on the shelf: the school for good mothers

a must-read for folks with mommy issues

Photo Credit: Chelsi White

like most of my mid-20s and early 30s peers, i’ve been thinking a lot about my mother. my therapist once told me that our relationships with our birth giver determines the voice of our subconscious; we determined as much when i admitted mine is a feedback loop of criticism and shame. for members of the asian diaspora especially, our relationships with our mothers often fraught. at a book exchange event, over half of the attendees chose their titles because it centered mother/daughter dynamics.

for the past year, i’ve been writing a play on the generational trauma passed down from woman to woman. it is half-based on my own family, but speaks to a greater pattern of the ways motherhood is a lose/lose game. how long does it take for the child to realize their mother is a person, not just a caregiver? how do we forgive our mothers, if at all? how does society set mothers up to fail—especially in light of states threatening to remove custody of children expressing interest in transgenderism and lack of decent maternity leave in the workplace?

when i came across the school for good mothers on the best-sellers list (our favorite war criminal, barack obama, recommended it), i was curious by the premise. set not that far from own reality, mothers who are caught with even a minor infraction are sent to an experimental school for rehabilitation or else lose permanent custody. crimes range from packing the wrong lunch to physical harm to the child. in jessamine chan’s debut novel, to be a bad mother is a moral failing.

two of my close friends didn’t particularly like the book, so i went into it with tapered expectations. but page after page, i was hooked like a fish on a line. the bleak, almost satirical tone of the short read was exactly what i needed to get back into fiction reading. when the protagonist, frida, is sent to the facility alongside hundreds of other “bad mothers”, i had the momentary thought of, “imagine if this was real life.”

but it is real, in more ways than one. the social playground for mothers to be judged, picked apart, and ostracized is very much real. as are the disparity between household expectations for mothers versus fathers. i’m not a mother, clearly, but i’m not immune to the mass messaging in product and media that tells women if they don’t do something just right, they’re failing their children.

“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. through caring for her child, all her needs are fulfilled.” — the school for good mothers

in the play i’m writing, i explore the three generations of asian women coming to terms with their own mothers. a line from it says, "i know my mother loves me—i just wish she loved me in a way i need.” what’s appealing to me about frida is that as an asian woman, she doesn’t fit the americana mold of motherhood. she’s anti-social, takes shortcuts, and has selfish tendencies regarding her own needs. but does that make her a bad person?

does that make her a bad mother?

coming into the later half of my twenties, i have more empathy for my own mother than ever. the realization that our mothers are real people with their own traumas and shortcomings and experiences—outside of us, their children—is one that only comes with age.

as the book progresses, you can’t help but ask if frida deserves a second chance. but our own prejudices becomes stark obvious in doing so and it’s both uncomfortable and liberating to understand that we all have varying criterias of motherhood that’s both trauma-informed and culturally biased.

all in all, i loved this book and highly recommend it to anyone looking to either get into fiction or back into it. it’s incredibly easy to read and has a strong narrative tone that’ll make it hard to put down (trust me).