In Two Kinds, what advantages are offered to the child? What disadvantages? How typical is Tan’s story of the mother-daughter conflict? Explain.

In the story, the mother offers her daughter the advantage of learning to play the piano. In the mother's opinion, she is also offering her daughter the advantage of living in America, a country she feels rewards hard work and resourcefulness. The mother is convinced that her child has an advantage by having a parent who will make sacrifices for her well-being and future success.
As for disadvantages, it can be argued that the mother is putting too much pressure on her child to succeed. She harbors the conviction that her child can be a prodigy in some way, so she works tirelessly to make this dream a reality. In her zeal to make a prodigy out of her daughter, she fails to take several things into account. First, she fails to account for the possibility of her daughter experiencing burnout. She is adamant that every daughter must obey her mother implicitly. Second, she is determined to compete against other Chinese-American parents who have talented children. She fails to consider how her own inclinations and stressors will affect her child. So the child is disadvantaged by having a mother who is indifferent to her input regarding her future. 
As for how typical Tan's story of the mother-daughter conflict is, one can argue that mother-daughter conflicts have existed since the dawn of time. In some families, however, the animosity between the mother and daughter is so palpable that the relationship descends to one of dysfunction. In such a relationship, the mother can be so domineering that she destroys her daughter's sense of self. In "Two Kinds," Amy Tan profiles a typical relationship between an ambitious Chinese-American mother and her beleaguered daughter. The daughter struggles to forge her own identity in the face of daily pressure from her mother to conform to a narrow definition of success.
Tan's story is typical in the sense that it is a humorous and poignant story about how parental ambition can destroy an intimate connection between a mother and her daughter. It is also typical in the sense that many mothers (whether Chinese-American or of other nationalities) feel compelled to secure their children's futures, either because of a sense of competitiveness or a desire to protect their children from future want and suffering.