However, “Teenage Wasteland” is not being solely concerned with how the story’s main characters deal with their psychological insecurities, but also with what accounted for their inability to effectively address these insecurities. Despite the fact that, throughout story’s entirety, Cal is being presented to us as “progressive” educator, who seriously believed that endowing Donny with strongly defined sense of self-respect could have helped Daisy’s son to straighten out his ways, it is namely due to the fact that Cal thought of himself being competent enough to act as Donny’s surrogate father, which had deprived the young man of the remains of his existential integrity.
Whereas, at the beginning of Tyler’s story, Donny is being described as somewhat undisciplined but absolutely normal kid, after having hanged out with Cal, he develops an uncanny depression: “He did his assignments, and he earned average grades, but he gathered no friends, joined no clubs. There was something exhausted and defeated about him” (Tyler 8). The same can be said about the character of Daisy, although to significantly lesser extent – despite the fact that she instinctively felt that there was something utterly wrong about Cal’s tutoring methods, she continued to rely upon him as someone who could help Donny improve his grades. And, there can only be one explanation to this – apparently, Cal had succeeded in convincing Daisy that he held a key to Donny’s psyche, while in fact he did not. In its turn, this caused Daisy to begin doubting her own value as a parent.
It appears that Miss Evans began to slowly realize this fact, which is why while talking to Daisy, she made it clear that Cal was simply not in position to act as Donny’s “representative”: “I always deal directly with parents. You are the parent,’ Miss Evans said, speaking very slowly and distinctly” (Tyler 5). There is plenty of indirect evidence in the story as to the fact that, while being one on one with Donny, Cal strived to instill the young man with the feeling of utter disrespect towards his own mother: “Lately, whatever she said about Cal was read as criticism. ‘You’re just feeling competitive’ he said. ‘And controlling” (Tyler 6). In its turn, such situation became possible due to Matt’s (Donny’s farther) inability to act as the responsible head of the household, because if it was not the case, he would never allow a grown up man, known for his taste for socializing with teenage boys, to even come close to Donny – not to mention anything else. It is not simply by an accident that Matt has been only briefly mentioned in the story – it is namely “fatherly absence”, on the part of Matt, which contributed the most towards the process of Donny developing his mental anxieties. Apparently, strong parental discipline had never been applied to Donny, throughout the course of his upbringing. And, to make things worse, Daisy had decided that it was appropriate to entrust her son’s tutoring to a Liberal whacko, who considered the notion of discipline being synonymous to the notion of “intolerance”.
Thus, psychological insecurities, which seem to affect just about every character in Tyler’s story, cannot be discussed as “thing in itself”, as self-appointed “experts on tolerance” such as Cal would like us to believe. In order for just about anyone to instantly get rid of depression, he or she must simply do a few push-ups – this is the greatest secret psychologists are trying to keep away from public. In order for a teenage boy to lose its taste for smoking cigarettes and drinking beer, his dad would simply need to smack him across the face a few times – had Matt done it, there might have been no need for Daisy to consider resorting to Cal’s “services”, in the first place.
The worst thing any parent can do, while trying to relieve its child’s mental anxieties, is taking him to psychologists (especially the “progressive” ones), who often get paid as much as $50 per hour for simply yapping away nonsense, while being directly interested in having “psychological treatment”, they offer to their patients, to be extended in time for as long as possible – apparently, psychologists like making “easy money” as much as everybody else. As it appears from the story, it was namely after Daisy had attended “conference” with Donny’s first psychologist, that she began doubting her ability to act as a good mother: “That night, Daisy lay awake pondering the term “self-worth”. She had always been free with her praise… Was that his (Donny’s) trouble?” (Tyler 3). Therefore, it would be wrong to think of Daisy’s mental anxieties as having originated out of her “repressed sub-consciousness”, but rather out of her lack of education.
As a loving but somewhat naïve mother, Daisy had failed to recognize Cal’s “advices” as being essentially counter-productive, which is why she continued to supply jeans-wearing “tutor” with her hard-earned money, even while being faced with objective evidence as to the fact that Cal was causing Donny (and his other students) more harm than good: “One of Cal’s students had recently been knifed in a tavern. One had been shipped off to boarding school in midterm; two had been withdrawn by their parents” (Tyler 6). Thus, we cannot seriously consider the character of Daisy as being particularly complex, in the psychological sense of this word – all of her problems seem to be absolutely typical. As a middle-aged woman of limited intelligence, Daisy eventually became overwhelmed with parenting both: Donny and Amanda, especially given Matt’s apparent inability to act as responsible father. This is why she assumed that it was in Donny’s best interests to start seeing Cal on a regular basis. However, as it turned out at the end of “Teenage Wasteland”, her assumption was utterly wrong.
Bibliography
Tyler, Anne “Teenage Wasteland”. Faculty Weber. 2009. Web.