2011-04-10
Original: 2011-04-10 on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Caption (top): PROBLEM: IF YOU BRIBE KIDS INTO READING, THEY WON'T APPRECIATE ITS INTRINSIC VALUE.
Panel 1 — header banner: TYPICAL PARENTING SOLUTION
A balding man with glasses holds out a green book labeled MOBY-DICK to a child with red/orange hair (seen from behind).
Man: "You don't have to read this, but I hope you will because it's wonderful."
Panel 2 — header banner: SOCIOLOGIST PARENT'S SOLUTION
A woman with glasses leans down close to the red-haired child, hand on the child's shoulder.
Woman: "We just have to adjust parameters in the child's environment so it conceives of learning as the general optimum solution."
Panel 3 — header banner: POLITICIAN PARENT'S SOLUTION
A man in a suit holds out the green MOBY-DICK book to the red-haired child.
Man: "I'll give you 50 bucks if you appreciate the intrinsic value of this."
Votey:
A loosely-drawn black-and-white panel. A person with glasses speaks to another person.
Person with glasses: "What's with all the parenting jokes?"
Other person: "I'm pregnant!"
Panel 1 — header banner: TYPICAL PARENTING SOLUTION
A balding man with glasses holds out a green book labeled MOBY-DICK to a child with red/orange hair (seen from behind).
Man: "You don't have to read this, but I hope you will because it's wonderful."
Panel 2 — header banner: SOCIOLOGIST PARENT'S SOLUTION
A woman with glasses leans down close to the red-haired child, hand on the child's shoulder.
Woman: "We just have to adjust parameters in the child's environment so it conceives of learning as the general optimum solution."
Panel 3 — header banner: POLITICIAN PARENT'S SOLUTION
A man in a suit holds out the green MOBY-DICK book to the red-haired child.
Man: "I'll give you 50 bucks if you appreciate the intrinsic value of this."
Votey:
A loosely-drawn black-and-white panel. A person with glasses speaks to another person.
Person with glasses: "What's with all the parenting jokes?"
Other person: "I'm pregnant!"
Alt text
A three-panel SMBC comic with a top caption: "PROBLEM: IF YOU BRIBE KIDS INTO READING, THEY WON'T APPRECIATE ITS INTRINSIC VALUE." Each panel has a labeled banner showing a different parent type trying to get a red-haired child to read a copy of Moby-Dick. Panel 1, "Typical Parenting Solution": a bald bespectacled man offers the book, saying "You don't have to read this, but I hope you will because it's wonderful." Panel 2, "Sociologist Parent's Solution": a woman leans in and says, "We just have to adjust parameters in the child's environment so it conceives of learning as the general optimum solution." Panel 3, "Politician Parent's Solution": a suited man offers the book and says, "I'll give you 50 bucks if you appreciate the intrinsic value of this" — comically self-defeating, since bribery is the exact thing the caption warned against. Votey (a rough sketched bonus panel): one person asks "What's with all the parenting jokes?" and another replies "I'm pregnant!", revealing why the cartoonist has parenting on the brain.
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.