Pressed us to her with the serious way she read, to shove us away at just the moment, like dimwits, we seemed about to understand"" (Walker 257). Her mother had such an influence on her life in the direction of education that Dee seemed to only care about her education on not her relationship with her mother. Her mother was successful at bringing her academic success, but their personal relationship was void of emotional connection. .
High expectations, teenage angst, and pressure get the best out of the daughter in "Two Kinds"" as she starts to get a little bit older. "I began to cry. Such a sad, ugly girl! I made high pitch noises like a crazed animal, trying to scratch out the face in the mirror " (Tan 337). At this point in the story, the daughter really breaks down. Her mother seemed so set on high feats of greatness and she was starting to fail. Her relationship with her mother had finally taken a turn for the worse. The pressure put on had a notable influence on the character of her daughter. .
At one point in "Two Kinds ", the daughter and mother get a very aggressive argument about something as simple as playing the piano and while her mother has expressed the beneficial aspects and how well she would be able to do it if she tried, the daughter is still set on rebellion. According to neuropsychologist Deborah Todd-Yurgelun, PhD, of Harvard University's McLean Hospital Cognitive Neuroimaging and Neuropsychology Laboratory, this is a very normal situation for younger people: "Don't assume that because you've laid out the argument or presented the idea that teenagers are interpreting it in the same way you've presented it". While this is very ordinary, it is a hard reality that her mother must face that day. Their relationship has been very rough and full of bumps, but at the end, she comes back for the piano and realizes how wonderful it sounded the entire time. Her mother eventually made her daughter a better person and had a tremendous impact on her and her appreciation for the piano, and assumedly, everything else that her mother had pushed so hard for.