I once found a wounded pidgeon on my balcony, I guess it flew against the window. I nurtured it back to health. Over a period of a month or so, I kept it in a cage and hand fed it, but eventually it grew restless and it was time to let it go. As soon as I opened the cage, that horny bastard flew into the nearest tree, jumped on another pidgeon and made the tree shake.
The indifference of the parent just staring at their phone in the first panel really hits home. Sure they could be recording the event but the expression says otherwise.
I’m a school bus driver and it’s genuinely depressing how often I see a parent waiting with their kid for the bus, face down in their phone instead of paying the slightest bit of attention to their child. I also find it depressing to see a person walking their dog while looking at their phone - not sure dogs actually give a shit but somehow they manage to look sad and neglected anyway in these situations.
Talking from the other side, it’s far harder than you think. Children can be incessant. They seem to be energy vampires. They suck the energy out of their parents, then funnel it right back, in the form of questions, chatter or desire for amusement. Maintaining the correct mindset is absolutely exhausting.
One of the hardest things is balancing being a “parent” with being “you”. If you try and just be a parent, you will burn out, and be a REALLY shitty parent. You need the balance between the two.
I don’t begrudge parents grabbing a few minutes of “me” time, when they can. Unfortunately, some don’t (or can’t) properly plan it into their lives. They then burn out and just grab whatever they can. This leads to the sort of behaviour you mentioned.
I like the way you explained not all the people on the phone are shitty parents! I think it’s a very nice and positive way of thinking about people. Just for the sake of balance I would like to add that shitty parents do exist, unfortunately. But I agree not all people that seem shitty at first glance are!
Agreed shitty parents exist. Some are just shitty, others are shitty because they’ve burnt themselves out.
I’ve definitely been the parent on the phone at the park, only because she’s finally playing, without wanting to include mummy and daddy in everything! Someone walking by would see a shitty parent. In fact, it’s a parent taking the short time they are engaged in independent play to recharge enough to be positively engaged for the rest of the evening.
I’ve noticed that I’ll give a show part way into its second season before dropping it if it’s annoying me. Sometimes a show fixes itself once it finds what it wants to be. Other times, it doubles down on the stupid. The Flash, RWBY, and the BSG remake were this way for me.
You know that you've reached adulthood the moment you realize that being a child was where it was at and all that acting super grown up you did as a child and teen was really, really wasted time.
Nah, you’re an adult when you realize other people’s expectations of adulthood don’t apply to you.
For me childhood was miserable, and being a financially independent adult with the freedom to pursue my own hobbies is where it’s really at. I could go to a hardware store and build my own friggin lightsaber right now. Or buy a faithful replica online. That’s just objectively the same, but better.
I just moved to Miami 1.5 weeks ago from the North East US, there’s a massive Cuban (and Hispanic in general, but mostly Cuban) population. I’m a guy and I’ve seen this other guy get off on my floor and he lives close to me (it’s a huge building), like once before. We get off and head the same way. I introduced myself and asked what his name was. He has a strong Hispanic accent and said something I didn’t understand at first, so I asked him to repeat it. It sounded like he said his name was Jenatin so I repeated it as I heard it and he just said “yeah” and we parted ways. It wasn’t until I got in my apartment that I realized he was probably saying Johnathan and I felt like a smacked ass 🤦♂️
And then it bleeds into the internet and communities for fans of the show/movie/game get overrun with people who just want to complain. Complaining gets more engagement than enjoying and the hate rises to the top. And I’m sitting here wondering again: Why don’t you just watch things you enjoy and then go lift weights and/or talk to someone (good friend or therapist)?
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