Explain SMBC — the wiki for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

obsession

2022-07-11 View on smbc-comics.com → 1 revision
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obsession
Votey panel for obsession
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Explanation

This comic satirizes the tendency to treat candy and junk food as a universal solution to minor problems, especially with children.

In the first panel, a child says "Daaad, I hurt my knee!" The father responds "I'm sorry! Do you want some candy?" and offers "Here, have some candy." A bystander intervenes: "Don't do that! He'll never learn to cope! The solution to all problems is not candy! Kids are basically animals! If you give them candy every time they're hurt, they'll associate pain with food. Just comfort them with love, not food. Just eating and eating."

In the second panel, the scene repeats identically — the child hurts his knee, the father offers sympathy — but now the bystander is gone. The father, having absorbed the lecture, pauses and then asks: "Do you know where the lady went?"

The joke is that the father completely failed to internalize the bystander's parenting advice. Rather than learning to comfort his child without candy, he simply wants the lecturing stranger to come back — presumably because he has no idea what else to do. The comic pokes fun at how unsolicited parenting advice, no matter how well-intentioned, often fails to change behavior because the parent never developed alternative coping strategies in the first place.

View History (1) Original Comic