Pushy Parents
Living at home with your parents can be difficult; especially when you’re living with an overbearing and pushy parent like the parents in “Two Kinds” and A “Perfect Hotspot.” A child who has to deal with those types of issues grows up to resent their parents. Having resentment towards a parent can either motivate the child, or completely break them. Both of these stories have great examples of the outcome these situations can cause. “Two Kinds” and “A Perfect Hotspot” both demonstrate the negative effects an overbearing parent can have on a child and the resulting outcomes.
The authors of both works implement logos when giving each parent a history and background to explain their overbearing behavior. The father in “A Perfect Hotspot” says to his son “Dreamers like you, learn the hard way.” (139). The statement leads the reader to believe the father has had some broken dreams in his past. He knows how tough to fail and he pushes so hard because he does not want to have his sons dreams crushed like his were. Tonio’s father tries to force him into the family business because it’s an attainable goal compared to Tonio’s dreams of becoming a swimmer. The father is trying to keep his son’s head out of the clouds. In “Two Kinds” the mother is doing just the opposite keeping her daughter’s head in the clouds. The mother’s history originates in China where she “lost everything.”(405). She came to America with the belief that “… you could be anything you wanted to be in America.”(405). This piece from the mother’s background tells the reader the mother did not have many opportunities in her country so she is determined to give her daughter every opportunity she never had. Unfortunately, the mother is so concerned about opportunity that she will push anything onto her daughter if it means success. She does not set attainable goals for her daughter which in time discourages her daughter for not meeting her mother’s expectations. Both works of literature implement logos in an effective way to give the reader an understanding of the parents overbearing nature.
The parents in both stories have lost a former partner. This causes them to cling on tighter to what they have left, because they’ve experienced the pain of losing a loved one. The father in “A Perfect Hotspot” lost his wife and to cope he puts all of his time and effort into his failing ice cream truck business. To him the business is the only reminisce he has left of his wife and he cannot let go. He pushes Tonio so hard because he is desperate to keep the business alive. Similarly in “Two Kinds” the mother loses her whole family including her former spouse and dedicates her new life to her daughter. She wants so badly for her daughter to have it all that she pushes too hard because she lost it all. Subsequently, they both push their children away because they are so blinded by their own dream they do not realize the damage they’re doing. When children are pushed too hard, they start to push back.
Although both children in “A Perfect Hotspot” and “Two Kinds” disagree with their parents’ wishes, they rebel in contrasting ways. In “Two Kinds” the child lets her mother’s disappointment break her down. She states “And after seeing my mother’s disappointed face once again, something inside of me began to die.”(406). The little girl is pushed to such high expectations by her mother that after a good amount of failures she decides to give up. She feels like she’ll never be good enough anyway so why bother. In contrast, Tonio in “A Perfect Hotspot” uses swimming as an escape from his father and the pressure he puts on him to run the family business. He wants more than anything to prove his father wrong. While both children in these works are affected by the pressures of their parents, their mindsets and means of rebellion produce differentiating outcomes.
Ethos comes into play in terms of the difference in the race and gender between the characters of “Two Kinds”