When you’re known as the “Tiger Mom” and you’re a Yale contracts law professor, of course you’re going to draft up a fierce enforceable tenant agreement before you let your adult children co-habitate with you in your swanky Manhattan apartment for the Summer.
We can’t be mad.
Amy Chua, who penned the infamous book “Battle Hym of the Tiger Mom” had some pretty funny, albeit strict, clauses in the contract she made her millennial daughters Sophia and Lulu sign before they moved in.
Chua’s 20- and 23-year old girls are working in NYC for the summer.
Although, she lives in Connecticut full time with her husband, Jed Rubenfeld, Chua said they had saved up their entire life for that apartment.
She was not keen on becoming a “tenant farmer” in her own life, Chua shared in a funny column she penned in the Wall Street Journal.
The entire family signed the legally-enforceable contract.
Here are the key clauses (we secretly love) that the girls must abide by:
1. To occupy only the junior bedroom.
2. To greet Jed Rubenfeld & Amy Chua with spontaneous joy and gratitude whenever they visit.
3. To make their (joint) bed every day, and not to fight about who does it.
4. To never, ever use the phrase, “Relax—it’s not a big deal.”
5. To always leave all internal doors in the apartment wide open whenever Jed, Amy or any company whatsoever (including relatives) are in the apartment, with an immaculately made bed in full view and no clothing or other junk on the floor of the bedroom in sight.
6. Whenever any guests visit, to come out of the bedroom immediately in a respectable state, greet the guests with enthusiasm, and sit and converse with the guests in the living room for at least 15 minutes.
7. To always be kind to our trusty Samoyeds Coco and Pushkin, who Sophia and Louisa hereby agree have greater rights to the apartment than Sophia and Louisa do, and to walk them to the dog park at least once a day when they visit, within 30 minutes of being asked to do so by Amy.
8. To fill the refrigerator with fresh OJ from Fairway for Jed on days when he is in town.
9. To keep the pillows in the living room in the right place and PLUMPED and to clean the glass table with Windex whenever it is used.
ADDITIONALLY, Sophia and Louisa agree that the above duties and conditions will not be excused even in the event of illness, hangovers, migraines, work crises or mental breakdowns (whether their own or their friends’).
Sophia and Louisa agree that if they violate any one of these conditions, Amy and Jed will have the right to get the Superintendent or a doorman to restrain them from entering the apartment; and to change the locks.
Read the entire piece at the Wall Street Journal here.