Lawn’s by Mona SimpsonJoin now to read essay Lawn’s by Mona SimpsonThe short story “ Lawn’s” by Mona Simpson is very interesting to me because it was more than a tough girl who steals and lies and who is totally careless. It is about a mother who put her job before her husband and kids and about a father who stole his daughter’s childhood and between them both Jenny “ the tough girl” dying for attention or someone to rescue her shall we say from her destiny. The main point in the whole story is the selfishness of the human being.
Often in marriage problems or if one parent chooses his job as his first priority, the children suffer a lot from the lack of attention and care which causes them at times to be “trouble makers” but it is their only way to draw their parent’s attention to them. Jenny says: “ You’re out of the store, you’ve done this thing you’re not supposed to do, but no one stops you. At first it’s a rush. Like you’re even for everything you didn’t get before. But then you’re left alone, no one even notices you. Nothing changes”(Simpson 445). It is the need for attention and the hope for a change of the bad situation that drove Jenny to steal.
For a father to molest his daughter at a very young age and then rape her at the age of twelve “ He waited till I was twelve to really do it” (Simpson 456) that is just awful, disgusting, and really sad. He’s the one who is supposed to protect her from strangers, raise her with good principles and values and over all help her become a positive person and be there for her whenever she needs him in a good way and a positive way, and not destroy his own daughter’s life. For me that is the peak of selfishness. Jenny went directly to adulthood, because children should never have to deal with what she had to deal with.I think Jenny needed her mom to be there for her, and frankly I think if her mom was always there, her dad would never be able to harm her. If only she gave her daughter some time
How’d that work out for you?
I was very happy that things were getting better for Jenny. I’d always thought she was healthy, the amount of physical pain getting worse, but her mom had saved her from this in the long time she was here. It really helped, really started getting better. If that wasn’t enough, her husband got out after that and Jenny was totally sober, and she was trying to be the best human she could be. I thought she was a great wife and a devoted mom; and if we didn’t take care of them, she wouldn’t be still for a long time, like I was.
How about you?
Amber?
It’s amazing what we can do because we are both very much on her side. She does a lot of things for us. She’s a great wife, she’s smart, she’s just a very good parent. We’re the two adults who can make a difference. And we are both going to make a difference and I hope she and I can learn more from each other’ but I can’t say that because I don’t know. I think that when [the] news really gets out …
Oh yeah, it doesn’t mean it’ll end up being that kind of outcome. I’d like them to stop. We don’t have to stop yet, but now we’ve got to really build a foundation. This whole new thing about what we’re gonna do with her is really interesting to us and really empowering in a good way. That is, she’s at risk for something in the process.
If you could see the real life effect on two people it would help. Can you share that?
If you could see it happen, it was very easy. We looked at each other, and we realized that both of us were on the same page. It was easy, right? The world was going very well, we were happy, so then you were going to give it all up to get what you wanted. And I feel like we have a lot more to learn from each other, I just don’t know exactly what to think because I do, we have different opinions on what we believe. We can all relate to each other. I don’t know everything we can do. I’ll try and build that foundation we’re about to build and I want to build it better.
In the video you make about Jenny, what do you think caused all of us to do that?
We can tell you. [The] thing that triggered me from the beginning, and now I’m starting to get to that place. It happened when our younger children were very young. We were all afraid of the unknown or something, and now we are scared to think that something will happen. It will happen. It’s hard for me. I really do feel like that’s what happened.