The School for Good Mothers is a 2022 novel by Jessamine Chan.
When Frida Liu has to make a quick trip to the office, she leaves her daughter at home, figuring she'll get back soon enough. But once she arrives she loses track of time until she gets a call from a police officer saying they got a call from a neighbor who heard her daughter cry. Child Protective Services intervenes, removing Harriet from her custody. After several weeks, the court gives Frida the option of completing a special year-long program. If she passes, she might be able to regain her custody. But if she fails, the consequences will be dire.
Tropes present in this work
- All Crimes Are Equal: Frida, who left her daughter unattended at home, a mother who spanked her kid, and another mother who left her baby with a 12-year-old babysitter are in the same boat as Linda, who left her six kids in a hole.
- Arc Words:
- "I am a bad mother, but I am learning to be good." The mothers at the school are instructed to chant this, along with "I am a narcissist. I am a danger to my child", regardless of the severity of the abuse or neglect committed (ranging from a slap in the face to being mistaken for an alcoholic). It becomes a Madness Mantra as Frida's mental health deteriorates.
- Frida's "very bad day" is how she keeps referring to the day where after several nights of little or no sleep, she left Harriet alone at home for what turned out to be two and a half hours.
- Armor-Piercing Question: Margaret and Alicia are caught kissing, i.e. breaking rules on fraternization, and sent to "talk circle". The counselor asks them why they put their "selfish desires" before their mothering.Margaret: You people are going to take my kid anyway. Why don't you admit that instead of pretending like we have a chance?
- Big Brother Is Watching: At the school, things like eye contact, length and quality of hugs, and other aspects of interactions with the dolls are measured to determine performance. Brain scans are taken, and the dolls themselves record footage that the mothers get to see. Even the mothers' heart rate is recorded.
- Book Ends: The book begins and ends with Frida committing an act of desperation.
- Bungled Suicide: The reason Beth is in the school; she checked herself into a psychiatric hospital. An ex-boyfriend reported her, and it was determined that since she had been a danger to herself, she must obviously be a danger to her child.
- Ching Chong: Frida tries to discourage the other mothers from gossiping about her ex-roommate, who just quit. In response, she gets harassed and called "an uptight Chinese bitch". One of the white mothers makes ching-chong noises in her ear.
- Circular Reasoning: The mothers are using the robotic dolls to practice how to talk to their children. An instructor tells Beth that her voice should be "as light and lovely as a cloud". When Beth asks how does a cloud sound, Ms. Russo says it sounds like a mother. This does not make sense to Beth, but Ms. Russo tells her that mothering is about a feeling, not about sense.
- Creepy Doll: The mothers at the school are given dolls that resemble their children and that are so realistic looking that they get mistaken for real children at first. Frida notes that the doll she is given has a rubbery, "new car" smell to her.
- Department of Child Disservices: After Frida's lapse of judgement, CPS intervenes to place Harriet in her father's custody. Frida is entitled to brief supervised visits that often get cut short or canceled and she is also subjected to Sinister Surveillance. Eventually, she is sent to the school.
- Despair Event Horizon:
- Frida hits it after the family court judge rules that she simply is not ready for the responsibility of being a mother based on the footage and data collected by the dolls and terminates her parental rights. The only way she can see Harriet again is if Harriet looks her up after she turns eighteen.
- Young Meryl hits it when she learns that on top of her poor prognosis for reuniting with her child, the kid will go into foster care.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: If mothers quit the school, get expelled, or reveal any information about it, they'll be added to a Negligent Parent Registry. The registry will post their names and photos online, alert communities when they move into neighbourhoods, and reveal their "crimes" when they do anything that requires a social security number. In other words, they'll be treated like pedophiles.
- Downer Ending: Frida's parental rights are terminated. Weeks later, while Gust and Susanna are at the ER dealing with their son's medical emergency, they leave Harriet in family friend Will's care. Frida asks for a brief moment to be alone with Harriet. When Will heads out, Frida runs away with her, knowing full well an Amber Alert will be issued and she will get caught and put in jail.
- Driven to Suicide: First Margaret, a mother that got caught kissing with another mother, then Meryl, after she learns her daughter Ocean will be put in foster care.
- Enigmatic Institute: The mothers are required to sign a confidentiality agreement and if they violate it, they will be entered on a registry for abusive parents that will follow them forever.
- Ethnic Menial Labor: When the mothers are assigned to "cleaning detail" Black and Latina mothers are more likely than White mothers to be assigned to clean bathrooms, the dirtier work.
- Felony Misdemeanor: Although some mothers are abusive or have committed acts of parental neglect, others have ended up there for things like leaving an infant child with a 12-year-old sitter.
- The Friend Nobody Likes: Linda. Being known for having six children with different fathers and neglecting them does not make her popular. Neither does being at the top of the class. Or starting a fight with another mother and getting her expelled while she escapes punishment.
- Good Stepmother: Zig-Zagged Trope. Susanna imposes her ideas on Harriet, like feeding her a gluten-free diet without consulting a pediatrician first, to Frida's displeasure. But ultimately, she does such a good job of caring for her that Harriet eventually refers to her as "Mommy Sue-Sue", horrifying Frida.
- Granola Girl: Susanna, Gust's younger girlfriend and later wife. She suggests that Frida switch to cloth diapers, buy Harriet clothes made out of organic cotton, and get some healing crystals for the nursery, even offering to start her out with rose quartz.
- Happiness Is Mandatory: On her first week, Frida's counselor tells her that the doll has collected data showing she has substantial amounts of anger and ingratitude and that "Any negative feelings will impede her progress." According to the instructors any form of unhappiness is a sign of being a bad mother.
- Insane Troll Logic: According to the counselors, "Loneliness is a form of narcissism. A mother who is in harmony with her child, who understands her place in her child's life and her role in society, is never lonely." Simply having desires of her own or unresolved emotions makes a mother unfit.
- Institutional Apparel: The mothers are not allowed to wear their personal clothes. Instead, they are given shapeless jumpsuits and other government-issued clothing.
- Know-Nothing Know-It-All:
- The instructors have no kids themselves, and don't know how difficult parenting is, or what children actually need (for example, they expect mothers to cure illnesses, injuries and mental trauma with nothing but their love). They think they know about mothering just because they have dogs and nephews.
- Susanna puts Harriet on a low-carb diet without consulting a pediatrician first, making her dangerously thin. Eventually, though, she gets professional advice, and Harriet's weight returns to normal.
- Madonna-Whore Complex: According to the school, a good mother isn't supposed to experience sexual desire for anyone, lest it distract her from childrearing. Frida's attraction to Tucker is a factor that gets her parental rights terminated, whereas his attraction to her doesn't stop him getting his kid back.
- Morton's Fork: Frida notes that the school is teaching women to be stay-at-home mothers, and that they need partners to earn the money. But since they're also taught they mustn't want partners, there's no way they can win.
- Moving the Goalposts: The mothers are allowed ten minutes a week for a computer phone call with their children. Except... Frida loses her phone privileges when she fails a unit. She is told that she needs to improve her standing in the class (finish in the top two of her class of four). Then her privileges remain suspended until she scores again in the top two, so they know is not dumb luck. She ends up going months without having contact with her daughter.
- My Beloved Smother: Helen, Frida's first roommate, was reported by her seventeen-year-old son's therapist for babying him, as it is considered a form of emotional abuse. She admits to cutting up his food and helping him shave, and does not get what is so weird about that.
- Never My Fault: Social workers stress Harriet out while monitoring Frida's interactions with her. Naturally, Frida gets the blame for Harriet's resulting tantrums.
- Perfection Is Impossible: The perfect really is the enemy of the good here, as the mothers undergo challenges nobody can hope to pass (eg. protecting the dolls from multiple attackers, keeping a laser focus on them even while having horrific imagery shoved in their faces), the stress of which leaves them far less emotionally stable than when they started out. What's more, they're not allowed to support each other. It's no surprise that, in the end, all of the mothers fail the program.
- Playing the Victim Card: Colin blames Frida for failing the test on diversity issues and tells people that if she really cared about Black people in America, she should have let him win.
- Prison Changes People: The school is a very prison-like environment. Despite its purported goal being to teach the mothers how to improve at their parenting skills, it sets up the mothers for failure by setting unrealistic standards, providing them with little support for their own issues, and constantly telling that they are bad mothers.Not everyone came to the school a violent woman, but now, heading into month seven, they all might stab someone.
- Quit Your Whining: Frida's meager phone privileges are canceled after she gets a zero in an evaluation. They stay canceled even after the second time she scores in the top two out of her class. The third time, Frida is told that she is doing so well she will stay another month without privileges. When she brings up that she has not spoken to her daughter in four months, her counselor rebukes her with a "Don't whine."
- Rape as Backstory: The mothers Beth and Meryl; the former was raped at twelve by her choir teacher, the latter at six. Both of them tell the others that their mothers didn't believe them when they told.
- Rejected Apology: At an evaluation, Frida is partnered with a father. She and her doll outperform Colin and his son. Afterwards he accuses "Miss Ivy League" of messing things up for him. When she tries to apologize, he tells her to save it.
- Ridiculously Human Robots: The mothers at the schools are paired to children in the same age group as theirs. They are surprised to learn that they are not real children, but rather, Creepy Dolls programmed to respond to their "parenting" and to record their interactions and collect data.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
- Frida's first roommate, Helen quits on the second day, after telling the counselor that the curriculum is insane. It means her parental rights are terminated but her son is 17, so she is not worried.
- Two mothers, Meryl and Roxanne, often talk about running away. Eventually, they run off with one of the fathers who is also in the school..
- Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: The standards are so impossibly high that mothers are doomed to fail, both inside and outside of the school. The reason Frida's "very bad day" happened in the first place was because she was so utterly burned out from the expectations heaped upon her.
- Struggling Single Mother: Frida is expected to care for Harriet on her own with zero support network, a boss who wants her to prioritise work above everything else, demanding parents, and a distant ex with a girlfriend who gives preachy unsolicited advice. On top of all this, she has to deal with depression and insomnia.
- Taking The Kid: Frida ends up running away with Harriet after her parental rights are terminated. She knows she will get caught and doesn't care.
- There Is No Higher Court: A judge rules that Frida must have her parental rights terminated. Also, Frida cannot have any contact with Harriet until she turns 18 and only if Harriet seeks Frida out. What's worse, it is an decision which cannot be appealed.
- Thoughtcrime: Prior to completing the program, Frida's counselor chastises her for the results of her brain scan, which show feelings of shame, guilt and desire whenever she looked at footage of her interactions with Tucker. Despite her protests that they never even kissed, the counselor berates her because she wanted to kiss him. For good measure, she blames Frida for inviting Tucker's attention. This is one of the factors used by the judge to terminate her parental rights.
- Too Broken to Break: Despite Frida's best efforts, the judge terminates her parental rights. Additionally, she won't be allowed to have any contact with Harriet until she turns 18, and only if Harriet wants to. After crossing the Despair Event Horizon she abducts Harriet, figuring that any time with her daughter is worth going to jail when (not if) she gets caught.
- Trauma Button: As part of a lesson on racism and sexism prevention, the dolls are programmed to take turns acting hateful, so the parents practice comforting their "children" after they experience prejudice. Having to hear racial slurs is triggering for many of the parents of color, leading them to remember their own experiences. The same happens to Chinese-American Frida when her doll, Emmanuelle, has the other dolls calling her slurs and pulling their eyes into slits.
- White Guilt: The White parents don't appreciate their robot "children" play the part of racists. Tucker, a father enrolled at the school for fathers, gets tired of hearing his robot "son" say the N-word and says his real-life son would never say it.
- Would Hurt a Child: While this is only true of some of the mothers, it's glaringly true of the instructors. Despite claiming to have children's best interests in mind, they tear families apart by restricting phone contact, and routinely abuse the dolls.
