5.15 - The Who, "My Generation"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUl9Tum0BMg

In response to “Teenage Wasteland”:
As a mother it is Mrs. Johnson’s first priority to “mother”. I believe that the way different members of the family act greatly effects the other members. Home is where children spend the majority of their time and their parents and siblings are the people they see most frequently. Speaking from experience, I know what it is like not to want to come home, like Donny. To feel like a dark cloud is constantly looming over your house, no matter how bright and sunny it is in reality. Once you step through that door, the atmosphere and your emotions/attitude immediately darken to match the gloomy feeling in the air. It is almost like dementors [magical creatures in Harry Potter who literarily suck the happiness and warmth from the air] have become the resident gargoyles around your house. To know that as soon as you enter that house, no matter how much you fight it, you’re fighting the inevitable, you will enter “grumpville”. It is horrible, to feel that everything would just be better if you could only escape this dark cloud, your home, your supposed sanctuary. Now, why does a house come under this dark cloud? Maybe because of fighting, divorce, financial troubles, etc.: the soap opera issues. Or maybe as in “Teenage Wasteland” because someone in the house has given up. I believe that Mrs. Johnson has forgotten/given up her role as a mother, as the adult. Mrs. Johnson thinks she has failed as a mother, which she has because she has stopped being one. Mrs. Johnson simply gives up, she sees that she has failed and succumbs to hopelessness and self-pity. Mrs. Johnson does nothing to correct the situation with her son, instead she hands over her job as a mother to Cal. She hides behind the inadequate solution of a tutor, pretending everything is alright. Even when someone [Donny’s teacher] tells Mrs. Johnson directly that she needs to step up and help Donny, Mrs. Johnson still refuses to accept the truth. The truth that she is part of and a cause of Donny’s unhappiness and unruliness.

By not helping herself Mrs. Johnson is also affecting the way Donny acts. When someone you are constantly around and emotionally attached to, like a mother, is unhappy and is letting herself fall apart, it affects you too. Mothers are supposed to be people that you can look up to and that you can go to for help, someone with the answers and someone children can rely on. Except how can a child like Donny go to his mother for help when she can’t even help herself? I think it is selfish, sad, and pathetic when people do not help themselves and instead decide to wallow in self-pity, to just give up. Of course that person is not expected to do everything themselves but no one can help you if you do not decide to help yourself and realize you need help first. As the adult it is Mrs. Johnson’s job to get the help she needs then properly help her son. Her feeling of self-pity and unhappiness affects and “rubs off” on everyone else in the house. Her depression and hopelessness are the dementors in the house. [534]