Guest post by "Auryn Grigori" I will say, yeah, her mother is not doing the best job, but to be fair, even the horrible mistakes that she makes with Sarah are not done from a place of hatred, but a place of love. She is worried that Sarah being who she is is a dangerous thing, and to be fair, so far she hasn't been proven wrong. Sarah wears a dress at school, and the principal condones bullying behaviour towards Sarah, and is only stopped by Wendy threatening the Principal about her loan. Sarah joins a girl scout like club and she gets a rock chucked at her head. Not excuses for Wendy's behaviour at all, but:
In fact, while Clark is the "likeable" character, I find myself liking him less and less as the strip goes on. It's not that he is a bad person, but he is a thoughtless one, to say the least. His response to Wendy telling him about Sarah's injuries at the therapy session is that Wendy should get over herself because she is letting Sarah down. His worry is more that Sarah is unhappy, which is great except that WENDY has to worry about keeping her happy AND safe from harm. WENDY is the one that made it safe, at least at school, for Sarah to wear a dress, even if she doesn't know that Sarah is wearing a dress at school. WENDY is the one picking Sarah up from the hospital when she got a rock chucked at her head. Yes, you can argue that her progress is going slowly and that she is too hard on Sarah, but on the other hand, Clark, being the parent who doesn't have custody, can be the "understanding, fun" parent. Looking through the comic, I don't see one time where he has to patch Sarah up after a bully goes after her. I don't see him having sleepless nights at the thought that Sarah could possible get killed for being herself. I mean, he may, but in this comic, I have only seen Wendy doing these things. And I see people getting upset because Wendy hasn't magically made peace with Sarah being transgendered and magically started waving the rainbow flag for Sarah. She feels (accurately, if not rightly so) that Sarah's being herself is causing her harm and thus is trying to figure out how she can balance her child's happiness with her safety. Notice whenever Sarah is with Clark, it is always in a secluded area where everyone likes her, understands her, and everyone is kind to her. And it's great that she has that space where she is safe to be herself, and that Clark was able to make that happen for her. But Wendy is in the world where the Chucks and Pennys and Principal Victorias want to make life difficult and painful for anyone who is "different." As I said, not that it make all of Wendy's actions okay, because it doesn't. But keep in mind that it looks like it took Mars' mother a while, perhaps even years, for her to come around to Mars' being a boy. I would guess in the comic only months have passed since Wendy first appeared, and she has made great progress since then. Not 100%, and maybe not satisfactory progress to all, but so far, she is coming around faster than a lot of parents would.
