It is well known how overbearing Asian parents are. Everybody has heard of the joke that if an Asian student comes home with less than an “A+” on their report card, they will get kicked to the curb. Rules of The Game clearly shows how this tendency of the so called “tiger moms” can strain a relationship. But this schism isn’t just the fault of the parents. The narrator, now grown up, looks back and realizes “how wicked” she was.
Waverly’s mom, realizing that her daughter is a genius at chess, latches on, causing her daughter to lose much of her freedom. Waverly, looking back, writes, “I no longer played in the alley of Waverly Place. I never visited the playground where the pigeons and old men gathered.” In doing so, Waverly starts to feel suffocated. She can’t understand her mother, which isn’t helped by the language barrier between them. Her mother, being from China, speaks broken English, which is muddled and hard to comprehend. Waverly hates it when her mother stands over her, watching as she studies new chess moves. But the grown up Waverly realizes that her mother might have thought herself as her daughter’s “protective ally.”
Despite the obvious strain in their relationship, Waverly still tries to please her mother. Throughout the story, the mother-daughter duo try to outmaneuver each other, and Waverly sees her mother as a chess opponent, “two angry black slits.” But perhaps this is also just a scheme of Waverly’s; she believes that if she could just please her mother, her mother would stop being so demanding. She believes that she could end the chess game with her mother if she fulfills everything that her mother wants.
Waverly dreams of running away from her mother. She sees herself being “pushed up toward the night sky until everything
below (her) disappeared.” This is just another indicator to the tense relationship she shared with her mother. Nevertheless, Waverly never estranges herself from her. Maybe it’s just because of the Chinese quality of being xiao shun, of being filial to parents. But it is clear that Waverly respects her mother; she respects that her mother “imparted her daily truths,” allowing Waverly and her brothers to become better in every which way.
The strain between Waverly and her mother is caused by a variety of factors, among them misunderstanding, miscommunication, and the uneven placement of control. However, no matter how large the rift is between mother and daughter, somehow they don’t alienate themselves from each other. This is seen in how grown-up-Waverly doesn’t write about her mother with bitterness, but describes her fairly. Waverly as an adult still views her childhood with sadness, but she has changed her view of her mother, from dreaming of running away to understanding that she was well-meaning.