Nature, Nurture and Time - Expository Essay by Pnina Grossman

Pnina Grossman

English Composition

3/23/15

Nature, Nurture and Time

            Parenting is arguably one of the most difficult jobs that exists. Besides for caring for a child’s physical needs of food and shelter, a parent is responsible for their child’s psychological well-being. A good parent must then take on the precarious task of creating a household that strikes a balance between allowing a child their individual freedoms and ensuring their safety. This balancing act, combined with the other authoritative roles that a parent must play, can often result in children feeling annoyed at or embarrassed by their parents, sometimes making the parent-child relationship a difficult one. Fortunately for adults, as children age, their relationship with their parents matures and they come to realize the ways that their parents unexpectedly effected them.

It is quite common for children to be ashamed of their parents or find them unbearable. In her essay, Shooting Dad, author Sarah Vowell describes the not uncommon experience of growing up in a house where her politics and interests were the polar opposite of her father’s and the strife that that caused. Vowell was interested in art while her father was an avid gunsmith, and politically, as Vowell points out, “I blamed Dad for nuclear proliferation and Contra aid. He believed that if I had my way, all the guns would be confiscated and it would take the commies about minutes to parachute in and assume control.” (Vowell, 155). Vowell found that her and her father could not agree on many things. Psychologist and parenting expert Carl Pickhardt points out that “[w]hat makes the vital distinction between approval and love hard for the child to understand is that approval and disapproval have powerful emotional connections -- both for the giver and the receiver,[1]” meaning that children will often take this disagreement as a sign of lack of love from their parents even if it is not intended as such.

Author Amy Tan also reflects on the gap between herself and her immigrant mother in her essay, Mother Tongue. While Tan did not grow up in Vowell’s self-described “house divided,” (Vowell, 152) she admits that “when I was growing up, my mother’s ‘limited’ English limited my perception of her. I was ashamed of her English. I believed that her English reflected the quality of what she had to say.” (Tan, 78) Looking back on their childhoods, both authors describe the gap that separated themselves from their respective parents when they were younger and had , at the time, seemed unbridgeable. Luckily, as the authors and many others have discovered, children eventually mature into adults and their relationship with their parents matures as well.

Vowell writes her essay looking back on her childhood and seeing how her views at the time were, unsurprisingly, childish. With this in mind, Vowell resolves that “[t]he older I get, the more I’m interested in becoming a better daughter” (Vowell, 155) and she makes an effort to share her father’s interests. She also does not take it personally when her father’s political views differ from her own, saying “[n]owadays, I giggle when Dad calls me on Election Day to cheerfully inform me that he has once again cancelled out my vote” (Vowell, 153). As a child, Vowell had seen her father disagreeing with her as an affront to her beliefs, but as she has grown and matured, she realizes that they do not have to agree on everything to respect and love each other.

Tan did not spend her childhood looking for her mother’s approval, but rather for society’s approval of her mother. Looking back, Tan realizes that she was wrong about thinking that her mother’s English was embarrassing. In fact, Tan can see that her “mother’s expressive command of English belies how much she actually understands” (Tan, 77). In fact, Tan comes to the realization that the people to be ashamed of are those who take people with “limited” English less seriously than those who speak standard English.  Tan even theorizes that the reason there are so few Asian American writers is because, matching her own experience in school, “there are other Asian American students whose English spoken in the home might also be described as ‘broken’ or ‘limited.’ And perhaps they also have teachers who are steering them away from writing and into math and science” (Tan, 80). As both Tan and Vowell experience, the seemingly impossible task of getting along with one’s parents becomes more possible with age. What’s more, the self-examining adult will often find hidden ways in which their parents influenced them.

            Vowell’s essay could have been left as an essay about the parent-child relationship. Instead, she takes it a step further to become an essay of self-discovery. Early on in her essay, Vowell hints to the similarities in temperaments between herself and her father. She describes her house saying “[w]hile the kitchen and the living room were well within the DMZ, the respective work spaces governed by my father and me were jealously guarded totalitarian states in which each of us declared ourselves dictator” (Vowell, 153). Already establishing a parallel between herself and her father, Vowell takes it even further when she goes on to describe the similar disorderly states of her father’s workshop and her room. While the parallel had existed all along, Vowell does not see it until she grows up and makes an effort to get over their differences and become close to her father. In doing so, she goes out to help he father shoot a cannon that he made, recording the process for her radio show. When some hikers watch them and comment on her radio equipment, she comes to a realization: “[m]y dad and I are the same person. We’re both smart-alecky loners with goofy projects and weird equipment” (Vowell, 157). Vowell realizes that many of her driving characteristics – her passion, quirks and much more – come from her father, even if they don’t share viewpoints on everything.

Tan’s essay includes a realization that is similar to Vowell’s. In some ways, her mother’s English made learning standard English more difficult for Tan. Tan recounts how her own English skills were never objectively bad, but compared to her math skills, they were lacking. She attributes this to the more subjective nature of language. Given this discrepancy, it would have been easy for Tan to go into a mathematics-based field, but, as Tan recounts “[f]ortunately, I happen to be rebellious in nature and enjoy the challenge of disproving assumptions about me” (Tan, 80). Tan not only went on to overcome this challenge, but realized that it was one that helped her with her writing. When she later wrote her books, she envisioned her mother as the reader and that led to her writing in a simple and effective way that was extremely effective and successful.

The challenges of parenting are many and are made more difficult by the fact that while children are young, having a meaningful relationship with them can be difficult. With their limited understanding of the world, children can mistake protection for disapproval and disapproval for lack of love. They can also crave peer acceptance to the point that they feel ashamed of the embarrassing things that their parents might do, whether justified or not. The important thing to remember when raising children is that this does not come from a place of hatred, but, rather, lack of understanding of the world. Eventually, a child learns to accept their parents, and go on to raise children of their own who will put them through what they put their own parents through.

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[1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/surviving-your-childs-adolescence/201103/adolescence-and-parental-approval