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A review by bookswithchaipai
The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
sad
tense
medium-paced
“I am a bad mother, but I am learning to be good.”
This is the chant forced on wayward mothers who have strayed from their motherly responsibilities at the newly introduced School for Good Mothers. This school categorically educates a mother certain maternal instincts which the system feels is lacking in her, by subjecting her to inhumane conditions, the first of which is training cameras on her at all times to observe her and then by separating her from her child for an entire year.
Frida Liu has a bad day and so leaves her toddler unsupervised for several hours. Held for neglect and abandonment, she is forced to complete a year at the school to learn mothering skills or have her parental rights terminated. As we follow her through the year at the school, we realise good mothers are white mothers and bad fathers are not treated the same.
This book is not for the fickle minded. We all know the grievances single mothers have to face. I went through several shades of anger as I read about the indecencies meted out on her in the name of teaching motherly behaviour.
This one is for the people who enjoyed The Handmaids Tale for all its perverseness. The lifelike dolls used to teach motherly behaviour creeped me out to no end. The dystopian world building was a punch in the gut and magnified the vision of what a perfect mother should do.
“A mother is always patient. A mother is always kind. A mother is always giving. A mother never falls apart.”
Yes, child abuse is wrong, but the punishment was not in proportion to the gravity of the wrongdoing. But having said that, despite it being a dystopian book, I felt it mirrored some of the situations faced today by mothers who are judged.
I read this book in a record 2 days because I felt a dark cloud looming over my head as the book progressed. I needed to get done with it and move on. Nonetheless, despite the ire it flared in me, I found it fascinating and definitely worth a read.
This is the chant forced on wayward mothers who have strayed from their motherly responsibilities at the newly introduced School for Good Mothers. This school categorically educates a mother certain maternal instincts which the system feels is lacking in her, by subjecting her to inhumane conditions, the first of which is training cameras on her at all times to observe her and then by separating her from her child for an entire year.
Frida Liu has a bad day and so leaves her toddler unsupervised for several hours. Held for neglect and abandonment, she is forced to complete a year at the school to learn mothering skills or have her parental rights terminated. As we follow her through the year at the school, we realise good mothers are white mothers and bad fathers are not treated the same.
This book is not for the fickle minded. We all know the grievances single mothers have to face. I went through several shades of anger as I read about the indecencies meted out on her in the name of teaching motherly behaviour.
This one is for the people who enjoyed The Handmaids Tale for all its perverseness. The lifelike dolls used to teach motherly behaviour creeped me out to no end. The dystopian world building was a punch in the gut and magnified the vision of what a perfect mother should do.
“A mother is always patient. A mother is always kind. A mother is always giving. A mother never falls apart.”
Yes, child abuse is wrong, but the punishment was not in proportion to the gravity of the wrongdoing. But having said that, despite it being a dystopian book, I felt it mirrored some of the situations faced today by mothers who are judged.
I read this book in a record 2 days because I felt a dark cloud looming over my head as the book progressed. I needed to get done with it and move on. Nonetheless, despite the ire it flared in me, I found it fascinating and definitely worth a read.