RReading Teenage Wasteland was sort of a terrifying and revealing experience. As a fairly well-adjusted and well-behaved teenager (or so I've been told), I don't think I've given my parents anywhere near as much trouble as Donny gives his. Still, I almost pity them in that I too am at the age where I follow very little of their advice and guidance. Reading Daisy’s account of Donny’s downfall makes me understand a little better where they are coming from in their constant stream of advice. The terrifying aspect of this story, I found was the fact that Daisy and her husband do almost nothing wrong as parents and yet Donny still ends up with a life seemingly gone to waste.
I truly believe that Donny's problems, however, can be attributed to his need for attention and how and from whom he seeks it. As a small child, he sought attention from his parents like most children. When he was very young, he actually got this attention from his mother. She seems to have indulged him enough, although his father probably worked very hard, as he does now, to support their family. Once Amanda was born, however, Daisy admits that Donny no longer got as much attention from his mother due to her preoccupation with his then baby sister Amanda. His father was still largely absent. It is unfortunate that Matt did not try to play a larger role in his son’s life. He might have even been able to turn Donny around if he had just spent some time with him while Daisy was busy with Amanda.
Based on the fact that he now attends a private school, Donny might have tried to regain his mother’s attention by working hard in school to impress her. Daisy, however, took little notice of his intelligence. She was probably thrilled that she could concentrate more on Amanda and did not need to worry about Donny’s schoolwork. When Donny realized that he would never again get the same attention from his mother, he turned to his friends for attention. Apparently the friends who would give it to him were from the wrong crowd. As he spends more time with these friends, they have a bad influence on him. He starts smoking, drinking, cutting class, and generally causing mischief. Daisy is so busy with Amanda that she does not notice Donny’s rapid decline.
When his misbehavior is brought to Daisy's attention she is at a loss for what to do about it. So she begins to do all she knows how to do—follows the advice of his principal and gives Donny attention again—watching him complete his homework assignments, however much stress it adds to her day. It takes Donny a while to adjust to having his mother’s attention once again. Slowly he starts to respond, and his grades improve slightly. Perhaps he is remembering his childhood when he craved his mother’s attention.
Donny shows some improvement but not enough for his school They request to have him psychologically tested. The conclusion of these tests is that he is simply “going through a difficult period in his life. They recommend that he get a tutor and suggest Cal. Now Donny has someone new to get attention from: Cal. Cal replaces Daisy as an attention source but is merely an addition to the attention Donny receives from his friends. Since Donny still hangs out with his friends, they continue to negatively influence him. While Cal is good for Donny in some ways such as improving Donny’s morale, he seems to waste the chance to really help Donny overcome his peers’ pressure and become a more dedicated student. Cal could even potentially influence Donny to attempt to repair his and his parents’ broken relationship. In the end, Cal simply further alienates Donny from his family and from Daisy.
The story is one of countless missed opportunities. Daisy misses the opportunity to help shape Donny into a good person when he was younger. Matt misses the opportunity to develop any kind of a relationship with his son. Daisy again misses the opportunity to turn Donny around when Donny starts seeing Cal. Cal misses the opportunity, if he wanted it in the first place, to change Donny’s life. And everyone misses the opportunity to save Donny from the wasted life he chose to run away from. At the end of the story, we learn that that the opportunity to save Amanda from a similar fate is slowly slipping away as she spends more and more time away from home. All in all, the characters in the story are given several chances to save each other and save themselves, and yet each chance they get, they waste. (787)
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Ally, I'm not sure how I overlooked this post. I even htink I remember reading it, so perhaps I was distracted before commenting, came back later, and accidentally moved on to the next person on my list, only to have my google reader think that I was already done with yours. Whatever.
What I remember from before is how you explained the reaction of a someone such as yourself, who has managed to get through most of adolescence more or less unscathed, to a story about a parent and child who for a variety of reasons simply can't connect to or understand each other. Because of their individual baggage, neither mother nor son is able to take advantage of any of what you call their abundant missed opportunities. Nicely said.
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