This short story by Anne Tyler is about the trials and tribulations of a mother and son relationship. Donny is a seemingly normal teenage boy who is just going through a rough patch. After being called to a meeting Daisy, his mother, learns that Donny 's grades are slipping and he is unresponsive in class. That 's where Cal comes in. Cal tries to help but ends up doing more damage than good. To help her teach us a lesson through her story she uses a specific point that shapes our opinion, an allusion that tell us that time is ticking, and a theme that shows us how important our parents are to who will be. The point of view in Tyler 's story is very important to the format. It is told in third person omniscient and this makes us, as readers, feel a …show more content…
The theme of "Teenage Wasteland" is all about parenting. It 's about how the mother and the father play a major part in how the child grows up. The parents are with the child more than anyone else and they are influenced by what they do. Even if it is true that people are born with inherent qualities they are still shaped, in some form or another, by the people who surround them on a day to day basis. We can see Daisy struggling with the fact that she knows she caused Donny to grow up unmotivated and lazy. She knew that she was the one who started the problem and had no one to blame but herself. "At night, Daisy lies awake and goes over Donny 's life. She is trying to figure out what went wrong, where they made their first mistake. Often, she finds herself blaming Cal, although she knows he didn 't begin it." If you want successful children you have to learn to manage time. You have to know how to spend time with each one and remind them how important they are to the world and how they each have separate amazing qualities that make them stand out. I believe that Daisy was a good mother before and after Amanda was born but eventually had a hard time handling both of them. She had good intentions