In Amy Tan’s short story “Rules of The Game”, Waverly Jong, adolescent chess wizard, goes through a fight with her mom when she embarrasses Waverly by constantly telling everyone that “this is my daughter, [Waverly] Jong”. In their actions in response to each other, several flaws in their relationship become apparent, like lack of communication, maturity, empathy/understanding, and the lack of will to fix any.
The lack of maturity is what fuels the lack of communication, which in turn keeps Waverly and her mother from understanding each other, and the unwillingness to resolve these issues is woven all throughout these and is, of course, what keeps them from being resolved. An instance that demonstrates all of these flaws is a fight they have in a market, which stems from Waverly’s anger at her mother telling everyone they meet that Waverly Jong is her daughter.
In response to Waverly’s embarrassment and annoyance, instead of responding calmly and responsibly like an adult mother should, the mother only gives icy silence, and when she actually does respond it is to call her own daughter a “stupid girl” for accidentally bumping into someone. The mom does not show the level of maturity to be expected from her, but the same cannot be said of Waverly, because she is still growing up and cannot be expected to show the same level of maturity that her mom should, but does not. Waverly runs from the site and does not return home for hours.
In the market, Waverly does not properly communicate her feelings with her mother, and her mother nearly fails to communicate at all, leading to a complete lack of understanding on both parts of the other’s feelings. Her mother’s greeting upon her return home- that if this girl would not bother with them, they would not bother with her- demonstrates that she is unwilling to even attempt to actually have a proper talk and fix things with her daughter. Waverly says nothing and only retreats to her room, proving herself also unwilling to fix things. However, the blame for this unwillingness can be almost entirely attributed to the mom. As children and young adults, a girl’s primary role model is her mother. Mom demonstrates what a mature woman should be, and we follow her example. So when Mom teaches us a certain thing, whether it be something we should learn or the exact opposite, we learn it.
In this way, it is shown that Waverly Jong and her mother’s unwillingness to communicate and empathize with each other in a mature way can be almost completely blamed on her mother (Waverly does have other influences- friends, teachers, her own thinking, etc.), and it can only be hoped that Waverly will learn a better lesson and that she and her mom will fix things, for that is entirely up to them.