Comparing the Parents in Your Shoes and Growing Up and What they Learn About Themselves

Comparing the Parents in Your Shoes and Growing Up and What they Learn About Themselves

'Your Shoes' by Michèle Roberts and 'Growing Up' by Joyce Cary are two

very different short stories. They both, however, involve one parent

who seems to be in a state of uncertainty regarding their child or

children. I feel that, having studies both, each parent needs to learn

something about their own lives in order to apply the understanding to

their jobs as parents. Roberts and Cary both present the children in

their short stories as individual human beings. It has come as a

surprise to both parents that their children need to be understood and

that they might actually need to get to know their offspring as

people. In the case of the mother in 'Your Shoes', however, this might

actually be too late.

Beginning to read 'Your Shoes', the reader is aware that the narration

is in the style of a letter. It is, in fact, revealed that a mother is

writing to her daughter who has run away from home. She writes: "You

just went off, just ran out of the house in the middle of the night,

and left me." This means that she of course cannot verbally express

her feelings in person ("There's no point really in writing this

because it can't reach you…I don't know where you are"). This links in

with the father in 'Growing Up' - a successful businessman and doting

father; as shown in "Robert Quick, coming home after a business

trip…He had missed his two small girls". Note that the girls are

described within Mr Quick's narration as being rather young. It is

established later on that they are in fact twelve and thirteen years

of age. Cary goes on to tell of how J...

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... clothes worn by psychiatric patients. The theme of 'white' is

maintained throughout the story. The daughters in 'Growing Up' are

younger, and there do not appear to be any unstable emotional

foundations…simply a lack of castigation. Having hurriedly learned of

his paternal misunderstanding, Robert Quick, if he chooses, is still

able to see his daughters grow up in a calm, ladylike manner. As

Roberts intended, this is more than can be said for the parenting in

"Your Shoes". Roberts and Cary have, overall, created two seemingly

dissimilar characters; however when the short stories are studied

several similar misunderstandings become apparent. Some of the pain

caused by insufficient parenting is too deep to erase, other examples

can change. Both characters have much to learn about both themselves

and their children.