This Boy’s Life, a memoir by Tobbias Wolff, is a story about a young boy named Toby struggling through life because his parents were divorced. Living with his mother Rosemary, who wasn’t able to provide him with proper upbringing on her own. Toby owned a gun that his mothers partner named Roy, had given to him. Toby would look out of his bedroom window and point the gun at animals and innocent people walking by. He had this urge inside of him to shoot at people. One day, he was distracted by the sound of his mother opening his door which prevented him from lmost shooting at a Nun.
This scene reminds me of a scene in the movie “American Beauty”, Jack, who lacked communication with his parents, felt ignored and unimportant. The lack of communication with his parents made him feel useless, which led him to become frustrated and angry. He was trying to find any violent way to release his anger, by offering to rid his girlfriend of her father by offering to kill him. As time went by, Rosemary started dating a man named Dwight. They dated eachother for a couple of months and he eventually asked for her hand in marriage.
She considered asking her son for support. He gave her the encouragement but in reality he was very skeptical about the whole idea and he encouraged her in order to protect her feelings. During their marriage, they didn’t seem happy. Dwight was a bad tempered man. After a long day at work, he would bring all his stress and tension that was bottled up inside of him and realease all that anger on 13 year old Toby. Toby was an easy target because of the fact that his mother doesn’t come to his defense.
This led to behavioral problems with Toby. On weekends, Dwight would make Toby deliver newspapers, and he would keep every penny that Toby earned and worked so hard for. At school, Toby would get into many fights. When he would come home all bruised, Dwight would tell him stories about his young day when he used to beat up kids at school; This in a way encouraged Toby to keep fighting. This kind of influence that Dwight had on him led to a decline in Toby’s academic performance.
Many adolescent teenagers in today’s society are murdering, selling drugs, carrying dangerous weapons and eventually getting arrested. We turn on our television sets and hear shocking news about two teenage boys in Littleton, Colorado, shooting, even killing their own classmates. It makes you wonder, who is responsible? Parents play a big role in their children’s lives. Children need attention, time and care. Many parents are to blame for their children’s actions. Communication plays also plays a big role in our lives. Communication needs to be taught by example.
For example, asking your child how their day went, how their day at school was, what they ould like to talk about and what their aspirations are. Basically, being a good friend, listener and a role model. This is how you can open the doors of communication between you and your kid. That way, if the child is in trouble or needs your help, they’ll know who to turn to. When kids aren’t able to communicate, they become frustrated and they feel rebellious and do serious things that are harmful to their future, such as, doing poorly in school and thinking about committing violent crimes.
