This is a personal analysis of a short story entitled "My Oedipus Complex" by Frank O'Connor
The moment a pair has babies, their life would change at all. Not only do they have to cope with the kids, they also have to deal with the problems they face. Yes, many problems will soon appear for those couples to handle. However, in fact, there are still so many parents not knowing how to raise up children well, resulting the foul behavior they act to their children and so the other way round, the children will behave badly because of that. Thus, what should parents do to face this situation wisely are, among them, by treating the children as what they are, not mentioning bad words whenever they have a difficult time, and being fair.
Parents should always remember that children are children who do not understand yet what actually happens or what adult thinks is right. Perhaps, sometimes, parents must behave childlike to accompany their kids playing or to come into ‘their world’. When children ask their parents to play together, parents should leave ‘their world’ so that children know the parents pay attention to them, care them, and love them. Unlike what happens in a short story My Oedipus Complex when the Father took the child for a walk and he just does not care for the child who wants to seek for attention. ‘Really, it was like going for a walk with a mountain!’ thinks the child, indicating that children will feel unhappy if their children do not give proper attention to them.
Cursing children is always a bad idea because it will affect either children’s psychological development or behavior in return. It is mentioned in a research that when a child is given a loud, scary shout as they do a fault, billions of cells in the brain break. As written in the short story My Oedipus Complex again, when the Father gives the child a shout in a choking voice ‘Shut up, you little puppy!’ just because the child woke him up in an early morning, the child is so astonished that he stops screeching –I wonder how many cells have broken. Then, in return, the child replies him ‘Shut up, you!’, indirectly shows that children will tend to imitate the words –bad words, parents say to them.
Being fair in treating all family members is also one thing that needs to do. Being fair here means giving each a proper attention as what the family members have right in. The portion of attention might not be the same because a baby born might need much more attention than the first child who still needs a lot of attention, too, but parents can give them a simple explanation towards this. This is actually what the Mother in the story has done, but it just seems that both the Father and the child do not understand. Just like mentioned on the sixth and the seventh page that the Mother explains to the child why he should not disturb the Father in the morning or on the eighth page when she says ‘It’s only the child. …’, indicating that she wants her husband to understand.
In conclusion, there are at least three things that need to remember for parents when they raise up kids. Treating children as what they are, not cursing them, and being fair to each other are those three things that are worth trying for parents to always consider.
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