The cycle of daughters and mothers

Mothers influence their daughters to become like them when their daughters grow up, but they don't always do it directly. Sometimes they kind of force their daughters to do whatever they think their daughters should do, in other words, they make the decisions for their daughters so that when they are older, they are shaped similar to them.

In the short stories from The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, The mothers in most of the stories treat their daughters in a very similar way. They make their daughters do things that they want them to do and not actually what the daughters want to do.

I think that this is a big part of the Chinese culture, and i also think that it could be part of other cultures around the world but the Chinese are the ones that show it the most.

In the story Rules of The Game, Waverly Jong is the daughter of a mother who tells her what to do, what is according to her what will make Waverly a successful person. Waverly learns by herself that she is good at something; playing chess. She slowly starts to show the people around her the big talent she has. Once her mother sees that her daughter is doing something with her life by herself, she interferes and starts pressuring her daughter to work harder on her chess skills, which just makes it hard for Waverly to be able to do good.

 As her men drew closer to my edge, i felt myself growing light. I rose up into the air and flew out the window. Higher and higher, above the alley, over the tops of tiled roofs, where i was gathered up by the wind and pushed up toward the night sky until everything below me disappeared and i was alone. (pg. 101)

Eventually, her mother caused Waverly to quit chess. Her mother was just trying to help her with her pushing, but Waverly could not take it. This mother was trying to make her daughter be what she wanted her to be and did not let her deal with her dream independently causing her to quit what she was so good at.

One of the main characters, Suyuan Woo who died from a brain aneurysm years after she moved from China and lived in the US. She created the Joy Luck Club, and she got a group of women to join her (They were Chinese too). After her death, the other women that formed part of the Joy Luck Club saw Jing-Mei Woo as the next leader of the group. They kind of expected her to continue what her mother had started.

'You are responsible', said my mother. (pg. 28)

This doesn't show how the women from the club wanted her to replace her m,other, but that does show how the mother, Suyuan, talked to Jing-Mei, telling her that she is responsible. This kind of shows that her mom considers her or could consider her responsible for whatever she leaves behind when she dies, in this case the club.

Mothers influence their daughters in life, they want them to turn out a certain way, but they pick the way they'll turn out and the daughters are dependent on doing things from their mothers.

Independent children

In The joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, she writes an introductory paragrah or paragraphs before each section of her book, which is more than one chapter each. The paragraphs do not necessarily have anything in especific to do with the stories in the section, but there are connections that can be made and there is a purpose to all of that.
I think that the introductory piece's purpose is to give the reader the idea that children like to be independent when they benefit from the independence.
As I read the chapter, Rules of the Game I realized that the girl, Waverly Jong gets to the point in her life where she starts doing something that gives her life progress which makes her be more independent from others.
Waverly Jong discovers that she has a talent; she is an amazing chess player. She became well known and was one of the best. I think that she likes to be independent after her successes.
One way that she becomes independent is by not being a part of the family. She is a part of the family, but it does not seem like she is a part of the family since she is always busy.
When se wants to practice or think about chess in her room, she can't concentrate when her siblings are making noises so she tells them to be quiet. Being good at chess and actually playing outside of home with other, professional I guess I could say, players makes her change. She does not seem like a little girl anymore. She likes to be alone and independent.
One day, Waverly and her mother went out, not because Waverly wanted to but because her mother made her. They kept seeing people and her mother would proudly tell everyone that she was her daughter. Then Waverly said,

"I wish you wouldn't do that, telling everyone I'm your daughter." My mother stopped walking. ..."Aiii-ya. So shame to be with mother?" She grasped my hand even tighter as she glared at me.

This does not necessarily shows "independence", but I think that the fact that she is embarrased of her mother and she does not want to accept it makes me think that she would like to be independent from her mother. I think that almost all kids go through that point in their lives when they don't like their parents being with them. In this case, chess has changed the life of Waverly and now she doesn't like being with the family. She prefers being alone and independent. But when she realizes that she really depends on herself at the end, she does not want to be independent anymore. What happened at the end was that her mother told the family to leave her alone because Waverly didn't care about them. When she knows she is alone, then she wants it all back.

The best parents

I think that in the article "Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior" by Amy Chua, she makes too many assumptions about Chinese mothers in comparison with western parents. Amy Chua says:

First, I've noticed that Western parents are extremely anxious about their children's self-esteem. They worry about how their children will feel if they fail at something, and they constantly try to reassure their children about how good they are notwithstanding a mediocre performance on a test or at a recital. In other words, Western parents are concerned about their children's psyches. Chinese parents aren't. They assume strength, not fragility, and as a result they behave very differently.

She talks about how Chinese mothers kind of overreact with the actions of their children and western parents do not really mind. I do not completely agrree with that  because i think that not all parents are the same or act the same.
The parent's relationship with their children is strict in the Chinese side. The kid obeys the parents and the kid basically does not have an opinion over what happens, or cannot make important decisions about education or other important stuff. The life of a kid who has a Chinese mother seems much harder than the life of a kid who has a western parent. The Chinese kid has more obligations as described in the article. Kids with Chinese mothers have to really be good in general and seem to have much more pressure than other kids such as American.
American kids on the other hand, who have western parents they are less pressured in almost everything. They do not really have those high expectations that the Chinese kids have. When they get low grades, they are not really pushed by their parents to do better. I know that she is talking about her own family in comparison with the western families, but she kind of make it seem like a comparison of the two general groups.
She makes the point that the two groups are different in the way they teach their children and the relationship they have with their children. I thimk it all depends on culture. There are different views of supporting children in diffeent places and people usually do what they believe is best. If Chinese mothers want to force their children to be successful, i think that is fine, and if a western parent wants their children to try just as hard as they can and not relly support them, then that is fine too.
About the argument about what parents and children owe each other, i think that parents should not really put that much pressure on their children and that the response from the children shlould be respect and efffot.

Rebuttal: Should teenagers be allowed to vote? YES!

 Well Amber, first of all, pigs can fly. Don't believe me? well, check this out.

Second of all, i disagree with you even though you had some good points. 

I think that you are making too much of a generalization. You are saying as if all teenagers, those in between the ages of 13 and 20, act the same way or think the same way. Like i said on my post, not all teenagers think the same way. Some think in a great way and some just, well, they are just immature. 

I do agree that voting is a very important decision, but do you really think that teenagers could make a huge difference in elections? They are probably not even half of the population of the people who can vote and since they are mostly influenced by adults as you said, I think it would almost be the same if that were the case because if an adult influences a teen on one side then also another adult influences another teen on the other side (confusing, I know). If influence is a factor, then it wouldn’t really matter because it would be the same amount of adults plus the number of teenagers they influenced which would be an almost evenly number per person or per side (also confusing, a little, I know).
 Our brains might not be developed to understand things like mature adults do, but it is developed enough to understand what is good and what is bad and to be able to choose which decision in an election would be the best. 

You say teens aren’t trusted with any major life decisions until they are adults, but they actually are. Don’t you think that going to a school like ASTI is a major life decision? It might not necessarily be one, but for the most part it is. That isn’t such a good example, but you cant assume that teens aren’t trusted with major life decisions because you cant prove that. Wouldn’t driving be a major life decision? When you drive you are risking a lot, I’m sure that the risk of killing someone could be a life decision. They are trusted to drive, but not to vote? Yup.

Should teenagers be allowed to vote?

Teenagers do not all act the same way or think the same way as each other. Some are mature and some have no idea what they are doing and do not care about the consequences.Sometimes there are teenagers that have the capacity to behave like a mature adult. I have personally met people my age who seem to have that adult mentality where everything is serious. I think that most teenagers have the capacity to act mature enough to vote. I think adults make generalizations about us. They see one of us doing something immature, and they think we are all like that, but that is also a generalization; not all adults think that about us. I think that teenagers should be allowed to vote.

Teenagers are a big part of the population in this country. I think that if teenagers could vote, the results of politics would be a little different. It is true that young teenagers are probably not ready for voting, which is something really important in society. Teenagers start to become more mature as they get older. My point is that the voting age should be lowered to sixteen. Even fifteen would be okay. 

For example, in ASTI, we start to see freshmen and sophomores think critically in their work about things that matter in the world such as family, college (higher education), environment, politics, etc. We put our own opinion, and a lot of times people (adults) are impressed by us. We are like young adults. Teenagers work, since we can start working at that age. As said in this article, some of us hold part-time jobs,
some drive, and pay taxes, and seventeen year old teens even serve in the army. The why can't those who work and pay taxes vote?

At schools, there are school governments with the same idea of a normal government, except that they are run by students. If teenagers can vote for something like that, then why wouldn't they be able to vote in real elections? Teenagers that are sixteen or older (maybe fifteen) should be able to vote. There should be some kind of requirements for teenagers, maybe a test or something that can prove that they are ready to vote. That would be a fair thing to do. 


After all, isn't a democracy "a government of the people, by the people, for the people", and aren't we people?