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Like some seventeen-year-olds, Babbitt\'s son, Ted, is caught up in a rebellion against his father. Babbitt wants Ted to go to college and then on to law school to have the legal career he was denied. Ted would rather be a mechanic. Yet despite these warring goals, father and son are more alike than different. Both are one hundred percent products of Zenith, mistrusting education, valuing material success above all else, more than willing to conform to Zenith\'s standards. Ted\'s high school party may seem wild to Babbitt, but it\'s exactly like every other high school party in the city.
Yet, like Babbitt, Ted has his good side. He does love his father. Away from home--as on their trip to Chicago--they act more like two friends than like father and son. When, at the end of the novel, Ted rebels by eloping with Eunice Littlefield and asking family permission to quit college, Babbitt gives his approval. He hopes that Ted will be strong enough to avoid the mistakes Babbitt made--that he won\'t be afraid of family, of Zenith, of himself.
From what you\'ve seen of Ted and of Zenith, do you think Babbitt\'s hopes are justified? Will Ted be able to maintain his honest independence? Or is he destined to become as much a victim of conformity as his father?
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