#The School for Good Mothers

[tragicallywicked]

some of my collection

[sjohnsonwriter-blog]

Was a book club and the first question was, "Was this story worth being told?"

Complete silence.

I raise my hands. "Is the point of a book not to be entertained?"

I might be in the wrong line of work because my stories aren't worth being told. I just like to talk and entertain people. Lol.

[bonelessenthusiast]

just finished the school for good mothers and i have never cried that much

[dykerory]

i just started the school for good mothers and i can already tell that it's going to be a difficult read in an emotional sense. it's so upsetting already and like she hasn't even gone to the school yet.

[semper-legens]

166. The School for Good Mothers, by Jessamine Chan

Owned: No, library Page count: 319 My summary: Frida made a mistake. She left her child alone for two hours, and now she cannot see her child again. Not unless she completes the programme. Isolated in a college campus, left to look after a strangely lifelike robot referred to as a 'doll', she must learn to be a good mother. Or her life will fall apart even more than it already has... My rating: 5/5 My commentary:

I don't particularly know why I picked this book up. It's certainly not the kind of thing I usually read - a contemporary look at motherhood and what it means to have a child with the premise of a slightly-in-the-future training school for 'bad' mothers - but I am so glad that I read it. There's a lot going on in this book; it's a really interesting dissection of the idea of motherhood, the impossible standards placed on women and placed on mothers, the American ideal of motherhood and how that can be oppressive and hamper the agency of mothers who don't fit the mould, particularly mothers who aren't straight and white. It's a disturbing, well-written field guide to the complex notion of parenthood, and it's definitely worth checking out.

Frida is a bad mother. She left her daughter alone in the house for two hours - she's a single mother, sleep-deprived, and ran out for an errand which ended up taking longer than anticipated. For that, she is denied access to her daughter, and eventually enrolled in the school, a one-year long programme meant to reform bad parents and teach them how to properly raise their children. She's exhausted, stressed, anxious, and trying her best to be the kind of mother that the school really wants. Unfortunately, the deck is already stacked against her. I liked that Frida was both conforming and rebellious - she wants to do whatever it takes to get her daughter back, and sometimes that means submitting to the fascist power structure that seeks to run her life, and sometimes it means working against it. She's trying to make the best of a really complicated situation, balance her needs against the selflessness that's being looked for in the mothers, and keep it together as much as she can so she has a hope of seeing her daughter again. It's an admirable position, and you really can't help but root for her given all that is working against her.

Race is a huge factor in this novel. Frida is Chinese-American, while her ex is a white man. Many of the mothers she's at the school with are Black or Latina, and she notes that the white mothers are often treated better than the non-white mothers by the staff and curriculum. Black and Latina mothers are more likely to get assigned punishment duty scrubbing bathrooms, for example. Frida is the only Asian mother, and occupies a weird no-man's-land - not white enough to be with the white mothers, but seen as being 'better' by the establishment than the Black and Latina mothers, although she's not given a high enough position to be grouped with the white mothers. On days where they are meant to be teaching their kids about racialised violence, the white parents' dolls are railroaded into hurling slurs and racist abuse at the non-white dolls, which is obviously very triggering and traumatic for the mothers, but the people who run the school don't seem to care. Lines, too, are drawn between the kind of parent and upbringing the school wants the mothers to be, and the parents and upbringing the non-white might have had within their culture. Frida notes that her family is a lot more withdrawn than the family the instructors want them to model. Disparaging comments are made to Frida, making assumptions about her life and family because she is Chinese. Even where Frida's family do fit stereotypes around Chinese families, it's still not okay to look down on Frida and assume things about her just based on her ethnicity.

And then there's how the school defines motherhood. The perfect mother is white, middle class, and American. She is selfless, giving, and patient. She never raises her voice, and certainly would never hit a child. She never complains. Her child is the most important - indeed, only important - thing in her life. Her child takes precedence over all else. The various crimes the mothers committed to get sent here are not always proportionate; Frida had one moment of arguable neglect, versus a mother who kept her kids in a hole, versus the mother who lost her kids for checking herself into a psychiatric institution. The tests are near-impossible to pass - not only do the dolls act just like real kids, meaning they're unpredictable and offputting, but every scenario seems rigged against the mothers. Yeah, let's see you focus on your fake kid when you're being shown images of your real kid happily living their life without you. Mothers are also treated differently to fathers - the fathers don't have the quasi-therapy punishment of 'talk circle', never get their right to contact their real kids taken away, and aren't under the same level of scrutiny as the mothers. It really just highlights the extremely narrow and unrealistic expectations of what a mother 'should' be, and it's incredibly effective at executing that. A very worthwhile read, check it out if you get the chance!

Next, fish are walking out of the sea.

[dazyd]

the school for good mothers is the most upsetting book i've read in years and i also could not put it down

[atragedyus]

i finished reading the school for good mothers and the ending made me so extremely sad??? the entire book made my blood boil and the ending just ripped out my heart :'/

[shesamreads]

The School for Good Mothers is a 2022 debut novel by American writer Jessamine Chan. The novel concerns a woman, Frida, who is sentenced to a period at an experimental facility intended to rehabilitate mothers accused of even minor parenting infractions.

I often feel like I'm not doing good enough as a mother. Our own anxieties, and how society views mothers (working or otherwise), often make mothers feel like they're not good enough for the smallest, stupidest things.

I imagine this book will hurt in all the worst ways. I've also heard it's really good, so let's see how this goes, shall we?

[ademella]

currently reading

[jp-hunsecker]

A movie made by and for dumb people, where not only clothing is color-coded, but skin is as well.

[drowningin-fantasies]

currently reading the school for good mothers very slowly. I am scareddd and uncomfortable. not halfway through yet.

[songforten]

can anyone explain to me at what point rose tyler was "unbelievably stupid". was it when she was inventing transdimensional travel

[pleasedvourme]

look at this fucking kid man

[daisybell-on-a-carousel]

"Jason was the happy robin" this, "jason was the angry robin" that. Let's all be fully honest here Jason was the lonely robin

[reefs-camp-blog]

percy ends up in the principals office, as he does, and he thinks hes gonna be expelled again

until the principal says who he calls. most of the time its sally, if she cant be reached its paul (who usually just talks on the phone since he cant leave his job). this time. this time is different

because when sally is called, the principal says ‘i called your mother’, when paul is called, ‘i called your step-father’

the principal said neither of those things

‘i called your father. he will be here shortly.’

father. not step-father, just. father.

‘do you, do you mean my step-dad, paul-?’

‘no. you’re biological father. the one named after the greek god.’

percy had been in two wars. his father, clearly pissed off barging into the principals room 7 minutes later was something more traumatizing and horrific than both wars combined.

luckily, poseidon was mad at the principal. and made him cry. within 4 minutes. and managed to get percy only suspended for two weeks.

(poseidon did bring him on a shopping spree so it wasnt that bad (he got stuff for his mom and a few campers too ofc))

as they were leaving, it was clear that people were watching. several had their phones out recording. percy figured they were recording poseidon.

it was only a day later when percy realized. they were high schoolers. horny high schoolers. and a lot of them had 1. the ability to make edits and 2. a love for middle aged men.

[erinwantstowrite]

wait ur a hp fan??/pos

i have such a complicated relationship with the harry potter series because yes it did shape me as a person, yes it was my first book, yes it was my first fandom, yes i did start writing because of harry potter. but also i hate JKR and the message behind the series now that i'm an adult. harry didn't get the ending that he deserved, he didn't get a lesson worth living for