My mother grew up in a small, poor town in Sichuan province in southern China. Life was rough then. As a child, she didn’t have much to do other than suffer the unbearable sweltering sun by resting under trees and eating sugar water popsicles and take on the horrific chill of the winter air by rolling herself in a tight bundle of sheets. 

As a teenager, my mother’s world was void of opportunities for sports and music and other activities and whenever she wasn’t at school, only on Sundays or for two months over the summer, she was seen reusing old workbooks to study material over and over again. At first, she did this because she had nothing else to do but as college approached, this was in preparation for the gaokao, a national college entrance exam Chinese students prepare for basically their whole life to get into a good college and consequently, attain a good life. 

Despite her lack of resources, she did exceedingly well on it and went on to attend one of the top universities with a major in math. 

***

I was an average student in all respects as a kindergartener and never demonstrated the “typical, genius kid” behavior. Yet, starting in second grade, I ended up becoming that “genius” kid.

Why? Because my mother, as I would say as a kid with a bite of resentment, “forced” me into doing extra math during the summer leading into first grade. 

During that summer, I would spend what I thought to be “long hours” (probably only an hour a day) reading clocks and practicing multiplication word problems in my Singapore math textbook. I continued to learn ahead of my class, crying at the kitchen table as I stayed up til my bed time doing long division in first grade, desperately rushing to get pages of quadratic equations done during the summer leading into fourth grade, so on and so forth. By fifth grade, I was taking Algebra I. I was even offered to be put in the grade above due to my outstanding test score when I tested into my Algebra I placement. 

But my mother declined the offer. 

“Why? Why can’t I skip a grade?” I remember whining the day I got the offer. 

“You won’t have friends.” my mother said, almost indifferently, as she loudly smashed the ginger in the mortar with the worn pestle.

“Ok, but I can make friends. And really quickly! I’m already friends with Quinn and Lucy and a few others!”

“Your reading scores are also low.” She ran her hands through the cool water streaming down the sink and reaching for a warm towel to wipe her hands with.

“They aren’t that low. Besides, I can improve them! Please!” I begged. She turned around, to my surprise and stopped what she was doing to look me in the eye. 

“No! It’s not a good idea for your well being. You aren’t as socially and emotionally developed as the other kids and you’re going to struggle to catch up. Don’t you like the kids in your grade? Do you want to leave your friends?”

“No… but I want to skip.”

“Why?”

“It will make me look good. It will make me look better and smarter than everyone else.”

***

My mother admitted years later that conversation broke her heart. 

Despite understanding well how that could make a mother upset, I asked her why. She replied that she was reminded of the bloodthirsty competition in her days in China, the resentment towards her parents for damaging her sister through the same sort of skipping, and the mindset of this horrific idea of only skipping to be better than others, and my arrogant thoughts of supremacy. 

“My parents put *Xiao Yi in school a year early,” she started. “She’s born in October, so she was by far the youngest person in her grade. She wasn’t naturally gifted or anything, so she struggled. She ended up being held up four grades back because she went to school at such a young age and still suffered poor grades at school and didn’t do well on the gaokao. If-- if she had just been put in at the right time, she would have an easier time and she wouldn’t have frustration blocking her from success.” 

My mother paused, knowing well that I found her criticism of her parent’s decisions and accusations of her sister’s intelligence to be appalling. She sighed, her eyes turning glassy and her gaze seemed to look past me, as if old feelings were stirring inside and terrible memories were taking shape.

“She hated school and all the smarter kids who could do better than her, who could understand materials faster than her because my parents forced her into this position-- and it’s very sad what happened, really. This toxic culture of skipping, having to be better than your friends and neighbors, and constant, high stress competition in China-- it ruined her. She still holds a sort of resentment against my parents for doing this, as do I on her behalf, and she certainly hates school and people like me who had an easier time. I said no to you skipping not because I didn’t think you could do it but because I didn’t want to make the mistake my parents made with my sister and her life.”

She paused and lowered her voice. 

“And hearing your reason, well, I didn’t want you internalizing that idea of supremacy I tried to protect you from. I also didn’t want you to adopt this highly stressful mindset of skipping and skipping for the rest of your life because… because I hope you understand now that life is more than that. I truly wish more people could understand, especially my parents.”

***

As the pieces of the puzzle of my childhood and my mother’s started coming together, ultimately so did the reason why all of this started in the first place. 

“I felt pressure-- a societal pressure-- to do math as a major in China,” she said. “I had done so well on the gaokao and, well, it was almost expected that at that point I would pick a major that would make me a lot of money and provide me with a stable job.” 

Had my mother lived a lie? 

A look of sorrow, of unwavering regret spread over her face for a moment but disappeared as soon as it arrived.

She had.

***

I could’ve had a happier childhood. I could’ve had a completely different future. Math was the only thing my mother knew when she immigrated to the US. Her English was poor, and she had less knowledge on history and science. Like her, my whole life could’ve changed. My forte could’ve been in biology and I could’ve been a marine biologist or I could’ve succeeded in painting and could’ve become a painter but… my life is set in stone now. Or at least it is by her as she expects me to do things with my math skills. 

Ironic, isn’t it? That she once felt that crippling pressure and now puts that same pressure on me?

***

Over the summer, my mother watched a shocking amount of Chinese history shows and upon noticing her wild eyes and smile that spread across her face as she listened on, the question of what could’ve been came into my head. History was her natural love, something she had hidden from me, even denied to herself for years on end. 

She could’ve stayed in China to be a historian studying old texts of the Qing dynasty or a history professor analyzing Mao Ze Dong and the cultural revolution. She could’ve moved to the US and worked as an archeologist digging up artifacts from the American revolution or a curator for Cleveland’s natural history museum.

Just like I could’ve become a writer, a lawyer, a librarian.

***

I understand why my mother accelerated me in math and I no longer look at those summers of math with disdain but rather, connection. After all, math was what she was familiar with and she wanted to share all she could about this one thing she knew so well with her daughter. 

She wasn’t being the hypocrite I thought she was, escaping the Chinese culture that forced her into math and then doing the same for me, she was raised like that and that was the only way she knew how to raise me.

I’m lucky, unlike her. Aged 16, not applying to college just yet-- I could change my future. I could break the cycle. I could brave our destinies and create one we both wanted. No longer will it be the painfully parallel, stereotype based “my mother and me”. Rather,

My mother. And me. 

*Xiao Yi: younger sister on the mother’s side