Nervous Conditions, by Tsitsi Dangarembga, is a great book that follows the life of a girl named Tambu. This book presents the great differences between Shona life and colonial life. Tambu loves her life on the farm but when she receives the opportunity to enter the colonial life, she gets a new perspective on the everyday things we, in America, take for granted. One of the greatest issues of this book is gender. In America everyone both men and women have every opportunity to go to school and get an education. However, this presents the exact opposite in Rhodesian culture.
In this culture men have every opportunity to gain an education, whereas women are not encouraged to gain an education. Tambu's father was not excited at all about her going to school because this meant that whatever money she would make would end up going to her future husbands family rather than his own. Why go to school to improve family riches if the riches go to another family?
The high school I graduated from encouraged students to succeed, however, it was aimed toward white males in particular for success. I had stood out against the norm by being a woman who was able to find success in this school even though it was not directed toward my success in particular. In terms of family, my family was supportive in whatever I did. However, it did seem like no matter how well I did I could always have done better. Every time I had a test my mom always wanted to know how I did, but sometimes after telling her she would ask "How come you didn't do better, you know this stuff better than the grade you got." I feel this relationship I had with my mother is similar to Tambu's relationship with her father. Not in the direct sense that our situations are the same but the fact that neither of us were doing exactly what our parents wanted us to do. We were going to do what made us happy even if our parents may not have been. Tambu's parents always told her she would only fail and she proved them wrong and I proved mine wrong by showing them that I was happy with how I was doing and they should accept me for me.
You make a good point about how parents and children will come into conflict when they don't share a world view that values the same behaviors. It is interesting to note the solution that Dangarembga suggests: exile. Tambu had to abandon her parents to realize her self-actualization, which, although extreme, may have been the only way for her at that time. This is the metaphorical extension of the situation you describe.
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