Who's Miss Givings? Ida Know.

Today's strip could have been a good one because in Panel Three, Mike expressed genuine doubt that his great work might be appreciated by a mass audience. This is, at least to me, the first sign that he's shown any awareness of the possibility of failure. Lynn's apologists, of course, might point to his sudden reluctance to speak during the first celebration of the book as a sign that he had his doubts but I maintain my belief that he was just too stupid to prepare a speech and got caught flatfooted. Too bad Lynn ruined it by ripping off Bil Keane. Both she and the author of Family Circus draw the same patronizing and dubious conclusion from children's confusion about and misinterpretation of an unfamiliar word. They both regard it as a sign that the child in question is somehow either stupid or deliberately trying to be wrong. I remember reading a book about how young children learned to speaked and the authors used the Family Circus as an example of what not to do, of how to impede things. After all, Billy and Robin may or may not think that Miss Givings is a person but they do know when an adult thinks they're dumb. Having a passive-aggressive jackass jump down Jeffy or Meredith's throat every time they slip the odd clutch and make a grammatical error due to their not speaking long enough to get the rules down solid is a recipe to have that child dummying up. If a kid doesn't speak at all, they don't have to look at Daddy roll his eyes in despair at his 'imbecile' child.