Are the thematic elements similar in Amy Tan's "Two Kinds" and Tellie Olsen's "I Stand Here Ironing"?

In Tellie Olsen's "I Stand Here Ironing" and Amy Tan's
"Two Kinds," the mothers are very
different.

Olsen's story is about a woman who is reflective
of her child (Emily) and her childhood—the images we receive come from the mother's
perspective as she stands ironing—a seemingly endless task. The mother recalls someone
at school once contacting her, worried about Emily. We learn that the child's father had
abandoned them, and that for two years the mother had to leave her daughter with her
in-laws before she could afford to take care of her. Another time she had to put her
daughter in a convalescent home (for eight months) because Emily had measles and could
not be allowed infect the family (including a new baby)—but she failed to thrive
there. The mother recalls the hard years with Emily—the separations, and the mother's
concern that maybe she didn't do enough...though she is adamant that she loved Emily. It
was the during the Depression, and life was hard, and raising a child,
harder.

And while the mother admits that Emily was hard to
get close to, she recalls, too, that her daughter was a beautiful baby, and was later a
gifted entertainer, winning an amateur talent contest at
school.

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Mother, I did it. I won, I won; they gave me
first prize; they clapped and clapped and wouldn't let me
go.

For all of her concern,
her daughter spread her wings and took flight with her newly-realized talent. Emily has
grown up and is graceful and more self-assured. The mother wonders what the caller from
the school had been worried about.

However, the story ends
as the mother almost prays that her daughter will realize "...she is more than this
dress on the ironing board, helpless before the iron." My sense is
that she hopes her daughter will not have the life the mother has had and that she will
know her own self-worth, regardless—or in spite—of her mother's struggles. Or as one
source states "...that she is more than the sum of her
experiences."

Amy Tan's story is told from the
daughter's standpoint, so the reader is only able to assemble
information through the recollections of Jing-Mei (or June). This is a very different
story in that the mother is married and the family lives in comfort. There is not the
distance between mother and daughter her caused by poverty and endless working, but
because Jing-Mei cannot share her mother's American dream for her
future.

In "Two Kinds," the mother and daughter fight.
Jing-Mei's mother has dreams for her daughter so that her life will be better than her
own, but she pushes the child to do things that embarrass this American daughter of
Chinese parents. Jing-Mei's mother believes that she can make her daughter a child
prodigy by having her take piano lessons. Jing-Mei disagrees, and ends up at a recital
where she really has learned nothing and has no talent to share. Both mother and
daughter are embarrassed.

Here the mother does not seem to
worry about the mistakes she may have made, though she does want
her daughter to be successful in life. While she does not seem to worry, it does occupy
her mind, but as with "I Stand Here Ironing," Jing-Mei is also able to find success in
her life.

Olson's mother never seems to quite know her
daughter, but Tan's Jing-Mei grows to know her mother. The piano music, years later
shows that two songs she had played as a child were "two halves of the same song," much
as Jing-Mei realizes that she and her mother were more connected than she could have
known as a child.