Education Mama/Playing With

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Basic Trope: A character's parent is overly obsessed with their formal schooling.

• Straight: Bryan's mother Alice is constantly riding him to go study when he'd rather play.
• Exaggerated: Bryan isn't allowed to have a social life or any friends his age because it might distract him from his studies.
• Justified:
  • Alice only wants the best for Bryan.
  • Alternatively, Alice is using Bryan as a means of gaining prestige in the community.
• Inverted: Any time Bryan tries to study at all, Alice gets in his way and forces him to play outside.
• Subverted: Bryan's been studying for several hours. Alice comes up to his room and tells him to take a break.
• Double Subverted: ...to go outside and collect soil samples, which he is then to study intensely.
• Parodied: ???
• Deconstructed:
  • Alice's constant riding of Bryan causes him to start to resent her. He makes the grades, but their relationship is soured for the rest of their lives.
  • Alternatively, it's revealed that Bryan isn't really all that bright, and Alice, who wanted a smart boy, is never able to get past that.
  • Bryan does his best to graduate high school and college at the top if his grade so Alice will stop naggin him, then promptly stop talking to her once he is done with his education.
• Reconstructed:
  • Bryan makes the grades, after which Alice backs off considerably and gives Bryan some breathing room.
  • Alternatively, Bryan reveals that while he may not have enjoyed it, it was Alice's determination that got him through the school system.
  • While Bryan initially resents her, he eventually comes to understand why Alice pushed him so hard (i.e. to prepare him for the future).
• Zig Zagged: Bryan's been studying for several hours, after which he's allowed to go outside...to collect soil samples, which he studies immediately. After which, he's legimitately allowed to take a break.
• Averted: Alice is not overly concerned with Bryan's grades.
• Enforced: "We've got our Five-Man Band for this shonen series all squared away, we just need this one character to have some limiting factor that would prevent him from going on missions...wait, I've got it. Let's make it to where his mother is one of those pushy school types."
• Lampshaded: "You'll thank me when you don't end up on the street!"
• Invoked: Bryan doesn't do so well in his first years of school - and Alice, realizing that a change in her parenting is needed, becomes far stricter.
• Defied: "Getting into a good college is important...but so is growing up properly."
• Discussed: ???
• Conversed: ???

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Troper, you can go back to Education Mama after you've studied pages 219-343 of your textbook.