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Frida Liu had one very bad day. Her daughter is little, and her ex-husband gets custody for half the week. When Frida had Harriet for her half of the week, the little girl cried and cried because of an ear infection and neither of them got much sleep for those few nights. Then Frida left her alone just to go grab something from work… and it turned into more than two hours. The neighbors heard Harriet crying, and then the police got involved.
So now Frida has to prove to protective services that she is a good enough mother for her daughter. The state is tightening up on bad parents, those who aren’t worthy of their children, those who aren’t devoted enough. Agents come in and place cameras all around Frida’s home to analyze her actions and her emotional state. She sees a counselor. All the while, her ex and the girlfriend who broke up their marriage get to have Harriet, and Frida only gets a few short supervised visits.
After a few months, a judge declares Frida unfit. He sends her to a brand-new program, a yearlong camp where mothers are taught how to be good parents. She is shipped off to a fenced-off, locked campus where women with all kinds of infractions are being trained. They’re watched, recorded, analyzed, even given brain scans. They’re drilled in “motherese” and tested on their skill at using it. They’re told they must never look away from their children, not for a second. And above all, a mother must be completely unselfish. She must live for her child. Her utter devotion and ability to properly use all the skills being taught at the school are the only way her child can have a fulfilled life.
The School for Good Mothers is an indictment of the power of the state in families’ lives, of the type of parenting seen by the upper-middle class as not just the best method for raising children, but the only method. It’s gut-wrenching, as we see parents and children torn from each other and left heartbroken for the smallest of mistakes or lapses in judgment or even parenting strategies that most reasonable people would consider perfectly acceptable. It’s difficult to read but hard to put down. It’s upsetting and made me angry at times, in that while it’s purposely overblown and almost a parody (but without any humor, in my mind), it’s too close for comfort to the truth of the judgmental society in which we live.
I’d have liked this dystopian book better had it not had a good amount of vulgar sexual content.
A book with a similar feel is Girl One.
Rated: High. Profanity includes over 50 uses of strong language, over 30 instances of moderate profanity, a couple of uses of mild language, and around 10 instances of the name of Deity in vain. Sexual content includes several sex scenes that are fairly brief but detailed. There are a lot of vulgar sexual references. Violence includes two suicides, some fighting, and mistreatment of people.
