Do you think the mother lets the daughter down?

The night before the assembly, she is inspired by Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass and writes an irreverent speech declaring that the best student learns to destroy the teacher. Her father is angry at the disrespect to teachers and rips the speech. Soon after, her mother comes to her room and helps her to write a trite speech praising the teachers, which earns Yolanda a standing ovation the following day.Still the speech was not what Yolanda wanted to say. Her mother had taken away her voice and substituted it with something people wanted to hear.