The Struggle and Difficulties of Parents and Children in Understanding Each Other

For many us, family is considered as a loving and comfortable institution, but there is no such thing as the “ideal” family. Most families struggle with one aspect or another and in Amy Tan’s short story Two Kinds, an excerpt from her novel The Joy Luck Club, she narrates the struggles and difficulties parents and children have understanding one another. In Tan’s Two Kinds she shows that good parenting and oversight can be mis experienced by the child as nonacceptance or hate, which leads to the mother-daughter conflict.

Parents want the best for their kids and sometimes parents push their children in ways that the children may resent. Children may fail to understand that this is not the parent wanting to change them, but is an effort to help them become the best versions of themselves. Children want to feel loved and accepted by their parents, and sometimes they don't understand that their parents push them out of love. Children often want to go against their parents' expectations in general, and parents can feel hurt by this when they know that all they want to do is help their children.

Suyuan, Jing-mei's mother, just wants to help her daughter to be as successful as she can be. She believes her daughter could 'be a prodigy, too' and become rich and famous (Tan 320). To Jing-mei's mother, America is the land where anything is possible. She has high hopes that her daughter will be a great success as a prodigy. She's not sure what her talents are , but knows her daughter possesses great ability, it's just finding the right one. First, Mrs. Woo tries to mold her daughter into a child actress, like Shirly Temple, but that doesn't work. Then she tries intellectual tests clipped from popular magazines. Jing-mei doesn't show interest in this area, either. Finally, Mrs. Woo hits upon what she thinks is perfect, Jing-mei will be a pianist. But Jing-Mei is a girl who has very little interest in becoming a child star of any kind.

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Although Jing-Mei goes along with her mother's dreams, she becomes annoyed and desperate for her mother to accept her for who she is. It is very common for chinese-american’s to push toward music because of the relatives in mathematics. A journal of mathematics by Song A. An, Gerald O. Kulm, Tingting Ma of Texas A&M University write, “This article presents an exploratory research investigating the integration of pop music and statistics lessons as an intervention to promote students’ attitudes and strengthen and extend their beliefs towards mathematics.

Thirty-five students randomly selected from 189 students in 6th grade in a primary school in Southeast China were provided a 90-minute mathematics lesson integrated with music composition activity taught by the first author. Pre-and post-questionnaires with closed-ended and open-ended questions on evaluating students’ attitude and belief toward mathematics were provided before and after the lesson. The results demonstrated the mathematics lesson integrated with music had a positive effect on students’ attitude and beliefs toward mathematics learning”. When her mother gives her the schedule for piano lessons, for example, Jing-Mei's frustration reaches its climax: Why don't you like me the way I am? I'm not a genius (Tan, 323). It is this conflict which begins the plot of the story and has a lasting effect on the mother/daughter relationship.

The story focuses on two themes: the American Dream and the conflict between mothers and daughters. Like many immigrants, Mrs. Woo believes in American Dream: With hard work and a little luck, Jing-mei can be anything that she chooses to be. Jing-mei will not have to undergo any of her mother's hardships before coming to America such as the terror and privations of war, the tragedy of losing children, and the difficulties of settling in a new culture. Mrs. Woo left behind everything she knew in china, even dealt with a horrible tragedy of her two twin baby girls death. With her mother's help, Jing-mei can be a prodigy. Prodigies are born with a talent that manifests itself under the proper guidance. Like Waverly Jong, chess genius.

Waverly receives only a few chess pointers from an old man in the park before she begins winning tournaments compared to Jing-mei, who is given extensive personal tutoring, yet she still played badly in the talent contest.

In addition, Jing-mei has no desire to work with her mother. She fights her every step of the way. 'I didn't have to do what my mother said anymore. I wasn't her slave. This wasn't China. I had listened to her before and looked at what happened. She was the stupid one,' she shuns her mother. Determined to prevent her mother's ambitions, Jing-mei neglects practicing the piano. It is only after her mother's death that Jing-mei begins to realize what her mother had wanted for her.

Jing-mei doesn’t play the piano again, not till her mother dies. At the end of the story Tan explores the theme of acceptance. By having Jing-mei play the piano in her parent’s house Tan is showing that regardless of what had happened when she was a young girl Jing-mei no longer has any resentment towards her mother. The two pieces she plays at the end also act as symbolism.

The first piece, ‘Pleading Child’ in many ways reflects how Jing-mei felt as a child. Pressurised by her mother to be something she wasn’t and wanting acceptance. While the second piece ‘Perfectly Contented’ is exactly that. That Jing-mei is content in her life. She may have had a childhood where she felt misunderstood but she also appears to have found acceptance. Jing-mei knows who she is. Jing-mei’s mother wanted the best for her daughter. Even though Jing-mei was on a different path. The hopes and aspirations that Jing-mei’s mother had for Jing-mei were really her own hopes and aspirations. She was living her life through Jing-mei because Jing-mei was the american dream.

'Pleading Child' and 'Perfectly Contented' have a double meaning in the story because they represent the changing feelings of Jing-Mei towards her mother. When she is a young child, for example, Jing-Mei can be characterized as a 'Pleading Child' because she fights against her mother's plans to turn her into a child prodigy. She does not want to sing or play the piano, she just wants her mother to accept her as she is. As Jing-Mei gets older, she becomes 'Perfectly Contented' because she realizes that her mother never intended to upset her or make her feel less. All she wanted was for Jing-Mei to be successful. As an adult, she realizes this when she looks at her piano and feels proud of herself, she has finally come to understand her mother's motivation. “And after i played them both a few times, i realized they were two halves of the same song” (Tan 328).

As an adult, she realizes and accepts that this conflict between herself and her mother is a normal part of the mother/daughter relationship. As such, 'Pleading Child' and 'Perfectly Contented' represent the two sides of the relationship between a mother and daughter. No family is perfect and every family goes through things with one another. This is why each family unit is unique. Amy Tans’ Two Kinds showed what it was like growing up for her being a child of a Chinese immigrant and how sometimes parents can have unrealistic expectations for children, but really all parents just want is the best for their kids.

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