This mocking frustrates Rodriguez, and causes him to look to his school as a replacement for his home. Rodriguez is disappointed when his parents, who were his first teachers, for so many years before school, can no longer relate to his learning. Since nothing can be done at home, and no one knows the answers there, Rodriguez insists on spending all of his time at school where he gets the attention that he yearns for. .
Rodriguez continues to deepen the rift between himself and his family by reading books one right after the other and becoming the "scholarship boy". Rodriguez comes home and corrects his family, elevating himself above them. His family remains quiet as he grows further and further away. They understand that he is different, and that he relies on school and learning. Had his family forced Rodriguez to stay home or stop studying, he would have rebelled like any other teenager. His family would have pushed Rodriguez away more than had already been evident. Rodriguez might prefer his parents not be supportive of him because then it would be easier to ignore them. However, Rodriguez's family only wants an education for Rodriguez, and the best one that he can receive. This frustrates Rodriguez further because it appears that he does not know what to do with this support. His family makes his education possible and instead of thanking them, he decides to separate himself and be excessively independent.
Dubois's protagonist John, however, is first separated from his family when he leaves for college in the north to start a new life. Though John does the work voluntarily, his initial decision to leave was not his alone. As John is exposed to a new lifestyle, he realizes how different his life is and how things should be. In the north, "he first noticed now the oppression that had not seemed oppression before, differences that erstwhile seemed natural, restraints and slights that in his boyhood days had gone unnoticed or been greeted with a laugh" (Dubois 175).
