History ComicStrip / ForBetterOrForWorse

* EightiesHair: Elly averted these styles for the better part of a decade until in one arc in 1989, she got the idea to cut off her long straight hair, as Georgia had done. But when she actually went to get it done, one thing led to another and she ended up getting a body perm instead (from a hairdresser with an edgy '80s girl mullet). Elly was not happy with the result, but John claimed to like it (though it is possible he was just being kind or diplomatic), giving her second thoughts. Connie also liked the perm, but Elizabeth's frank (if unwelcome) comparison to the Bride of Frankenstein seemed to settle the issue. [[spoiler:Johnston drew Elly with some curl in her hair for about four months; she started drawing it straight again in September of that year and never gave her that look again.]]

* AnAesop: A September 1993 storyline focused on Michael and his friends joining a protest against a student bus fare hike. However, they're mostly doing it for fun, as they get to block rush hour traffic and shout slogans at the police. After it ends, John picks them up (angry at their involvement after seeing it on the news) and tells them what the bus fare hike is about; the 30% bus fare hike is a gradual raise for the next three years (something that the city voted in favor for last spring) and the new fares mean that someone could travel twice as far, meaning that the protest was pointless and detrimental. The lesson? Don't join a protest unless you know all the facts, and if you are going to do a protest, don't do it for fun.
* AesopAmnesia: The Pattersons never retain anything they learn, such as Elly's temporary bout of appreciating her husband after [[DramaBomb he and Phil nearly died on a camping trip]] GoneHorriblyWrong, or Michael realizing that "bad things don't just happen to ''other'' people".

* ArtisticLicenseLaw: When the Kelpfroths are revealed to be smokers, Lovey Salzman says that she can't evict them due to the paperwork. In reality, Ontario rental laws do allow termination for smokers, especially since there's a health risk to the two small children in the apartment.

* ArtisticLicenseHistory: According to Johnston, Mira and Wilf were married in a quick ceremony in Poland before getting on a boat to Canada- in the 1960's, when travel out of Poland was difficult and a plane would have been more likely used.

* AttemptedRape: Of Elizabeth, by a coworker, from which Anthony rescues her. Unfortunately (especially given the strip's by-then iconic reputation for nuanced realism) Johnson initially chose to use the situation solely as a device to give ''Anthony'' a BigDamnHeroes moment to kickstart their romance. Thus an immediate aftermath that focused, not on Elizabeth struggling with her trauma or even reporting the assault to the police, but Anthony seemingly taking advantage of her vulnerability to demand she wait for him to escape his horrible marriage. When the inevitable reader backlash erupted, Johnson hastily cobbled together a followup in which Howard the rapist is arrested and tried... in which the focus is almost solely on on Anthony's chivalrous support in Liz' time of need.

* BettyAndVeronica: Anthony (Betty) and Paul (Veronica) for Elizabeth (Archie).

* {{Bowdlerization}}: In the lead-up to Michael and Deanna's wedding, Deanna's mother threw one more massive hissy fit about Michael allowing Lawrence, an openly gay man, to be his best man. However, unlike the earlier Lawrence stories, an alternative storyline was also circulated to papers that deemed their readership too sensitive to the subject that changed the fight to being concerned with a flower arrangement. Notably, both strips used the same art, simply reworking dialog slightly to make both of them work - and in the censored version, Lawrence had provided the flower arrangement, hence he remained relevant.

* ChuckCunninghamSyndrome: With the size of the cast, it is perhaps inevitable that certain characters would be written out of the series. However, several simply vanished without an explanation, until rather contradictory prose accounts were written some years later. Iconic examples would be Connie's stepdaughters Molly and Gayle, who vanished without warning after two years of being the focal point of some drama. Averted with Howard, though: she ''tried'' doing this but reckoned without the fanbase who ''wanted'' to see him get his comeuppance.
** The most egregious example of this are Anne and her family, who had been neighbors to Elly since the strip began, and her 3 kids being the focus of many story arcs (most infamously her daughter Leah being born with 6 fingers on each hand) She all but vanished from the comic after she got a job and couldn't babysit April for Elly anymore, and her kids never appeared again.

* DaddysGirl: Elizabeth to John, especially when she was little.

* DisposableFiance: Perry, Deanna's unseen first fiancé is a classic Bland Perfection example: he's never seen in the strip, his only trait is that he's rich and successful and Mira practically arranged for him to marry Deanna. Naturally, Deanna dumps him without a thought after bonding with Michael.

* DisappearedDad: Lawrence's father wasn't shown in the comics for most of its run. At first readers likely assumed he was his mom's ex-husband Pete. It turned out this wasn't true however. His father came from Brazil, but went back there before he was born. Much later, this was expanded on. Lawrence revealed that he tracked his father down on finding out he was visiting the US, and they finally met. It turned out his parents had been in a very brief relationship when they both worked at a medical relief mission in Central America. While his parents had planned after this to meet up in Canada, his father never arrived. Lawrence learned he had two half-brothers from a later marriage his father had. Lawrence's father apologized for never contacting him or his mother, and it seemed they were going to build a relationship. However, he was not shown again or mentioned.

* FunWithFlushing: April flushed something, probably a toy boat, down the toilet when she was a toddler. It was the punchline of [[http://catalog.fborfw.com/indexid.php?q=2112&Submit=Search a strip]] where they define the word "goomby" or something similar (that's what April says upon flushing it; rhymes with "good-bye"). [[http://catalog.fborfw.com/indexid.php?q=2113&Submit=Search The following strip]] shows the father with a plunger, and eventually picking the commode up off the base, saying "Whoever called that thing a convenience never had small children!"
** Meredith as a toddler flushed the Naked Ned doll down the toilet, which becomes a Main/BrickJoke a few years later when Michael finds it after the family's toilet needs to be fixed (Robin clogged the toilet by flushing a sock down it)

* IdiotBall: Michael picked up a huge one when he left Deanna to get their two young children out of the apartment alone during a fire, while he rushed back up to his "writing room" to collect the laptop containing his freshly completed first novel. Even published writers who were fans of the strip criticized this. (Adding exponentially to the surreality, Johnston later admitted she was using the laptop in this story simply as an update for "paper manuscript" and thus hadn't considered backups, the fact that Mike had emailed his mother a copy, etc.)

* InformedAbility: Michael's writing "genius", when shown excerpts of his writing are generally regarded as cliché at best or junk at worst; Anthony's positive traits and suitability as a husband as related by everyone Elizabeth knows.

* InstantBookDeal: Michael, pretty much once he decides on this as a career.

* Malaproper: Came up from time to time when the kids were small children, such as Elizabeth saying "goof bumps" instead of "goose bumps"

* LowerClassLout: Quite a few in the supplementary materials: Fiona, Gordon's parents, Brad's father...

* MiseryLit: Michael's first book, ''Stone Season'' is this: LooselyBasedOnATrueStory from his college landlady about a young British woman who marries a Canadian solider right after [=WW2=] and ends up in an unhappy and abusive relationship in a failing remote farm, slaving away along with her children for years until he drinks himself to death. It's a smash hit in the strip, but many readers thought it was over the top.

* MommasBoy: Ted.
** Michael has some shades of this, especially when he let Elly edit ''Stone Season.''

* NoPeriodsPeriod: Despite both Elizabeth and April going through puberty, they are never shown getting their first periods or discussing anything related to menstruation.
** There is one strip where April and Liz are catching up after not having seen each other for a few months, and April, who's at a plausible age of menarche, mentions she "started my you-know-what".
* NotWantingKidsIsWeird: Much of the story of Thérèse and Anthony's marriage was communicated to readers via a week of New Year's party bathroom gossip, with a group of young women clucking over how awful Thérèse was for having a job and not wanting a baby. See also BabiesMakeEverythingBetter above.
* ObnoxiousInLaws: Mira Sobinski, Deanna's mother and Michael's mother in law is an annoying busybody who walks over everyone and bosses them around, to the point where Deanna's sister moved with her family clear across the country to Halifax and Deanna and Michael eloped (although they did later have a formal wedding). It wasn't until she berated the couple for having a small apartment ''while they had just had their second child and Deanna was recovering from a C-Section'' that her mild mattered husband Wilf told her to shut up and Michael kicked her out of the house, although she never really apologized or became nicer. The final straw was when she intentionally caused a ruckus with their downstairs neighbors, after complaining about their ceiling banging (which they were doing less frequently) After this arc she only made spordaic appearances in the strip, only doing mildly inconvienient things like giving Meredith and Robin too many stickers which they put all over themselves and the house, and giving Meredith, Robin, and Francie candy when their parents are trying to calm them down (they were excited about Elizabeth's wedding)

* SpeechbubblesInterruption

* StalkingIsLove: At least when Anthony does it!

** Thérèse.

** Career woman Thérèse does not want children, does not stay home after giving birth, and lets her ex-husband have full custody of her daughter, vs. Deanna getting pregnant by "planned accident" and leaving her career to start a sewing school.

* CanadaEh: The strip is technically set in Canada, where the author lives, though you might not realize it because CanadaDoesNotExist. The only time Johnston really played with it was when she had Michael go to post-secondary school in the mid-sized city London, Ontario, which is only about 300 kilometers west of Toronto, knowing that there would be people who would think that the boy was studying in the British city. Notably, one of her slip-ups had her portray milk being sold in [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk_bag plastic bags]] (which is only done in Ontario, Quebec, and parts of Minnesota and Wisconsin). She ended up getting an incredible number of letters over that.
** The supplementary materials do play up the setting and name various cities and provinces in the country, however.

* SentOffToWorkForRelatives: Michael is sent to live with his uncle Dan, John's brother-in-law, beginning Tuesday 27 June 1991. John grew up on a farm, so he believes his kids should have the same life experience. Michael is initially reluctant, but warms to the farm over the summer. Elizabeth is sent there beginning on Wednesday 17 July 1996. She starts out gloomy, but the place grows on her.

** Alternatively, there’s Elizabeth (Betty) and Thèrése (Veronica) for Anthony (Archie).

** Therese is considered to be an Evil All Along version by Johnston.

* DreadedKidsTable: In the final Christmas strip, April is made to sit in the kitchen with Francoise, Meredith and Robin despite her being in her late teens. It’s explicitly stated that she was sent to babysit.

** Thèrése is supposed to be one for Elizabeth due to wanting a career and being more sophisticated, but readers sympathized with her.

* {{Foil}}: In Anthony’s backstory, his mother Hanneke and stepmother Clarice behave a lot like Thèrése and Elizabeth. The former is a career woman from another culture (The Dutch model Hanneke and the French-Canadian Thèrése who works in finance), both hate housework and child rearing with a lack of support from their husbands and later become MissingMom to Anthony and Francoise. The latter is a woman who grew up in Milborough and has an "acceptable" job (Receptionist Clarice and elementary school teacher Elizabeth) and wants to be a wife and mother more than anything. Take a guess who’s considered to be the bad guy.

* GoodAdulteryBadAdultery: In a nutshell, the situation with Elizabeth, Anthony and Thèrése:
** When Anthony emotionally cheats on Thèrése with Elizabeth during his entire engagement and marriage and Elizabeth leads Eric, Paul and Warren on, it’s portrayed as StarcrossedLovers and romantic.
** When Thèrése cheats on Anthony with another man, it’s treated as a major betrayal and the reason why their marriage ended. On Elizabeth’s end, when Eric cheats and Paul breaks up their long distance relationship, they’re both shown to be the bad guys in the relationship and not deserving of Elizabeth.

** Supplementary material make this apply to ''Anthony''... with ''Therese''! They knew each other as kids (even younger than when Elizabeth met Anthony) thanks to their father's long-standing business ties.

** Francoise Caine in March of 2005.

** A lot of Therese’s behavior is exactly what you expect from someone who’s being forced into a life they don’t want: She was convinced to have a baby and be a wife in the suburbs, Anthony lied to her about being the primary caregiver in hopes she would be magically compelled to be a {{Housewife}} after the birth of their daughter, never got help for her PPD and was essentially a replacement for the woman her husband ''really'' loved. So it’s no surprise that she cheats on Anthony and walks away from it all.

* ThereAreNoTherapists: Despite multiple traumas faced by the cast (John and Phil nearly dying on a camping trip gone wrong, April nearly drowning, Elly watching her mother die and father’s physical health decline, Elizabeth’s sexual assault, Michael and his family losing their home in a fire, Franciose being abandoned by her mother), ''nobody'' is ever seen going to a therapist. The one exception is Therese in the supplemental stories going to therapy for her PPD and issues with Anthony and her parents, and she’s naturally in the wrong for it.

** Career woman Therese does not want children, does not stay home after giving birth, and lets her ex-husband have full custody of her daughter, vs. Deanna getting pregnant by "planned accident" and leaving her career to start a sewing school.

** Anthony and Thèrése’s wedding in August of 2003.

** Anthony's daughter Francoise is supposed to be 2 years old but looks and acts more like a 6-10 year old.

** Jeremy Jones’s father is a traveling musician and rarely around. This causes him to lash out at people, especially April.

* SentOffToWorkForRelatives: Michael is sent to live with his uncle Dan, John's brother-in-law, beginning Tuesday 27 June 1991. John grew up on a farm, so he believes her kids should have the same life experience. Michael is initially reluctant, but warms to the farm over the summer. Elizabeth is sent there beginning on Wednesday 17 July 1996. She starts out gloomy, but the place grows on her.

* SentOffToWorkForRelatives: Michael is sent to live with his uncle Dan, Ellie's brother, beginning Tuesday 27 June 1991. Ellie grew up on a farm, so she believes her kids should have the same life experience. Michael is initially reluctant, but warms to the farm over the summer. Elizabeth is sent there beginning on Wednesday 17 July 1996. She starts out gloomy, but the place grows on her.

BrickJoke:

* CerebusRetcon: In Anthony’s early appearances as a teenager, he’s shown to be a cheerful and happy guy, if rather dorky in contrast to the rather insecure Elizabeth. But years later in his online biography, he’s shown to be a more angsty and miserable person as opposed to a more upbeat and confident Elizabeth.

* ArmorPiercingResponse: When Elly is venting about her latest body issues to Anne, she tells if he can lose ten pounds and reduce her thighs, then she’ll be happy. Anne responds with "Face it, El…you’ll never be happy."

* JerkassHasAPoint: Patterson Family Enemy Number One [[StrawFeminist Thérèse]] would be a lot less sympathetic for jealously accusing her husband of still neglecting her because he's obsessed with another woman...were those "suspicions" not ''completely accurate''.

** While she went WAY too far by banging pots and pans and then starting a fight with the Kelpfroths, Mira was right about them going too far with their ceiling banging when they lived below a family with 2 small children (and it's implied to have caused damage to the ceiling)