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Lynn Johnston interview - continued
Johnston: Yes, and when I had Aaron, he left me, and I didn't know how to raise a child. And I wasn't close to my parents, and because I was too proud to go to my parents for help, I mistreated that little baby. I didn't want a baby. I wanted the stability that a family was supposed to represent. And a baby can't say, "Thanks, Mom, for feeding me and keeping me warm and dry even though I screamed my lungs out all night last night." And they want and they want and they want and they want. The only satisfaction you have is that they're fed and they're warm and they're safe and they're thriving, and they smile at you every once in a while. They're not going to thank you until they're 45. [laughter] I remember once when he was very unhappy and he was screaming and screaming, and I threw him out into a snow bank in his pajamas. This was in Ontario, and it was not warm here. And he put his hands against the window of the front door, pleading to be let in. And I was inside, screaming at him, "If you don't want to sleep all night, you can friggin' sleep outside!" And this was a teeny baby. And I don't know what it was - it was almost like at that moment, my guardian angel put his hand on my shoulder and said, "Open the door." The next morning, I called a very good friend of mine who was working at the hospital. I had also been doing some work for this hospital on a freelance basis. And I said to my friend, "I need some help. I don't known how to parent." Now, you say to yourself, "I'·m a mature adult - I should know how to parent." But raising a child is not like training a dog. [laughter] I was not a sensible mother. I just didn't know what I was supposed to do. I didn't know about time out. I didn't know to say, "OK, we're both out of control, let's have time out for five minutes and calm down." I was in a very unhappy situation. I was lonely, I was single, and I had all the elements set against me. I had no support. And it didn't help that I had a very irritable, difficult child. He's going to go into the theater. [laughter] He's a performer. He's witty. He could go into stand-up comedy. He's taken all his anger and turned it into something creative. Heintjes: Sounds like he got those traits honestly. Johnston: He did. Aaron and I will be joined at the hip until the day we die. We have loved and hated each other since the day he was born. He's very much a part of my heart. He's going to broadcasting college now, and he'll do fine. But he came into a world that did not welcome him. I was exactly like my mother in that sense. I just didn't know how to raise him. I had grown up with all the anger, the frustration, and I didn't know how to raise a child. Heintjes: Did you ever physically discipline Aaron? Johnston: I only hit him once. Hard. I felt myself becoming my mother - and I couldn't bear that! I did shout a lot, and I cried a lot. I didn't want to hit Aaron, because he was so small. I can remember my mother dragging my brother around by his arm, like a little monkey. That image was very clear in my memory, and I could never do something like that to my own child. That's one thing that's always served me well as an artist - I could draw that scene right now, because I can recall it so well. I don't forget things like that. Heintjes: Has your husband helped you shape your approach to child rearing? Johnston: Oh, yes. I was lucky enough to marry the dearest man in the whole world who, without a psychologist's papers, is able to observe a situation and ...I won't say analyze it, but see the dynamics and help me figure out why I'm doing something in a certain way. It's taken me a long time to become the person I am, for all the ugliness to fall away. The rotten flesh is gone, and the seed is there. I can touch that now. Heintjes: Contrast Aaron's upbringing with your daughter's, Kate. Johnston: When Kate was born, she was born into a world of joy and happiness and confidence. The difference between the children is night and day. She's happy, she's thriving, she's full of self-confidence. I tell her she's beautiful every day before I send her off to school. When I had her, I was happy, and when you're happy, you can look in the mirror and say, "You know, I'm not so bad." But when Aaron was born, it was different. My husband would say things to me like my mother did. "You're fat and ugly." And he treated me like garbage. His girlfriends would call him at home, and when I would pick up the phone, they would giggle at me. And I would look in the mirror then and say to myself, "If only I were pretty. If only I were thin." So I decided to get thin, and boy, did I get thin - I went down to 110 pounds. I was anorexic. I would go to bed and my stomach would be cramped. Heintjes: What cured you of the anorexia? Johnston: I think it was because a friend of mine did the same thing. We would call each other late at night and say, "I'm starving, are you starving? OK, don't eat anything and I won't, either." Heintjes: You were each other's codependent. Johnston: That's right. She was from Germany. Her name was Brunhilda. She ran away from home to come to Canada, and we became best friends. We went on this incredible diet where we both became skeletons. I remember looking at her at one point and saying, "You look terrible!" Here we were, trying to become the models we saw in magazines. We wanted the pointed hips and the angular elbows - we looked like Biafrans. When I first met Bernie, she was wonderful, sexy, beautiful ...every man's dream. She wasn't fat, but she was rounded, just a delicious-looking woman. Beautiful blue eyes, just perfect. And here she was after this diet, her back covered with bumps from her spine. Heintjes: I don't imagine that you were much better off. Johnston: No, I wasn't. But I looked at my friend Bernie and said, "This is it, we're killing ourselves." I quit dieting, and she didn't. Her period stopped, and she just got worse. Heintjes: What ultimately happened to her? Johnston: She married a doctor, and that was a crazy relationship. They moved back to Germany, where they split up, and I lost touch with her. I know her father owned a pub in Germany, and I have a crazy idea that she's working at that pub. I'd love to go there and see her again; she was a wonderful person. Heintjes: You are a very successful, much-admired woman. And yet, you suffered so much in your childhood and early adulthood. Since so much of a person's self-esteem is formed during this period, I wonder how you feel about yourself now. Johnston: I've always felt that life is a novel, and part of it is written for you, and part of it is written by you. It's up to you to write the ending, ultimately. I've had some tremendous adventures, good and bad. It's part of the novel, and a novel isn't interesting if it doesn't have some good and bad. And you don't know what good is if bad hasn't been a part of your life. Years ago, one person wrote to me and accused me of being an amateur psychologist. I wrote back to her and said, "Yes, I am an amateur psychologist." We all are. That's how we get through life. That's how we figure out our relationships with people. And I wrote to her, "As an amateur psychologist, I wonder what is upsetting you so much that you would be angered by a comic strip? What else in your life is upsetting you?" I'm sure she was miffed by that.
COMMENTARY FEATURES INTERVIEWS SKETCHBOOKS CLASSICS LINKS Copyright@1997-99
Hogan's Alley Magazine. All rights reserved. |
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Heintjes:
This was Doug, the man who gave you Aaron? 
