Man Waiting Until Parents Die Before Doing A Single Thing That Makes Him Happy

http://www.theonion.com/articles/man-waiting-until-parents-die-before-doing-a-singl,18805/,

Link to the article 

Parents have very high hopes for their children they want what is best for them, but sometimes they do not know what that is. Some young people have gotten the idea that in order to do good in their lives they have to lives the life’s their parents have lay out for them when what actually happens is that they grow bitter. With the use of hyperbole, sarcasm, and tone the onion is able to show how young people lose their own identity while trying to please their parents to an extreme.

     The onion article starts of as would any article stating the setting while having a tone that is very serious it talks about a man that for some reason does not want to enjoy live until his parents have passed away. The person in the spotlight, Brian Terlaine, seems to be a normal person at first,” thirty-seven-year-old bank employee”, but later the reader is surprise to read that he is eagerly waiting for his parents  to die to live a normal life. Terlaine is fully capable of doing anything he wants, but refuses to do so for fear of his parents to be disappointment in him. He wants to avoid having his parents “second-guess or disapprove of them”, “them” being the choices he makes, so the only solution he can think of is to wait until his parents are gone so they won’t be there to criticize his actions. This is an example of a hyperbole on how the author is exaggerating how this person would wait until their parents die to just simply avoid how they disapprove of his decisions; also how he won’t do a single thing that makes him happy is being extreme, but it is how the author gets to his point that some people take what their parents say to them to seriously. A normal person would listen to their parents but at then live out their own lives and make decisions that make them happy. Parents will be there even when their child has grown up to try and put in their two cents into their live, so what the author is saying is that can’t be avoided and if you don’t want to hear them pass judgment on then that person has to do whatever their parents say, well at least until they die.

     Not only does the author exaggerates about what to do to please parents, but also writes about how even though extreme Terlaine is the perfect son avoiding things that would displease his parents even he wants to do them. “In direct opposition to his own personal hopes and desires, Terlaine has talked himself out of such actions as skiing, buying a video-game system…”, it’s amusing on how all the things listed that he won’t do for  the sake of his parents approval are all things any normal teenage boy would do. This shows how young people really do not care what their parents say enough to stop doing things that they enjoy but their parents hate. Most teenagers would just do all this things like buy a video game system or going to a beach house without even thinking that what their parents might think. The author writes that Tertaine has dreams to live a live on his own “but has never actually live more than six miles from his parents”. It is part of any teenagers’ life to experiment with things and figure out what they like and as they grow up to grow into their own person, an independent individual. Later in the article the author is being sarcastic on how Terlaine “feels lucky his mother and father care enough about him to remain involve in his life”, when what the author actually means is that if Terlaine’s parents actually care about him they would not be so involve in their sons live, but let him actually let him live out his own life.

      The author writes to tell that teenagers don’t think about what their parents would say when they do things they enjoy, the author also writes that if a person lives out the live as told by their parents word for word then that person would without a doubt be very bitter. “Mom and Dad are just looking out for my best interest, said Terlaine, twisting his shirt into a tiny knot”, clearly Terlaine is very upset at the life he ended up with and very resentful at his parents as his what his parents think are his best interest aren’t making him happy. It is up to every person to make out their own lives as they are the ones that are going to live them out when they listen to anyone, even their parents on what to do with their lives they will end up not happy since they did get to do what they wanted. If a person ends up miserable, because they lived the life told by their parents they will hate their parents. Parents mostly want to see their child happy and sometimes that will mean their child doing something that they do not approve of so it’s up to a person to make the decision between doing what makes them happy or what makes their parents happy. At the end what will make parents happy is to see their child happy even if they do not approve what their child is doing.

    

     Parents are there to guide their children in the correct direction teaching them how to be good people of society, but parents should not see this as an opportunity to be in full control of their child’s life. Parents may have more experience than their child, but parents have to understand that their child has to learn how to live out their lives on their own even if that means making mistakes. In that same token children have to learn when is the right time to do exactly what is being said by their parents and when it is time to make their own chooses. If a person does not live out the life they want then they will be an old and bitter person who hates their lives and does not know how they got to that point in their lives when they are so resentful that they blame it on there parents.

HTML Hit Counter