It becomes obvious in her first story that Rose is a very indecisive person with no backbone. Whenever her husband, Ted, asks her to make decisions, even small ones, she always says, "You decide," or "I don't care," or "Either way is fine with me." At first, Ted didn't really mind, so he just made all the decisions. But when he lost a malpractice suit, he no longer wanted to take full responsibility for everything, so he started pushing Rose to make more decisions, but she is unable to. So naturally, he gets sick of her indecisiveness, and eventually Ted files a divorce because of this.
How did Rose become so wishy-washy? It's not that she has a servile attitude toward her husband; actually, she'd rather concentrate on her work than make trivial decisions. Instead, she, like Ted, did not want to take responsibility for actions and decisions, because disaster resulted the last time she did. When she was fourteen, her four-year-old brother, Bing, died because of a decision she made. The Hsu family was at the beach, and Bing wanted to go see his father, who was fishing on the slippery reef. Rose, who was responsible for watching him, reluctantly agreed to let him go. But as Bing walked gingerly towards his father, every member of the family, including Rose, became distracted by one thing or another, and no one notices Bing. Only Rose, who tried to stop a fight among her brothers, looked up in time to see Bing fall into the sea. After the search party had failed, every member of the family was convinced that it was their own fault that Bing had drowned, but Rose knew that it was truly her responsibility, since she was the one who had let Bing walk onto the reef. She was responsible for Bing's death, and as a result, she no longer wanted to take responsibility or make decisions for other people in her life. She let Ted make all the decisions, but when Ted stopped wanting to take responsibility for everything, they reached a deadlock, and things went downhill from there.
Her mother's diagnosis is that Rose is "without wood," and listened to too many people. Her mother once said to her, "A girl is like a young tree. You must stand tall and listen to your mother standing next to you. That is the only way to grow strong and straight. But if you bend to listen to other people, you will grow crooked and weak. You will fall to the ground with the first strong wind. And then you will be like a weed, growing wild in any direction, running along the ground until someone pulls you out and throws you away." Rose sometimes listened to her mother, but more often she preferred to listen to other people; for example, she would rather talk to her psychiatrist about her marriage than ask her mother's advice. As a child, Rose did not really listen to her mother, either, both consciously and subconsciously (her dreams and Old Mr. Chou).
In the end, however, Rose does listen to her mother's advice. Her mother continually urges her to save her marriage, even though there's no hope left for Rose. When she and her mother went out to find Bing the day after he drowned, even though there was no hope left, Rose's mother kept on hoping. Even after her faith had failed her, Rose's mother still treasured that hope by keeping her white bible clean under the table leg, and by entering Bing's name under "Deaths" in erasable pencil. Even when there was no hope left, Rose's mother kept trying to bring Bing back. Rose learned from her mother's example that she must try to save her marriage, or at least do something about it, because it was her fate to do so. Before Rose listened to her mother, she was hulihudu, or confused, and everything around her seemed to be heimongmong, or in a dark fog. She was so confused because she listened to all the wrong people, everyone but her mother. But when Rose follows her mother's advice to "speak up," she takes a stand against Ted, defying his wish for a divorce, and takes control of her own life. She finally listened to her mother, who had been right all along.
