Teenage Wasteland by Anne Taylor

Mariola Says:


I think this is a short story that represents the relationship that some mothers can have with their child. In this story, Donny is a problem child and Daisy, her mother, cannot seem to figure out what his problem is. The story takes us through all the things that Daisy tries to do to help her child. The main ideas that you see in the story are lack of communication and lack of parental control. You see how Daisy at the end lets all the responsibilities of her child go to his tutor and how she does not get involve with her son’s life. After some time, she really does not know anything about her son and she got the surprise that Donny was expel from his school. When this problem came, she realized that her boy was never really doing better in school. But at the same time, she felt that she had to believe in her son and she really didn’t do anything about her son attitudes and problems. Here you can se the lack of parental control. Sometimes parental control is very important because it helps you nurture your child and help you get in control with your son’s life. Daisy let her son do whatever he wanted and most importantly she let him manipulate her as the time went on. At the end of the story, Donny disappeared from his house and never came back. I think he did this because he felt that he didn’t have the control of things now. When her mother got him to a public school and didn’t let him go to the tutor’s house, this made him mad and felt that he could not control his mother anymore. He felt that the resolution for the problem was to go away. 

    In my opinion I think that in this story we can see how the son and the mother both fail to do their job as a family. We see these kinds of problems every day and you see how families can suffer a lot. For me being a parent has many responsibilities, and Daisy didn’t do her best on it. When you have a child who has a lot of problem you have to stick to him until you can help him go through all the things he is dealing with. I like the story because it made me realize that in real life there are a lot of families that deal with that kind of situations and it helps you see another perspective of life.