Anne Tyler Teenage Wasteland
A Teen's Descent into Delinquency Though most teenagers are hormonal, moody, and most of all temperamental, they are often misunderstood. Teenagers go through a series of changes and emotional states. More often than not, parents do not realize the repercussions their actions could have on their child. In the story, “Teenage Wasteland” by Anne Tyler, Donny is lackadaisical in his school work which is deleterious to his overall grade. Daisy, his mother, tries to salvage his grade by taking extreme measures. She goes from one bad idea to another in hopes of changing his faineant behavior. Even though daisy is trying to help, one cannot be either too lenient or too inexorable in doing so. Like all parents, daisy wants the best for her child.
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They not only have to take them everywhere, but they also have to teach them what is right and wrong. Most parents use the reward and punishment system, much like trainers do for their dogs. If they do something good, they get an item of interest. If they are disobedient, they get a punishment fitting to the crime. Daisy “had always been free with her praise….maybe she had gone too far.” She allowed her punishment system to be compromised by always giving praise. The system only works if punishment and reward are both met. It is shown by Donny’s drinking and lack of work ethic that he is pampered and doesn’t feel threatened by the punishment side. Daisy does not have confidence in her own parenting abilities. Thus, feels she cannot enforce the rules that will be necessary for Donny’s success. Her low self-esteem and lack of faith in herself are shown when she thinks of herself and her husband, as she sits in the principal’s office, “Failures, both of the kind of people who are always hurrying to catch up, missing the point of things that everyone else grasps at once.” Because Daisy feels like such a failure, she praises Donny so he’ll never feel that way towards his own life. Since Donny never had enforced rules, he ran away at the end when his mother realized that he needed rules. This sudden realization was brought on by Cal’s lackadaisical
They not only have to take them everywhere, but they also have to teach them what is right and wrong. Most parents use the reward and punishment system, much like trainers do for their dogs. If they do something good, they get an item of interest. If they are disobedient, they get a punishment fitting to the crime. Daisy “had always been free with her praise….maybe she had gone too far.” She allowed her punishment system to be compromised by always giving praise. The system only works if punishment and reward are both met. It is shown by Donny’s drinking and lack of work ethic that he is pampered and doesn’t feel threatened by the punishment side. Daisy does not have confidence in her own parenting abilities. Thus, feels she cannot enforce the rules that will be necessary for Donny’s success. Her low self-esteem and lack of faith in herself are shown when she thinks of herself and her husband, as she sits in the principal’s office, “Failures, both of the kind of people who are always hurrying to catch up, missing the point of things that everyone else grasps at once.” Because Daisy feels like such a failure, she praises Donny so he’ll never feel that way towards his own life. Since Donny never had enforced rules, he ran away at the end when his mother realized that he needed rules. This sudden realization was brought on by Cal’s lackadaisical