Teenage Wasteland

“From early October through November, at Mr. Lanham’s suggestion, Daisy checked Donny’s assignments every day. She sat next to him as he worked, trying to be encouraging, sagging inwardly as she saw the poor quality of everything he did.”

Daisy intervenes because the principal, an authority figure, tells her to intervene. Daisy frequently defers to others because she has little confidence in her own judgment. In addition, her decision to micromanage Donny’s homework shows that she practices intensive parenting. Considering that Donny stops doing the work as soon as she backs off, her actions fail to teach Donny about self-sufficiency and taking accountability for his own actions.

“Imagine, Daisy thought, how they must look to Mr. Lanham: an overweight housewife in a cotton dress and a too-tall, too-thin insurance agent with a baggy, frayed suit. Failures both of them—the kind of people who are always hurrying to catch up, missing the point of things that everyone else grasps at once. She wished she’d worn nylons instead of knee socks.”

The idea of the Cobles as shabby and not quite appropriately dressed shows that although they are middle-class, their place in the middle class feels precarious to Daisy. Daisy is articulating the Cobles’ inability to keep up with some idealized notion of the American family.

“When they stood to leave, Daisy held her stomach in and gave Mr. Lanham a firm, responsible handshake.”

Sucking in one’s stomach gives the appearance of having a trim waist. This action shows that Daisy believes in an idealized mother, one who has time both to manage children and household by herself and still be fit. The firm handshake is also a gesture designed to give the appearance of competence to Mr. Lanham. Daisy, in other words, is concerned about appearances and fails to question whether the ideal to which she aspires is realistic or even desirable.

“Donny had no serious emotional problems. He was merely going through a difficult period in his life. He required some academic help and a better sense of self-worth. For this reason, he was suggesting a man named Calvin Beadle, a tutor with considerable psychological training.”

This is the psychologist’s diagnosis. Donny’s subsequent troubles and Cal’s failure to help Donny right his life (at least according to the desires of his parents) is one of several instances of irony: Experts prove incapable of help, and the help they do offer hurts Donny and his family. 

“Had she really done all she could have? She longed—she ached—for a time machine. Given one more chance, she’d do it perfectly—hug him more, praise him more, or perhaps praise him less. Oh, what can you say...”

Daisy has a deep sense of uncertainty over the right course of action when it comes to parenting her son. Her belief that there is any such thing as “perfect” shows that she is still chasing after some idealized notion of the perfect mother. Her uncertainty reflects the mood of the early 1970s, when many ordinary people questioned traditional values in light of the cultural changes of the 1960s.

“At home, Donny didn’t act much different. He still seemed to have a low opinion of his parents. But Daisy supposed that was unavoidable—part of being fifteen. He said his parents were too ‘controlling’—a word that made Daisy give him a sudden look. He said they acted like wardens. On weekends, they enforced a curfew. And any time he went to a party, they always telephoned first to see if adults would be supervising. ‘For God’s sake!’ he said. ‘Don’t you trust me?’”

The use of that term “controlling” and Donny’s comparison between the Cobles and prison wardens shows that he feels empowered by Cal’s perspective on autonomy for teens. Daisy’s response to the use of this word also shows her awareness that Cal is undermining her parental authority by giving Donny the vocabulary to talk about his desire for more control over his own life.

“She saw Donny suddenly from a whole new angle; his pathetically poor posture, that slouch so forlorn that his shoulders seemed about to meet his chin…Oh, wasn’t it awful being young? She’d had a miserable adolescence herself and had always sworn no child of hers would ever be that unhappy.”

Daisy’s parenting is in part a reaction to the traditional, adult-centric parenting she experienced as a child. The shift from seeing Donny as rebellious to seeing him as a victim of low self-esteem comes after Cal intervenes; the powerful impact of Cal’s opinion exists because Daisy has little confidence in her own ability to parent. Daisy’s approach to parenting is the result of multiple influences, and she never quite settles on any one approach.

“They let Donny stay out later, they didn’t call ahead to see if the parties were supervised, and they were careful not to grill him about his evening. The tutor had set down so many rules! They were not allowed any questions at all about any aspect at school, nor were they to speak with his teachers. If a teacher had some complaint, she should phone Cal.”

By this point in the narrative, Cal has seized the authority of the Cobles when it comes to parenting Donny. This state of affairs has the practical impact of leaving Donny without boundaries or expectations. His parents’ trust in his ability to make good decisions for himself proves misguided, however. Shortly after this shift, the school expels Donny. The implication is that swinging from structure to complete lack of structure is not an effective approach to parenting for the Cobles.

“‘Yes,’ said the tutor, ‘but, you and I both know there’s more to life than mere grades, don’t we? I care about the whole child—his happiness, his self-esteem. The grades will come. Just give them time.’ When she hung up, it was Miss Evans she was angry at. What a narrow woman!”

The catchphrase “whole child” shows that Cal has been influenced by post-World War II parenting approaches, ones that emphasize the need to see the child as his own person and to pay attention to the wellbeing of the child, not just measures of external success such as good grades. In its extreme form, this approach is a form of permissive parenting; conservatives of the period readily blamed permissive parenting for the perceived ills of society during the 1960s and 1970s. Cal’s whole-child approach and his relative youth show that he likely embraces the rebellious culture of the 1960s.

“Loud music would be spilling from Cal’s windows. Once it was The Who, which Daisy recognized from the time that Donny had borrowed the album. ‘Teenage Wasteland,’ she said aloud, identifying the song, and Matt gave a short, dry laugh. ‘It certainly is,’ he said. He’d misunderstood; he thought she was commenting on the scene spread before them. In fact, she might have been. The players looked like hoodlums, even her son. Why, one of Cal’s students had recently been knifed in a tavern.”

This is another instance in which Daisy questions the wisdom of following Cal’s advice to give Donny more autonomy. Daisy’s efforts to engage with Cal’s viewpoint and to empathize with her son show that she is open to changing if it will help her son. Daisy is not a particularly perceptive person, however. She cannot name her discomfort with Cal’s approach until her husband does so. This is a scene in which Daisy is torn between two visions of what teens need to thrive, but her stance on this issue is shaped by the whims of the last person with whom she spoke. This scene also includes the primary allusion and source of the title of the story.

“Daisy wondered what she would say to him. She felt him looming closer and closer, bringing the brand-new situation that no one had prepared her to handle. What other place would take him? Could they enter him in public school? What were the rules?”

After Donny’s expulsion, Daisy lacks confidence and believes she has failed. Her indecisiveness exists because she cannot figure out the “rules” in this case. Her inability to light on the right solution for Donny highlights how difficult parenting is but also the bewilderment of parents and other former sources of authority as they confronted a society dramatically transformed by the 1960s.

“On the fifteenth of April, they entered Donny in a public school, and they stopped his tutoring sessions. Donny fought both decisions bitterly. Cal, surprisingly enough, did not object. He admitted he’d made no headway with Donny and said it was because Donny was emotionally disturbed. Donny went to his new school every morning, plodding off alone with his head down. 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.”

This is the sad end of the efforts of the adults in Donny’s life to help him thrive. Cal, rather than blaming himself, writes Donny off as an incurable case, while Daisy writes Donny off as a failure because he does not meet her expectations for what middle-class teenage life should look like. The implication is that there is something fundamentally wrong with both Cal and Daisy’s approaches. Their failures are part of what makes life in their neighborhood a teenage wasteland.

“But then they started talking about the number of kids who ran away every year. Hundreds, just in this city.”

This is one of the first references to the wider culture outside of the homes of Cal and the Cobles. That so many young people flee their families and neighborhood implies that there is something fundamentally wrong with American culture when it comes to young people, who are so disengaged that they break ties with their parents en masse.