Also am I the only one who finds the Peanuts to be depressing? I hated the way everyone treated Charlie Brown and I disliked everyone, including Charlie Brown. I have felt this way since I was 5.
From his phrasing that seems to be the parent's problem.
They would probably like the lighter, more fluff and less serious Peanuts better.
Try reading 'Andy Capp'.
They just don't allow such zaniness anymore.
Everyone has to be happy and PC.
Think Annie Potts in Ghostbusters: "Ghostbusters, waddya want?"
The genius of Peanuts is that it shows all of that: Happiness, sadness, depression, existential questions, and so many other things. They're emotions that we can identify with, because they may not be happy, but they're real things that we all experience, even children.
I don't know why you dislike they characters, that's your choice. But in answer to if I find Peanuts depressing: yes, I do. It's optimistic sometimes, but it's not happy, and it's not supposed to be.
Or maybe I'm just completely mad.
Edit: tvtropes suggests it's real, and it has a pleasant followup, although I'm not sure the followup fully offsets the initial effect.
Regarding Peanuts, you're not alone in finding the strip a bit off-putting. I tried many times to 'get it' like the advice booth, but between the janky art style and not quite finding the strip speak to me, it's not a personal classic. By comparison I got a lot more mileage out of The Far Side.
The secret sauce to making life insurance work is the time value of money. An insurance company takes in relatively small premiums from its customers, then invests that money over decades. The result is a death benefit that is considerably larger in nominal terms than the sum of moneys paid in.
This method has worked for life insurance for decades, even centuries. But central banks have upended it. Now some sovereign debt even has negative interest rates.
Of course, there are alternative investments, such as equities and real estate, still available. But they are riskier and far more volatile than bonds held to maturity.
Low interest rates together with low inflation make it very difficult for life insurance companies. Just another example of collateral damage from ZIRP.
But, yeah, most of the standard daily comic strips that have been recycling basically the same material for decades are pretty much there to satisfy a morning habit.
How can you dislike Charlie Brown?
Peanuts was a great comic, because it's so true-to-life, though I guess it does water things down some (humans are really much, much, much bigger assholes to each other IRL).
Well, yes, but it could be worse. Matt "Simpsons" Groening had really depressing strips ('Akbar and Jeff' and 'Life in Hell') in the early years in the free newspapers.