, or you never see me again!”
She should see Amanda because she WANTS to see Amanda. Or because she feels she SHOULD see Amanda. But doing it because she’s FORCED TO? That will be obvious, Amanda will realize it. “Mom, why are we here? She doesn’t want to see me. Can we go now?”
If she doesn’t want to see Amanda, she doesn’t want to see her. Any force or coercion will turn out bad.
Just say, “Okay. Goodbye Ma”, and hang up.
Doing it because she should and feels obligated is the same thing as an ultimatum. Saying I’ll only see you with Amanda is no different then her saying I will only see you without. Playing nice and not directly challenging there ultimatum isn’t going to resolve anything. It just lets Pat say stuff like ‘I’m not asking much.’
My sisters and I were estranged for a very long time. 12 years, in fact. I had no contact with them, or their children. I had no interest in being in those kids lives, because it meant being in my sisters lives (due to the abusive nature of the relationships I had with them).
Then my mother got sick, and I went to her. It put me in my sisters lives again. While I tried to avoid contact with them during it, I was forced into situations with my niece, and found I almost immediately wanted to be in her life. All of their lives. I reconciled with my sisters.
The point is that it was one meeting with my niece that made me want her in my life, and I in hers. Perhaps, Patricia, if forced into a meeting with Amanda, will feel that too.
I can´t help but notice that Patricia has managed to achieve the unthinkable: She has made Andi seem likeable in comparison.
‘just drop her off’….WTF? amanda is not some unwanted puppy you can drop off at the pound! the only way to answer pats ‘request’ is to cut the call, preferably after calling her some much deserved names….and then to hug the stuffing out of amanda. poor girl NEEDS it right now.
….however, even though we´re very unlikely to see it, i can´t help but wonder how pat thought that requested talk was going to go – merry christmas dear, how are you?….please refrain from mentioning ‘that thing’ in your answer.
honestly, how could pat EVER expect to settle things with a mother whose daughter she rejects. shows what kind of mom SHE is, really.
That unwanted puppy is exactly what Amanda has always been to Patricia. This mess started with Patricia pressuring Andi to give Amanda up for adoption (legitimately, Todd was simultaneously pressuring Andi to have and raise her, but that was oblivious, rather than actively selfish).
I wonder, going back eight years, how calculated Patricia was about this. Did she see Andi and Todd having their baby girl and becoming a solid triune with Amanda and the three of them growing up together, Leaving Patricia permanently in an outer ring in terms of relevance? It seems to me, that Amanda has always represented a direct threat to Patricia’s possession and control over Andi. It was bad enough that Todd came along, but that baby girl meant that Patricia was no longer the most important relationship Andi had. The very real danger was that in growing into the role of mate and mother with Todd and Amanda, Andi would outgrow Patricia, would realize that Parenthood isn’t martyrdom and a child doesn’t owe their parent for their lives.
A child doesn’t owe their parent anything. If Patricia changed course and sacrificed and worked to bring up Andi, she was only doing what she supposed to. She brought Andi into the world. She owed it to her child. Andi then became Patricia’s built in excuse and scapegoat for never achieving her own dreams. She never had to try and fail. She could point to Andi and say “life is so haaard. I gave it up for yooouuu.” And the. Close the deal with “YOU OWE ME. FOREVER.” In raising Amanda, Andi would realize that this is utter bullshit.
That puppy had to go. Eventually, due to the stress of that loss, so did the relationship with Todd. That suited Patricia just fine. Todd sticking around when Andi’s father did not implied and she was better than Patricia, more worthy or loveable. Can’t have that. Gotta keep Andi in her place.
Yes, this. Indeed.
Wow. Thank you for writing that, I’m impressed at how well you explained what is going on in Patricia’s head. I wouldn’t have realized, but what you say makes perfect sense.
Let me vent a bit of my inner-Scrooge here: “If I could work my will, every idiot Grandmother who suggests that their granddaughter should be abandoned would be boiled in her self-centeredness and buried with a stake of holly through whatever shriveled lump of jerky passes for her heart…”
I like that Patricia seems quite irredeemable here. Everything in the comic so far has been showing “bad” characters turning around, or having reasons for acting out, which is cool and shows the other side of various sorts of bullies.
But there really are human beings that are genuinely narcissistic assholes, and their loved ones have to deal with trying and never getting through to them, and I like that this character might be mirroring that.
I think it is good to show not every one deserves second chance.
Especially since this is already her second chance – at least!. Patricia refused to support Andi when Andi told her she was bringing Amanda back. She seems to have refused to meet Amanda since. And now she is rejecting Amanda again. Even if she has an easier time rejecting a child that may not seem quite real to her (and I am not approving of this AT ALL) Patricia is also rejecting Andi, her own daughter, in a core issue of her life. This is all in addition to whatever part Patricia played in the original decision to put Amanda up for adoption.
I can say for Andi, scarred or no, that she did TRY to give her mother another chance with seeing Amanda. She wants with her mom what she sees with the Smiths. And that hopeful dopiness she’s shown toward Todd and the Smiths was used in true form here. She truly wanted her mom to accept Amanda and it didn’t seem to be a selfish act on her part at all but seemingly all for the feelings of Amanda. Don’t really care for Andi much but bravo to her for this step.
I second this. I’ve said before I’m torn. It would be nice if they worked things out, but not very realistic. It rarely ever works that way with emotionally abusive people, and it hurts sometimes seeing things where estranged/abusive families magically fix just with communication and love.
What does she mean that SHE can’t handle it?
What is she so worried about?…
what do we know about Andi’s mother that would make her like this?
I think i do recall that they had a family motto about not leaving anyone behind?
Maybe she can’t handle that she did encourage leaving Amanda behind, and is having a full on crisis.
…is it possible that Patricia lost a child, and having Andi get her child back is painful because it speaks to the things Patricia can’t have?
Or, conversely, perhaps Patricia was shunned by her parents, and has carried that with her.
I could begin thinking of other reasons if I sat on it long enough.
I love how well thought and open minded your comments always are. Thank you.
I’m a writer. Comes with the territory: If you can’t find a way to empathize with even asshole characters, you only write stereotypes.
Besides, it’s like seeing a wedding cake in the middle of the road and not making up a story for why it got there.
Plus, Dave never has characters change, they are all very static, and not one of them has a complex backstory, with painful choices made, or decisions brim filled with regret.
No, that is what you won’t find here. Dave’s characters are filled with depth, anguish, backstory, history, and redemption and joy. What was Selkie’s mom THINKING? IDK…Let us find out!! What was Patty thinking? IDK let us watch the story unwind and see!
Wait a minute, back when Patricia was first introduced she insisted that having to raise a baby as a teen would have just ruined Andi’s life and Andi asked if she was speaking from personal experience. If that’s true, that could explain why she is acting the way she is.
I still don’t think it excuses her attitude towards Amanda or the fact that she keeps trying to deny any involvement in Amanda being given up for adoption. She keeps trying to pretend that she had nothing to do with this, when she was the one who insisted that Andi give up Amanda and did nothing when Andi lied to Todd and his family.
(By the way, does anyone know how old Patricia is?)
Note, she never answered that question.
Her angry silence spoke volumes.
Oh, I’m not saying she’s right, I’m not saying she’s doing the right thing. I’m just suggesting that Dave may reveal that she has reasons, right, wrong, or fudged-up, just reasons she might be like she is. If I was kicked out from my family, and had a kid, I might be desperate to hold on, even if it was evil. Desperation makes people do whack stuff, some really whack stuff.
It seemed vaguely referenced that Patricia didn’t want Andi to “throw her life away” with having a kid latched to her and Andi’s retort was something to the effect of “Speaking from experience, Ma?” So with that I would assume Patricia had Andi at a young age and was pulling the “I saved you so you owe me” card on her own daughter right up in this comic…
I’ve said my piece on Pat, and I’ve said my Peace on Pat.
Ima gonna talk about Mandy. OMG! She looks like even though Andi is standing up for her, to me it looks like either she’s hurting because Granny is rejecting her, or she’s doing what many kids do and reacting to the hurt they see in the ones they love. Her face in the last two or three pages really speaks to me that she is following the conversation, and reacting more to Andi’s hurt, than feels rejected by Pat -the she-kobold. (she-orc?, ogre?, dragon?, evil MLP?). And what about Grampa? If Pat rejects Mandy, and Andi rejects Pat, does this mean that Andi’s Dad can come out of the woodwork, now? Fud for thot, fud for trvth.
Yeah, I’m definitely seeing empathy. Not to say she won’t be hurt by the knowledge that her grandmother doesn’t want her, but… you know, she might run with that. Remember how quickly she lay into Todd when Todd attacked her mom? Maybe she’ll feel just the same about Grandma: “I don’t need a relative who acts like you; I just need my mom.”
I dunno, I think there was an implication that Pat raised Andi on her own as a teenage mother, which may be where a lot of her grief with Todd came from. He wasn’t there *at* the birth, he won’t be there later-type thing (obviously wouldn’t be true, but if it happened to her it could happen to her daughter). It’s possible Andi doesn’t know who her father is
Can I just how calm and grown Andi is being. She could and is in full right to yell at her mom but instead she is remaining diplomatic. I think it is a real good her not loosing her cool front of amanda. It shows her that angry reponces arent always the way.
and, of course the fact that she didn’t KNOW Amanda was there shows that it wasn’t just a “front” move. Which makes it an even better example.
It really does
Yup. Mentioned that above, too.
Okay, Andi, your next statement is, “Gotta go, Ma. Little pitchers have big ears and need a hug.” Then you go hug the kid.
I’m usually pretty good at separating fact from fiction when it comes to characters, so I can count on one hand (with fingers remaining) the number of fictional characters I get viscerally, physically, stomach-churning angry with.
Patricia has officially hit #1 on that list. It’s almost physically impossible for me to read her dialog without wanting to ball up my fist and punch the screen. I’m holding on because I want to see the conclusion of this, but it’s taking a chunk out of me emotionally.
Of course then I have to sit back and chuckle at myself; that a “sensible” middle-aged mother is getting so steamed over a web comic, but it’s a sign of good writing on Dave’s part that he’s created such “real” (if loathsome when it comes to Patricia) characters!
From what I know of psychology, when people are in full-on emotional-reaction-overwhelm mode, they can be astonishingly insensitive/uncaring about other people’s needs. It seems like Patricia may be in that mode all the time, or be triggered into it whenever Amanda is mentioned.
This is not an excuse, but may be part of the mechanism that makes her act so hatefully.
Now that she has treated Amanda so badly, it would be very hard for her to stop being “triggered” by any thought of Amanda – she’d have to see what she had been doing.
Compare and contrast with Andi, who is actually able to confront and accept that she has acted horribly to her own daughter. Andi can stay constructive most of the time even in the face of direct confrontation by angry people.
Andi must have grown _a lot_ in the years since she gave up Amanda. Patricia clearly has not.
Sorry to nitpick again but Andi has not treated Amanda badly, she’s been horrible to Todd and his family.
Giving a child up for adoption when should not be vilainized, the bad stuff that happened to her after is the fault and a failure of the system and her caretakers at that time.
I agree that giving up a child for adoption in itself is not bad nor something to be seen as negative. However that said I have to disagree that what she did to Amanda was negative and in it’s own respect horrible, she didn’t want to raise a child fine, however the father did, and rather then give Amanda to someone she knew would love and care for her decided to put her into the system. This was cruel both to Todd and his family, but even more so to Amanda. Especially since she knew Todd and presumably knew enough of that system to know how it could effect someone.
Actually, this is a known effect of human brains: Once we make a decision, all sorts of bits of our brain change to make it seem like the decision was justified and like we are a good person for making it. So even if you start out with a decision that seems like a 50/50, once you make it you’ll think it was more like 80/20 or something.
And we find ways to justify our “good person” status. So if you do something wrong to someone, you actually start thinking they deserved it. Because you wouldn’t do something wrong to an innocent person, right?
This is something I point out to other SJWs all the time when they try to use the same tactics as oppressors and try to justify it as being just desserts and showing oppressors what they look like. The fact that not only are they trying to justify doing exactly what they want people to stop doing, but they are trying to do it to people who already think that said actions are okay because the groups they do them to somehow deserve it, and they are therefore making the groups they’re trying to defend seem worse.
Often times to people that aren’t oppressive at all. But that’s part of the human mind as well to paint your enemy group with the same exact brush individually. That’s why that tactic is never a good idea, because when it is used on one bunch of people, they use it on the original group and so on.
We are one heck of a messed-up species, aren’t we?
We’ve been messed up ever since the caveman days. Many of the things we look at now as ridiculous and horrible is what we did just to survive and just kind of kept it.
I think Andi should just hand Amanda the phone. Maybe a little “why don’t you want me grandma?” would guilt Pat into changing her mind.
I don’t think that would do any good. Probably Pat would just hang up the phone and Amanda would be hurt even more.
Plus, I can’t see Andi using her kid like that. Or rather, I don’t WANT to see her doing that, because that would be using your kid as a tool to get what you want.
I’m hoping for a simple “I have to go. My DAUGHTER needs me.” *click* *big hug*
Although we have seen how Andi learned that response now.
No. No no no no no no no …. a million times, NO! This emotional blackmail won’t stop with “tomorrow.” Patricia will NEVER be ready to meet Amanda, there will always be an excuse, with Andi being pulled and manipulated and Amanda feeling left out and unwanted, always second fiddle to her grandmother’s demands of her mother.
Sever it now, Andi. Sever it now, walk away and never look back.
Is anyone else starting to question why Patricia didn’t put Andy up for adoption when she was born?
I’m starting to question why Patricia had Andi in the first place.
because she thought she could handle it.
Or Patricia wished her OWN parents had told her to put Andi up for adoption and simply blames them?
Or was pressured not to – certain churches, and certain families had a *huge* stigma on this back 30-40 years ago. (I assume some still do). If I remember what my folks found out (I was adopted as a baby) my mom went through Planned Parenthood’s adoption, but there’s such a stigma against going to anyone with those services, even now. Patricia may not have had access to those places on her own. This is me being charitable mind, and hoping it’s not just that Patricia is an actual sociopath.
Dear Lord–the FEELS!
She heard that ‘not’ right? RIGHT?
Also to kind of add on to the whole “the speakerphone thing is a stretch,” I’m not sure if this was planned, but I think that while it’s a risky action, Andi knows her mom better than anyone. In the last comic, she tells her mom that they’re talking outside of the Smith’s house on speakerphone. This is a way of forcefully willing cooperation out of her mother to get her to see Amanda, as god forbid someone hears them, she has to keep her appearances.
Also, as someone with a hearing disability, it’s hard to hear anything when it’s snowing outside like that and the wind is blowing. It might be easier to get into the car, but she makes it very clear she’s not leaving Amanda and knowing her daughter’s issues might make it even more suspicious if she’s talking in the car.
The “Andi’s sister” misunderstanding has already been settled, but it would have been obvious by now, anyway.
Andi is clearly an only child. Because it’s unbelievable that anybody would want to bone Patricia more than once.
I don’t think they get the chance, because I’m pretty sure she eats the male afterwards.
Okay Andi, calm down. It’s Mom time.
Step 1. Hang up on the witch trying to extort a soul from you.
Step 2. Give Amanda a big hug.
Step 3. Say mom stuff to reassure her as much as possible.
Step 4. Enlist the Smith Family’s help to make her feel better with an abundance of love and fun.
I think a Goodbye FOREVER is due.
Patricia thinks that keeping Andi “ruined her life”. (That’s how a teen pregnancy was described when and where I grew up, but if Andi and Amanda were both teen pregnancies and Amanda is now 8, Patricia must have been born in the 1970’s, about 20 years later than me, and things had changed nearly everywhere by then. So something isn’t quite clear.) She can forgive Andi for that, but not for making the same “mistake” by getting Amanda back – and she’ll only be more upset if Andi makes it work…
So I can understand Patricia – but what a fool and what a bitch! Raising a child is its own reward, but you must love each one, and you must love those they add to the family.
What year this is now is irrelevant. Comic started in 10. Amanda is 8, so she was born in 02. If Andi was 17 in 02 she was born in 85. If SHE was a teen pregnancy, that would make Patricia born in the late 60s. Hippie baby, maybe. Free love, and daddy didn’t stick around.
Honestly the comic’s setting is so out-of-sync with real time by this point that it may as well be considered sliding-scale instead of a hard and fast 2010.
You’re not bound by anyone. You want to keep it in 2010, it stays in 2010 until you’re ready to move it to 2011.
Right, but setting it firmly in 2010 limits my options somewhat, regarding referential dialogue (like what books tv shows or movies people can talk about for example). Sliding-scale “perpetual now” doesn’t have that problem, but requires dancing around mentioning the year in dialogue, which is honestly easier.
Wow…. such negative emotions toward Patrica….
While Patrica isn’t my favorite character, I have to wonder how long did it took her to get over Amanda. No, I’m not excusing her behavior but it’s not fair for her and Amanda to meet together when one of them or both aren’t emotionally stable.
Oh, I know this comment is late but why couldn’t Andi just told Amanda that she need some privacy to make a some phone call?
Interesting question — “I gotta step outside to make a phone call, so don’t worry; I’ll be right back afterwards” would’ve been a lot better for hiding what she was doing. On the other hand, Andi is absolute [i]suck[/i] at hiding things, apparently. (Probably the only reason “the baby died” [i]didn’t[/i] get found out is that one expects someone to be acting squirrelly about the topic for-prettymuch-ever.) She feels guilty about Amanda not getting to have both grandparents; she feels upset at having to confront her mom about this; she feels like she’s hiding something; she had a revelation about acceptance and family. So she hides what she’s doing. Badly.
I bet she doesn’t bluff well in cards, once one figures out what her “tells” are, too.
Yes yes we know Patrica’s a selfish ***** of a mother
I’m finding it fascinating that almost everyone really hates Patricia. To me, her reaction is pretty understandable. No-one should be forced to accept anyone else.
Aside from that, I see worse issues and selfishness and whatnot around me in real life pretty often, so I guess I view that as a pretty normal thing. IMO, Patricia is just being a human, and humans often need time to deal with stuff before the happy event of them starting to think of others. She must be insecure as hell and with a ton of issues. Andi isn’t helping things by basically demanding that Patricia be ready for Amanda then and there. It seems to me that Andi is really helping to make Patricia look like a selfish bitch.
I think the clincher is the implication that Andi should drop the kid off on Christmas Day, “I don’t know, at her father’s,” and go see Patricia right away. Rather than, say, “I can’t handle this; when does she go back to school? We can talk then.” Or any other words that at least accounted for Andi wanting to spend available time with Amanda.
Logistics. Social logistics. They make the world go ’round and show that Patricia is trying to disbelieve Amanda out of existence at the moment — which is not a supportive thing. (And the lack of support for Andi’s choices and responsibility, now that Andi’s an adult parent, make for implications that Patricia has perhaps not shown herself to be supportive of “mistakes” in the past. Which leads into Andi not realizing in her gut that Todd’s parents would be supportive, and that Andi was not actually alone and about to be shoved into a “Mother” role that she didn’t have the experience or desire for.)
Anyway: Patricia would be being selfish if Andi had never had a kid till now, and simply adopted Amanda because she wanted to be a parent. The lack of respect for Andi’s emotional obligations to her daughter is, well, a lack of respect.
Sometimes, as a parent, you gotta put on the parent-pants and when your kid says they intend to do something… You take a breath, let it out, and go, “Gimme a minute.” Then you go, “I want to support you.” And, possibly, “Can I talk about the parts I’m concerned about, so they don’t hurt you?”
And sometimes you just gotta trust that your kid has enough sense and luck to get through it relatively unscathed.
Thanks for offering that perspective. To me, due to my cultural heritage (living in two European countries for my whole life where respect towards your children is NOT a thing, be they 12 or 20 or 50), all of this sounds very exotic. I’ve never ever even HEARD of anyone reacting in a ‘I want to support you’ fashion if they had emotional baggage relating to the issue. Emotional blackmail is the norm etc. So even with everyhing you wrote, Patricia’s reaction looks pretty normal to me and I would partially blame Andi for it for trying to force Patricia to accept Amanda then and there (or maybe the next day, which is still very little time to heal whatever emotional wounds Patricia is suffering from).
I don’t hate her, but this conversation goes a long way to explain what kind of upbringing she gave Andi. No doubt she had reasons. People always have reasons. Reasons aren’t excuses.
Yup, it does, and I’m sorry Andi had to go through it all.
But as for excuses – I never really understood the concept of why one would need an excuse for anything.