e a negative influence on her. One method she used to push her to succeed was to test her: Every night after dinner, my mother and I would sit at the Formica kitchen table. She would present new tests, taking her examples from stories of amazing children she had read in Ripley's Believe It or Not, or Good Housekeeping, Reader's Digest, and a dozen other magazines she kept in a pile in our bathroom. (248)All this pressure towards succeeding eventually caused disappointment. The tone and diction seem to change as the further the story goes. Jing-mei's attitude towards her mother changes from wanting to succeed for her, to purposely failing for her. "And right then, I was determined to put a stop to her foolish pride" (251). Jing-mei also starts arguing more and more with her mother and shows a more rebellious side. All the pressure to be a prodigy causes Jing-mei to develop a low self-esteem. It was not the only disappointment my mother felt in me. In the years that followed, I failed her so many times, each time asserting my own will, my right to fall short of expectations. I didn't get straight As. I didn't become class president. I didn't get into Stanford. I dropped out of college. For unlike my mother, I did not believe I could be anything I wanted to be. I could only be me. (254)There are two different kinds of mothers addressed in each of these works. Emily's mom was going through a hard time, giving birth to Emily at a time when she was not ready to become a mother. She perhaps didn't show enough love and attention for Emily. She was too lenient and easy going. She didn't let her see what a better life she could have had. Most importantly, she did a poor job of preparing Emily for adulthood and beyond. At the end Olson writes, "Only help her to know-help make it so there is cause for her to know-that she is more than this dress on the ironing board, helpless before the iron" (246). Worst of all it appears th...
