I just realized... Calvin's mom had no job!

[Gaith]

How '80s is that?!

I mean, sure, you could say that being a mother is a full-time job, especially when you're Calvin's mother, and indeed it is, but there was, thankfully, only one of him. (FN1) So, what else did she do? Was she bored all the time? (FN2) Was she a novelist, who wrote books about herself as a superhero? (FN3) Was she secretly shtupping Susie's dad? (FN4)

Just what was she doing all day?

Inquiring minds want to know!



FOOTNOTES

1. Hobbes, re: Calvin and having more children: "You'd think she'd have learned her lesson!"





2. Calvin: "My life needs more pizzaz." Calvin's mom, vacuuming: "Tell me about it."






3. Calvin's dad: "Ooh, you should show me that costume sometime."





4. Ha! Made you look! Of course there's no textual basis for any part of Calvin's mom's non-Calvin life; even Uncle Max was Calvin's dad's brother.

 

[Trekker4747]

It's simply possible Calvin's father made enough money at his job to support his family so his mother didn't need a job and could pursue her own interests in the home, as well as tend to their bat-shit insane kid which probably earned them a tax credit or something, it's possible she did some "work" from home like being a novelist or something along those lines.

 

[Dream]

Plenty of women these days don't have a job while staying at home to take care of their children.

Nothing special about this.

 

[barnaclelapse]

Calvin's dad worked as a patent lawyer in what looked like a really nice office building. I would suspect he was pulling down enough bank to take care of the family.

His mom did have a job before Calvin was born though. I remember a strip where Calvin asks his dad about it.

 

[Christopher]

Plenty of women these days don't have a job while staying at home to take care of their children.

Nothing special about this.

Yup. There are still housewives today, and there are househusbands too.

And really, parenting Calvin would pretty much have to be a full-time job. Can you imagine him as a latchkey kid? Unsupervised, he would've burned the house down inside ten minutes.

Besides, the whole world of C&H was basically seen through Calvin's eyes. So his parents were just Mom and Dad, nothing more. They were mysterious, arbitrary figures who behaved in ways inexplicable to Calvin and had lives that only occasionally overlapped with his rather more mutable reality. So naturally they were pretty much ciphers.

 

[Gaith]

^ Uh, yeah, knew that... more of a random humor thread than anything else.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

She was a hooker.

This explains much about little Calvin.

 

[Trekker4747]

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

 

[scotpens]

We never knew what the hell this guy’s job was either.

 

[Brikar99]

...this is the creepiest thing I've seen all day!

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ Good thing it's not a real strip.

 

[Awesome Possum]

I still believe that Calvin is the Narrator of Fight Club.

Spoiler: Spoilers for an old movie, but it doesn't need to be spoiled

Hobbes is clearly Tyler Durden.

 

[Sephiroth]

I'm pretty sure Calvin's mom was doing the Family Circus mom

 

[Gaith]

I still believe that Calvin is the Narrator of Fight Club.

Spoiler: Spoilers for an old movie, but it doesn't need to be spoiled

Hobbes is clearly Tyler Durden.

Hobbes would never stoop to appear in a human form!

 

[Awesome Possum]

I still believe that Calvin is the Narrator of Fight Club.

Spoiler: Spoilers for an old movie, but it doesn't need to be spoiled

Hobbes is clearly Tyler Durden.

Hobbes would never stoop to appear in a human form!

It was the only way he could reach him. Calvin had been so beaten by the real world that he would never accept a talking tiger. Hobbes became Calvin's vision of the perfect person, then tried to bring down the system that tried to destroy Calvin's spirit.

 

[DBR]

That just makes me sad.

 

[The Boy Who Cried Worf]

...this is the creepiest thing I've seen all day!

Really, I find it kind of sad and poignant like a metaphor for Calvin becoming older and immersed in working and leaving behind the imaginary friend who was once his whole universe.

 

[Gaith]

Eh, it's using C&H to editorialize a certain point - which I'm totally cool with, it's just not about C&H itself per se.

Now this, OTOH...

​

 

[Trekker4747]

That just makes me sad.

Probably speaks a lot to the number of parents who put their children on Ritalin just for acting like, well, children.

Eh, it's using C&H to editorialize a certain point - which I'm totally cool with, it's just not about C&H itself per se.

Now this, OTOH...

​

Well, she grew up nice.