Why Be a Prodigy?

In the story "Two Kinds", what are the mother's reasons for wanting her daughter to excel?

• The mother has many hopes in America, and she believes that anything could be accomplished there. She is trying to look forward, and not backwards to the time when she lost everything, because it would be too painful. She does not want her daughter to live the same terrible life as her, so she wishes that her daughter can live a good life.

What motivates Jing-mei to try to become the prodigy her mother wants?

• She has two reasons for wanting to be the best. First, she wants to be the best so she does not have to always sulk about life. The second reason is because she wants to be adored by her parents. 

Do your parents ever push you to work hard at something? If so, how do you react? Do you try to please them, or do you resist? How does it make you feel?

• My parents, like any other typical parents, pushes me to work hard and study a lot to get good grades. I, like any other typical rebellious teenager, resist against them. Who would want to always be doing homework and not even getting a little bit of rest time? Well, not me, of course. I know that my parents are pushing me for my own good, but when they continue to say the same things over and over again like a broken radio, my patience is sometimes broken, and I end up yelling at them (actually, that's what happens almost every day...). I get really annoyed and wish that they would just SHUT UP.