Negative Relations
Between Parents and Children
Tiffany Liu
Seminar126G
Professor Theodros Chocos
March 31, 2013
Parents play an important role in children's lives. They are the major part to
maintain a family and the relationships between their children. Their roles could affect
the relationship between their children. Children could easily affected by their parents
because parents are their first instructor to teach them, which is the most significant part
of children growing; it is where they start to learn about life. But not all parents are
teaching in the same way. Parents always want their children to have a good future. In
some families, parents like to educate their children in very strict ways such as decide a
path for them, having high expectations on them, and control their lives. The parents
think they are helping children when they put pressure on them while children feel it is a
threat to them. When they feel that way, they start to resist. Some other parents
understand their children and try to let their children be the way they want. The
relationships between parents and children like that usually would work out better. A bad
relation in a family is based on parents being strict to their children and showing negative
demonstrations to them.
If parents show bad demonstration to their children, they might copy the same
thing from their parents or that could have negative effects on them. Parental divorce is
totally a bad demonstration showing to children because separation of parents is not what
they want to see. That could hurt them very badly inside. At the same time, the
conversation between parents and children would also slowly become less. The scholarly
journal “Adult Child-Parent Relatioships” by Diane N. Lye indicates that parent's divorce
is most affecting the relationship between parents and children. Lye states “parental
divorce greatly weakens adult children's relationships with their fathers and also tends to
weaken relationships with mothers” (79). Children at a young age are always feel
everything is perfect and see their parents as smart and powerful who is always there to
protect them. The effects of parents divorce would cause the children mental problem
such as feeling the lose of security, hatred toward others, and depressed. Their personality
would also change oddly and feel lose the love from their parents. At this time, the
relationships between each other obviously would become weaker because parents
divorce is a hurt to children. When they feel that way, they do not want to talk to their
parents. Parents should be responsible for their children. As parents, they need to know
how they should raise their children and should always concern about their position. This
is what parents should do in order to keep the good relationship in a family.
The parents who don’t know how to express their love to their children could
decrease the atmosphere in the family. In one of Russell C Leong’s stories, “Notes from a
Son to His Father”, he writes about the relationship between his father and him. His
father is a person who not only being strict, but also does not know how to express his
feeling to Leong. Because of feeling his father’s coldness, he always thinks his father is
showing no love to him. In this situation, the father and son would have problem to
communicate with each other. His father is good at cooking and good at doing something
with hands, but he is just not good at making communication with his son. Leong
describes his father that“at the door to [his] room, [his ] father is glittering in anger, a
knife poised in his hand. His face is pulsing pink, the once place cauliflower flesh tinged
with color and range and he is on one side of the room, about to throw the knife into
[him]. [He is] just standing there, cringing; how can [he] defend [himself] against this
violence'' (Leong 95). Leong’s father uses violence to communicate with Leong instead
of speaking to him. Because his father always showing this attitude to Leong, he feels
scare and that makes him want to avoid his father. In his father’s mind, he might thinks
that is right way to teach Leong, but Leong thinks that way would only give him pressure
because every time he sees his father he is with a nervous mood. When a son who wants
to avoid his father and his father who hardly to express his feeling, this kind of
relationship would slowly become stiff. Those parents who have the personalities like
Leong’s father would also scare their children. When the children are afraid of their
parents, they do not dare to speak or communicate with them because they think no
matter how good they are doing, their parents still have the same attitude toward them. So
instead of not to get scold from them, they would choose not talk to them. Mostly, the
change of family relationship is caused by the parents. As a father or mother, he or she
should talk to their children with a harmonious manner if they want build a good
relationship in the family.
Parents being strict would weaken the sentiment between them and their children.
In Amy Tan’s “Two Kinds”, Jing-mei Woo has the similar situation. Jing-mei Woo's
mother is originally come from China who uses the Eastern traditional education to teach
Jing-mei. As an Eastern parent, she has high expectations for her daughter, especially
when she believes that every one could be possible to become famous in America. From
then on, she reposes this dream on Jing-mei. In order to let Jing-mei to be a prodigy, her
mother makes her to take tests every night after dinner but she unfortunately fails. Her
mother feels upset and disappointment. However, she does not give up. One day she sees
a girl who can play piano very good on TV. She attracts by this young girl’s great piano
skill and her fame. At that moment, she decides to train Jing-mei to be same as that girl.
She forces her daughter to take the piano lessons. Jing-mei resists but her mother warns
her “only two kinds of daughters, those who are obedient and those who follow their own
mind! One kind of daughter can live in this house. Obedient daughter!” (84). Under her
mother’s control, she does not have choice to be which kind of daughter. Her mother
stops what she likes and keeps control of her to be her obedient daughter.
She
obviously wants to become whomever she wants and that is the ordinary girl. As far as
the prodigy side of her, she is not interested in it at all. In the beginning she already says
to herself that “I won’t let her change me, I promised myself. I won’t be what I’m not”
(79) and she still insist on this belief no matter how her mother changes her. Because of
her mother's strict education toward Jing-mei, she changes herself negatively. Jing-mei
becomes rebellious that she attempts to fail many things on purpose such as the failing on
the talent show, getting low grade in school, and drops out of college. Their relationship
become worse and worse. The relationship never gets fixed until the moment when her
mother dies. Parents educating their children in strict ways can make their children
successful but that would cause to weaken the relations.
No matter what kind of role the parents play, it would have good effect or bad
effect on their children. It would be a good effect to children if the parents understand
and concern about their children, especially when they concern on whether their children
is growing healthily in mental and physical ways. It would be bad for children if parents
are being too strict to their children and showing negative demonstrations to them. If
parents want to maintain a good relationship in the family, they should first think about
how they act toward the children and make sure they should create good effects for their
children.
Bibliography
Lye, Diane N. "Annual Review of Sociology." Adult Child-Parent Relationships 22
(1996): 79-102. JSTOR. Web. 31 Mar. 2013.
Leong, Russell C. "Notes from a Son to His Father." (n.d.): 94-97. Print.
Tan, Amy. "Two Kinds." (n.d.): 76-86. Print.
White, E.B. "Once More to the Lake." (n.d.): 42-44. Print.