Over the years, the way we care for the elderly has changed.

Daddy Issues article was

written by American writer, actress, and radio host Sandra Tsing Loh in 2012 and published by

The Atlantic. The subject of this article is the impact on the lives of older parents and children.

Lu Qing published papers in an informal and intimate manner. Loh cleverly combined multiple

authors of books about her elderly parents and her personal experiences to write interesting and

educational articles. She uses descriptive and unusual phrases, which adds uniqueness to the

writing style of Brothel. She uses hyperbole, allusion, and anaphora along with epizeuxis

techniques to make the article more interesting and memorable. Bittersweet Season: Caring for

Our Aging Parents- and Ourselves, by Jane Gross, Passages in Caregiving: Turning Chaos into

Confidence, by Gail Sheehy, and The Bill from My Father, by Bernard Copper. Tsing Loh's

target audience is mainly mature people who take care of elderly parents.

Loh uses the tone of prose to help readers understand the author's position towards her

elderly father. Loh expects sympathy and understanding, but when discussing her father, the tone

of the paper is depressing, negative, and almost malicious. When Loh starts her article, she

complained that her father is still alive because she is forced to take care of her old father.

Throughout the paper, she continues to feel frustrated about caring for her elderly father. The

author uses comparison when describing his current situation so that readers can fully understand

their feelings and get readers’ emotional responses. Loh used prompts many times to let the

audience learn more about her world through the "Kafka character" (Loh, 2012). When her secrets

are revealed as the article continues, knowledge allows the audience to communicate more deeply

with the author. Loh uses her tone to make bold remarks that are unacceptable to society. For

example, she said: "I almost don’t know what I envy Bernard Cooper for more—his incomparable

literary genius or the fact that his father is dead" (Loh, 2012)
 Loh quickly takes time to try to resolve the conflicts she encountered because she was

taking care of her father 24 hours a day. She wrote that if I tore my 91-year-old father’s limbs, "I

believe no jury of my peers would convict me." (Loh, 2012) She is like a very responsible

daughter because she spent a lot of time seeing that cold and selfish father is well taken care of in

his life. It is an example of hyperbole. What the Loh is doing cannot bear is the money she spends

on her father, not her children. Or does she really benefit from being such a pious daughter? Loh

organizes her story by telling the reality and difficulties of caring for elderly parents. Similarly, her

position is between the responsibility of caring for someone who used to take care of parents, the

financial burden caused by the elderly, and the worries that Loh ignores her children. Life is

fascinating because it clearly shows whether there are contradictions. Surprisingly, Loh's audience

can understand her feelings.

Loh tries to make the situation she describes humorously with the use of sarcasm.

However, due to the negativity of the statement, the humor disappeared. In addition, her

exaggerated and hyperbole remarks aroused strong emotions among readers. Whether it is anger at

someone saying this to a relative or legal consent, these strong emotions make the audience very

interested in what she will say next. Moreover, both of these examples left a lasting first

impression on Loh. She might be crazy, or she might just be fed up with her dad. Overall,

hyperbole help the Loh establish compelling and truly compelling meanings.

Loh displays logos in statistics, excerpts from books she reads, and personal anecdotes

about her elderly parents, so that readers can understand why caring for elderly parents can be

frustrating. Loh uses population aging statistics, including life expectancy and the costs associated

with aging. For example, 40% of Americans over the age of 85 are the fastest-growing population

in the country. It is estimated that by 2035, this number will double from 5 million to 11.5 million
(Loh, 2012). Loh uses excerpts from books she has cited to provide readers with background

information about older parents. Loh uses three authors and the citations in the book to attract his

papers and introduce readers to issues they might not know. She quoted an excerpt from Gail

Sheehy's Passages in Caregiving "I know that at the end of my mother’s life I felt isolated in my

plight, especially compared to colleagues being feted with showers and welcomed back to work

with oohs and aahs at new baby pictures." (Loh, 2012)

The important thing to repeat is to ensure that we understand what is being said, which is a

natural characteristic of human beings. This idea is used in both anaphora and epizeuxis to re-use

words that have no or almost no meaning. Similarly, Loh cites "Amy Winehouse, who didn’t want

to go to rehab: No, no, no", (Loh, 2012) explaining that his father does not always have to go to a

nursing home. But the next paragraph starts with "No... No... No..." (Loh, 2012), she did not keep

it as it is, because the last sentence of her article also contains the same epizeuxis: "Finally,

stubborn, toddler, cheerful, he doesn't want to to recover, no, no, no." (Loh, 2012) The first two

uses of this technique are how viewers hate their father going to a nursing home. Not only can it

help Loh understand what she is doing, but it also helps her draw important conclusions that

readers will remember. Anaphora is a concept very similar to epizeuxis and is also used to create

meaning. In addition to using diction, repeated phrases also provide readers with a powerful tool to

establish a deeper connection with the text. For example, when the Loh refers to the chaos of

Medicaid, it says, "Contrary to various federal and state regulations, it is related to some of the

disappointing historical habits of the Johnson administration today." (Loh, 2012) The word

"colliding with" here has been used many times to create an image in the hearts of the audience

(Loh, 2012). "Colliding" is also an example of how the Loh combines diction and anaphora (Loh,

2012).
 The author Sandra Tsing Loh uses emotional and sarcastic tone, and various rhetoric to

achieve her goals. Starting from the anger, Loh gradually lowered her tone ironically. This can

create and maintain a strong sense of pathos and logos for readers. In addition, the fascinating

introduction of using hyperbole can expand the reader's knowledge and understanding, and build

meaningless words using anaphora through the plot, which keeps the reader captive from learning

from beginning to end. In this way, Loh can establish contact with people like her very well, to

deliver her thoughts about the caregiving of her elder father.

References

Loh, S. (2012, March). Daddy Issues. Retrieved November 12, 2020, from

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/03/daddy-issues/308890/