My Favorite Chaperone

A primary theme in the story is Maya’s experience as a young girl, from her budding romantic feelings to the expectations placed on her by her parents. “My Favorite Chaperone” examines a conflict between a conservative Kazakh culture, where teenage romance and sexuality are taboo, and a liberal American culture where people have more agency. The story resolves with Maya being able to attend the Spring Fling, indicating that her parents are becoming more open to the different expectations for women in the United States.

The story opens on this central conflict, where Maya is confident that her parents will not sign her permission slip to attend the dance: “No. Nyet.” This is the first Russian word in the story, and it sets the tone for Maya’s relationship with her parents and their strict rules for her. Particularly as a girl, Maya must adhere to her parents' expectations: She does schoolwork and housework and cares for her brother even though she is only in ninth grade herself. She must be obedient—when her mother injures herself, there is no argument about whether Maya will take her place performing both wage and household labor. She adds these duties to her plate while her father and brother take on no additional responsibilities. In the Alazova household, care work is a strictly feminine duty. This stands in sharp contrast with the Lui family, who are Americanized, where Mr. Lui participates equally in household labor.

Nurzhan’s experience differs greatly from his sister’s, showing that Maya’s treatment is gendered rather than just strict parenting in general. When he gets suspended for fighting, Mrs. Alazova comforts him—“Oh, my poor little one!” (13)—but scolds Maya for allowing her brother to be bullied. This is an irrational statement since Maya and Nurzhan don’t attend the same school, and this emphasizes that the gendered expectations placed on Maya are absurd. While Nurzhan has behaved violently—Ossie needed two stitches after their fight—his punishment at home lasts for one day as he is sent to bed without dinner. By contrast, Maya’s punishment for flirting with Daniel—a harmless act—is weeks of silent treatment from her parents. This shows how deeply entrenched gender roles are, and violating them is a high offense.

Alongside Maya’s emotional introspections about this treatment, the scenes where she takes on her mother’s work represent the difficulty of adhering to these expectations. Maya becomes completely exhausted because she goes to school, works, and then performs maternal duties like helping Nurzhan with his homework and preparing dinner. She has to quit gymnastics—a personal sacrifice—and she suffers physically, cutting her hand while peeling potatoes. Her blood drips into the food, evoking a blood sacrifice and symbolizing how much of herself she needs to give as a young woman. When she burns a chicken, her father complains, but her mother defends her for the first time ever, representing a kind of induction into womanhood.

While Maya’s parents still hold fast to their cultural ideas about sexual propriety—they emphasize that she flirts with an “American boy” and that her behavior is culturally influenced—they do become more lenient by the end of the story. After her weeks of hard work, she is permitted to go to the Spring Fling (though she must be chaperoned by her younger brother, placing him in a position of authority above her despite his age). However, Nurzhan takes on this responsibility with an American attitude, disappearing when his sister dances closely with Daniel rather than reinforcing their parents’ rules. This implies a cultural shift—change might happen slowly, but Maya will get more independence as she grows up. This is reinforced by her mother’s bracelet, which symbolizes Mrs. Alazova’s acceptance that Maya is becoming a young woman and deserves more agency. While American and Kazakh ideas about gender persist at the end of the story, this gesture shows that compromise is possible and gender roles are ultimately mutable.