The School for Good Mothers

“The family of yellers two doors down are outside smoking weed and clinking beer bottles. Loud white Americans taking up space. She never claimed her space. Gust used to tell her to stop apologizing, stop it with the Midwestern gosh-golly. But maybe some people weren’t meant to claim their space. She claimed it for two and a half hours and lost her baby.”

Here, Frida’s mind-body problem is applied to the metaphor of “taking up space” which can include making noise, breaking rules, or having needs. This quote also explores the racial double standards prevalent in the legal system, which are elaborated on later in the novel. Whereas wealthy, white Americans usually don’t get in trouble for minor crimes, several of the mothers whom Frida encounters at the school are there because they smoked marijuana.

“At the beginning, it felt like they were taking care of a benevolent creature, not yet a human. Making a new human felt so grave.”

Frida uses a simile to express how infants don’t seem truly human to her. Inherent in this simile is the idea that humans are bad until taught morals. This also foreshadows the A. I. dolls that the mothers meet at the school.

“She hopes the family court judge has feelings, that the judge, if he or she is childless, at least has a cat or dog, something with a soul and a face, that he or she has experienced unconditional love, knows regret. CPS should require this of their employees.”

This quote embodies one of the novel’s central criticisms of government involvement in parenting: If there’s no requirement that government officials in charge of breaking up families know something about parenthood, it’s unclear why their input is considered more important than actual parents. This quote also introduces Frida’s image of an elusive, nameless “family court judge.” At first, she expresses her wishes for the judge in terms of personality but later considers specific things she wants the judge to know, which she’s aware they probably won’t know.

“Now, repeat after me: I am a bad mother, but I am learning to be good.”

On the mothers’ first night at the school, the Director introduces their year-long mantra. Throughout the novel, the women repeat this phrase at certain points, sometimes at the request of the school staff, but eventually on their own, even elaborating on the phrase by specifying reasons why they are bad mothers. This repetition becomes more meaningful by the mothers’ elaboration, suggesting it’s become internalized.

“Someone whispers her daughter’s name. Someone else follows. Carmen. Josephine. Ocean. Lorrie. Brynn. Harriet. As they say their daughters’ names, it sounds like the roll call after an accident or a school shooting. A roster of victims.”

Shortly after arriving at the school, the mothers’ new reality begins to sink in, especially when it’s one woman’s daughter’s birthday and she’s mourning not being with her. The simile compares the sound of the daughters’ names to a list of victims, showing that the mothers’ pain is deeper than just being separated from their children. They have no way of checking on their children.

“‘What if they gave me a bad one? What if she’s a bad seed?’ She starts telling Lucretia how her mother once called her a bad seed, how that fucked her up her whole childhood.”

At first, Beth’s doll doesn’t seem to like her and she wants to ask for a new one, using the metaphor of a “bad seed” to describe what the doll might be. Despite all the novel’s talk of bad mothers and fathers, this is the only time someone suggests that a child or “seed” might be “bad.” This highlights the question of when a child should be considered an adult. This question is especially applicable to the teenage mothers in the program who became mothers while still children themselves. The government clearly thinks children’s lives are worth protecting, but it’s unclear why the same isn’t true of adult lives—or at what point lives are no longer the government’s concern and why.

“A mother is always giving. A mother never falls apart. A mother is the buffer between her child and the cruel world.

Absorb it, the instructors say. Take it. Take it.”

Normally, when characters speak in the novel, quotation marks are used, but in this instance, the instructors’ words lack quotation marks—causing them to blend seamlessly with the speaker, as if the words hang in the air rather than being spoken by a specific person. The instructors use the metaphor of a “buffer” to describe mothers, indirectly showing their belief in the punishment of mothers. This metaphor also reveals the school’s impossible expectations that mothers should be able to do anything and should have no needs other than their children.

“Emmanuelle recognized Frida. She pointed at Frida’s chest and said, ‘Mommy’ and Frida felt a vague something. Tenderness, maybe. Pride. The doll is not Harriet. She can never be Harriet. She is simply a stepping stone. Frida will step on the doll’s head, her body, whatever is necessary.”

Most of the dolls can’t remember who their new mother is after the first day, but Emmanuelle remembers Frida, showing the depth of Frida’s maternal capacity. However, Frida doesn’t indulge in this bond because she knows it’s temporary, and Emmanuelle is actively being pitted against Harriet. Because of this, Frida frames Emmanuelle as a “stepping stone”—not her real daughter, but something she must get past on the way back to her real daughter.

“Frida…thinks of Harriet running on the playground. Harriet is weak from vomiting. Harriet’s nosebleed, the last time they touched. She says, ‘I love you. Please forgive me.’

Emmanuelle stops crying. Frida can’t believe it…She kisses Emmanuelle’s forehead. Their eyes meet in kinship. Contentment has been achieved. It feels better than she imagined.”

In order to calm Emmanuelle, who was slapped by an instructor, Frida tries multiple strategies until she finally channels her empathy for an injured Harriet. This approach is effective, showing the extent to which the dolls resemble real children emotionally (if not physically).

“Since their breakthrough last week, she’s been thinking of Emmanuelle as her little friend. An orphan. A foundling. Perhaps she’s not a pretend daughter but a temporary one. Emmanuelle came to be hers because of a war.”

As time progresses, Frida’s metaphors for Emmanuelle and their relationship evolve. No longer a stepping stone but still temporary, Emmanuelle now resembles a “foundling” or an “orphan”—perhaps even a foster child since Frida parents her for one year. Although Frida still tries to create distance and remind herself that attachment to Emmanuelle is temporary, the depth of her concern over Emmanuelle’s identity and what she needs shows her maternal instinct.

“I am a narcissist. I am a danger to my child.”

This is the mantra of talk circle, an extra group counseling session used as punishment for bad behavior. This phrase gets repeated to show the degree to which the school has poisoned the mothers’ minds; however, it also gives the mothers opportunities to resist in small ways through varying the language. The school twists language into meaninglessness: Similar to how the words “abuse” and “neglect” lose meaning because they are used to describe almost anything, the word “narcissism” similarly loses meaning because the instructors use it to describe anything from being gay, to being straight, to having personal needs, to experiencing “negative” emotions.

“‘Anger is the most dangerous emotion,’ Ms. Khoury says. ‘There is no excuse for violence against children.’”

This quote is ironic because Ms. Khoury reprimands Frida for pinching Emmanuelle and claims there’s no excuse for harming children, yet she and other instructors physically, sexually, emotionally, and racially abuse the dolls on a regular basis. This quote highlights the instructors’ disdain for “negative” emotions. They have labeled a wide range of emotions as negative without considering the possibility that emotions such as fear, sadness, and anger serve purposes and might be helpful or even necessary to experience in order to be a good mother. For example, fear fuels mothers’ instincts to protect their children from various dangers.

“The instructors left bruises. The family court judge needs to know about those bruises and Emmanuelle’s screams. The judge should know that Frida is learning to be a better mother. She’ll keep believing that the doll’s blue insides and the doll itself are real, because if she doesn't demonstrate her capacity for genuine maternal feeling and attachment, if she doesn’t show she can be trusted, there will be no reunion with her real daughter, who is almost two years old, whose blood is not blue and doesn’t turn soupy and thick, whose cavities she would never scrape with a knife.”

Here, Frida repeats the pattern of listing things she wishes for the family court judge (Important Quote #4), which emphasizes how isolated she feels and the extent to which she is bottling up her emotions to please the instructors. Although most of the list previously concerned Harriet, as Frida spends more time with Emmanuelle, she starts to care for her almost the same as she does Harriet and wants her to have a better life. She even fantasizes about taking Emmanuelle home with her and having her be Harriet’s sister. Frida allows herself to start thinking of the doll as “real,” hoping this approach might help her regain custody of Harriet as well.

“If she ever tells Harriet about this place, she’ll say that she had to store her devotion somewhere. Emmanuelle, a vessel for her hope and longing, the way people used to invest tablets and sacred trees with their faith and love.”

Despite Frida’s recognition of Emmanuelle’s humanity and genuine love for her, she still feels ambivalent about their relationship because of guilt. Her real daughter was seized and replaced with a different daughter, and Frida feels like everything she does to bond with Emmanuelle should have been given to Harriet instead. When the brain scans collect data on Frida’s emotions, they only produce one-word descriptions of the emotions themselves, such as “ambivalence,” rather than detailed explanations. Had the judge had this information, they would have known that Frida’s ambivalence and other feelings are informed by maternity.

“Ms. Gibson says, ‘but what I’m not understanding is why you’d put your selfish desires before your mothering.’ 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.”

Here, the narrator starts Ms. Gibson’s (the assistant director’s) speech with quotation marks, but then lets her words bleed seamlessly into the rest of the text, showing how the philosophy of the school has permeated the entire environment. This also shows the school’s anti-gay bias because, although all romances are punished, lesbian relationships are especially looked down upon, viewed as narcissistic and unmotherly. The program’s fixation on “narcissism” is also ironic because it was removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th edition in 2013) prior to the publication of the novel (Ronningstam, Elsa, “Narcissistic personality disorder in DSM-V—in support of retaining a significant diagnosis,” National Library of Medicine, PubMed)—which contradicts the instructors’ claims that the parenting classes are “not outdated.”

“The family court judge should know that yelling at Tamara’s son is one of the most maternal things Frida has ever done. She’d always wanted her parents to yell on her behalf, remembers being pushed face-first into a chain-link fence when she was eight, telling her parents about it, her parents doing nothing.”

This quote illustrates the subjectivity of maternity, as it’s culturally and individually relative. Whereas some children might feel mothered and supported when their parents ignore bullies, others might feel better supported when their parents speak up on their behalf. This is evident when Frida is punished for doing the very thing she wished her own parents would do.

“I am a father learning to be a better man.”

When Frida meets Tucker from the school for bad fathers, he reveals that the fathers have it much easier than the mothers, which is even demonstrated by how their mantra deviates from the mothers’. Firstly, the fathers are recognized as both fathers and men, suggesting they are people in their own right, independent of their status as parents. On the contrary, the mothers are only identified as mothers, not women or people. Secondly, the fathers are not judged as harshly, despite having committed similar crimes, which is shown by them not being identified as “bad,” “dangerous,” or “narcissistic.” The word “father” has no adjectives preceding it, suggesting that mistakes or lapses in judgment are permissible for fathers but not mothers, who become “bad” after one mistake.

“The family court judge should know that Frida could give Harriet a sibling too. A sibling who looks like her. A Chinese sibling, a brunette. With Harriet’s same eyes and skin tone. In Gust and Susanna’s family, Harriet will always look like she’s adopted. Strangers will always ask questions. If they’re having their own baby, why do they need hers?”

Frida’s repetition of what the family court judge should know (Important Quotes #4, #14, and #17) becomes more complex and devastating, as it becomes clear that she’ll never be able to share her testimony. The court doesn’t share Frida’s family values, further complicating The Ethics of Government Interference in Parenting. For Frida, it’s important for her daughter to learn about Chinese culture, how to deal with racism, and to not feel like an outsider, but CPS doesn’t consider any of these factors.

“When they finally talked about it, her mother said, ‘I put it out of my mind. Only you girls these days think and think and think. I didn’t have time to do that. That is a luxury. I couldn’t get emotional. I had to work.’”

After Ms. Gibson lists American solutions that Frida’s mother should have pursued after her miscarriage and depression, like a therapist or support group, Frida again reflects on how expectations of what makes a “good” mother are culturally constructed and are not the same in Chinese culture. Frida’s mother prioritized working to support her family over seeking mental health resources. While mental health resources are valuable, many mothers have to prioritize what’s most important or attainable.

“She would like to know how soon Emmanuelle’s memory will be erased, whether she’ll go into storage until there’s another Asian, who that woman will be, how long Emmanuelle will have to wait for her, what name she’ll choose, what kind of relationship they’ll have. The next mother needs to be careful. It helps, when changing the blue liquid, to massage Emmanuelle’s back.”

This quote highlights Frida’s attachment to Emmanuelle, showing her maternal capacity, which is ironically the issue the court cites as Frida’s shortcoming. The quote also highlights how strange it is to introduce the concepts of race and sex to artificial intelligence. Throughout the novel, these ideas are foreign to the dolls, and they need to be programmed in order to exhibit racism and sexism. For some reason, the school thinks it’s important for mothers to have dolls that match their child’s race, yet have no concept of how people of different racial or national backgrounds could have different parenting styles or norms.

“The next mother needs to keep her safe. She needs to protect Emmanuelle from the instructors and other dolls. She can’t let Emmanuelle get hit. She should know that Emmanuelle prefers carrots to peas. She should find Jeremy and allow the dolls to spend time together.”

Here, Frida varies her repetition of what the judge should know to what the next mother taking her place should know, showing that she cares about Emmanuelle not just as a vehicle to get back to her own daughter but in her own right. It also shows that Frida believes the dolls have an identity or personality that will persist even after their memories are wiped; she wants Emmanuelle to be reunited with Tucker’s doll Jeremy again.

“Love you, Mommy! Take care! Take care!”

Emmanuelle’s last words to Frida (before having her memory erased due to the program ending) repeat a phrase from earlier in the novel, when the dolls are instructed to demonstrate empathy by delivering a coin to a fake homeless person, then delivering a supportive phrase such as “take care.” The fact that Emmanuelle repeats this phrase to Frida shows that Frida has succeeded in teaching Emmanuelle to “be human” and have empathy. It also shows that Emmanuelle views Frida as someone in need, being able to recognize her emotional plight throughout the program and especially now, when prompted to say goodbye to her surrogate daughter.

“The judge said…What made the program so special was having the child’s perspective. Even if Emmanuelle didn’t have all the language to describe Frida’s mothering, even if the instructors couldn’t watch Frida at every moment, with the rest of the data, with the technology, the court had a full picture of Frida’s abilities. Her character.”

This quote questions The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence and The Ethics of Government Involvement in Parenting by pointing out the main flaw in this approach. Assuming that science and technology leave no room for human error or bias is dangerous because people are more likely to ignore the human error and bias that do exist. Furthermore, this quote illustrates how data is not always enough, and that other factors are needed to measure motherhood (such as the content of this novel, Frida’s internal thoughts).