'The School for Good Mothers,' Reddit, and Mom-judgment

"Maybe you should look at Reddit less," my mother suggested. It was a very good suggestion. I'd spent the last few of our conversations discussing one parenting subreddit's warnings against "baby containers" (which is basically anything that might "restrict" an infant's freedom of movement) and was stressing about that and other common parenting forum "controversies" too. It was becoming a bit of a joke in my household; whenever someone suggested buying something for the baby or trying a new approach for pretty much anything, I'd respond, "Well, that is..." My husband has started finishing the sentence: "Wait, let me guess! That's something that is now considered 'controversial.'"

Some of the things that have deep, passionate controversies and debates on the parenting forums and subreddits are a follows: formula feeding, spoon feeding, co-sleeping, giving baby their own room, not giving baby their own room, sleep training, modified sleep training, feeding to sleep, using medicine for diagnosed reflux, using alternative treatments (such as chiropractic) for diagnosed reflux, using baby Tylenol for any reason, putting babies on their back too much, putting babies on adult laps too much, putting babies in chairs or jump-ups, putting babies in baby "containers" of any kind, letting babies cry too much, and responding too quickly to a baby's cry. 

It's enough to drive a person mildly crazy. So, I decided to take my mother's advice and take a few days off of parenting forums and Reddit. What would I do instead? Well, I decided I would read a novel. 

It's been years since I read a work of literary fiction that I wasn't also possibly prepping to teach, so it seemed as good a time as any. Also, Barack Obama had recently released his summer reading list for 2022, so I decided to check it out and select something from that list of recommendations. 

And because, as we've already established, I sometimes have a sick sense of humor and am a bit of a masochist in my reading choices, I decided on Jessamine Chan's The School for Good Mothers.

This dystopian novel takes place not so much in the future as it does in an alternative present; Twitter and Instagram are both referenced, as are current cell-phones and even "motorized bassinets" that "sleep-train your baby for you." (I see you, Snoo controversy reference! I forgot that one on my list...)

In this alternate present, CPS has started a new program for parents who are at risk of losing custody of their children: they can enroll in a "school" for a year to train them to become good mothers or good fathers (the schools are separated by gender; there is no discussion of how said program would address a non-binary parent). If they pass the school's tests, they are guaranteed to get their custody restored. If they leave the school or fail the tests, they lose custody and are added to a new registry for abusive or neglectful parents.

The infractions that may land a person in this CPS school vary wildly. Some parents are ones who have inflicted unquestionable neglect and abuse, such as burning their child with cigarettes or hitting them. Others have more questionable infractions that normally would not get a child taken away in our current climate; one mother lost custody after sharing a video to her Twitter of her toddler "having a meltdown" and was reported for neglect and harm. Another gave her son a small spanking in a store parking lot and was reported by a neighbor. One father's son fell out of a tree at a park, and he was reported as being neglectful for being on his phone too much and not watching his son closely enough. 

The protagonist of the novel, Frida, is a bit of a mix. As the story is told from her third-person limited perspective, the readers see how much she loves and cares for her daughter. She is not a serial abuser or consistent neglectful parent. However, what she does to lose custody does feel shocking and inexcusable: one day, she leaves her eighteen-month-old daughter at home alone for over two and a half hours. Her excuses to the police and CPS (that she didn't mean to be gone that long, that she lost track of time, that she was sleep deprived because of a mixture of her own insomnia and her daughter's lingering ear infection) are contrasted with the breadcrumbs of facts that are scattered through the first chapters (by the time the police are called and then ultimately arrive, the young daughter has gone hoarse from crying, is scared and dehydrated and in a soiled diaper, and has been stuck in a too-small activity center the entire time). The reader is called to complete two nearly-contradictory actions at the same time: to have understanding and empathy for Frida but also to judge her and her horrifying failure as a parent. At the same time we ache for Frida's loss of her daughter, we likely nod along as the one government agent asks: what kind of mother leaves the house and doesn't realize she needs to bring her baby with her?

This vacillating between sympathy and judgment also occurs amongst the mothers when they arrive at "the school." As the mothers swap stories about what brought them to the School for Good Mothers, Frida is nervous to share. As she starts explaining, a woman interrupts her: 

"No need to get defensive. We're not judging you." 

For a moment, it seems like solidarity; all the mothers understand that no one "deserves to end up" at the school, and they start with a radical sense of empathy for one another. Until, that is, one mother shares that she is in the school because a judge and psychologist decided that "coddling is a subset of emotional abuse." When the women ask what she means, the mother explains that she tied her teenager's shoes for him and cut up his food at dinner. 

At that, "[d]isapproving glances ricochet around the table." 

This, somewhat humorously, is the infraction many of the mothers feel is too far, even beyond examples of true neglect. There also becomes a clear line between those who "hit their kids" and those who ended up at the school for other reasons. Tribes based on the kind (and thus, from each mother's view, the severity) of infraction begin to form. 

Image source: ScaryMommy 

The reactions and shift from "no judgement" to tribalism and disapproval seemed so familiar to me. Just a month or so ago, amidst the judging and controversy-filled Reddit posts, was one thread that promised the opposite. It started with the phrase "Judgment Free Zone" and asked parents to share something that they did that they knew went "against recommendations" but that they had thought about carefully and decided to do anyway. It was an attempt to empower parents, the post read, and take away the stigma.

I loved the idea of this, as did others. One commenter mentioned that she appreciated the framing and then admitted that she co-slept with her baby, "Something I've never written about on Reddit before for fear of judgement. Until now." Another poster admitted she let her baby sleep in something she knew wasn't "sleep safe" for naps because it was the only way the child would sleep at all: "I watched her carefully, and I wouldn't encourage new parents to do the same [thing]," she wrote. "But I wouldn't judge them for it either." The stories were ones of fear and exhaustion and trying anything sometimes to get babies to sleep or eat or just stay in one place for a second. It was a powerful subreddit thread, and I wanted to encourage the community honesty by upvoting (the equivalent of "liking" on Reddit) every post. Until... suddenly I couldn't. There was a post or two that had admissions that, to me, felt actually dangerous in a way the other admissions didn't. I'm not sure they actually were more dangerous, but they were things that fell into my 'NEVER DO' category and made me uncomfortable. Suddenly, in this "judgement free space," I was very much judging. And I wasn't the only one; the comments that received lots of upvotes and replies of "Me too!" seemed to clearly show what were "acceptable" infractions in the community and what (with their lack of upvotes and affirming comments) were not. 

This tribalism and "ranking" of mommy-infractions within the dystopian school continues throughout Chan's novel, but more important than the mommies' judgment of each other is the judgment of the school itself, the apparatus that controls whether these women will have their children returned to them or not. The lessons and tests are conducted using life-like mechanical children. While these boys and girls are synthetic, Chan's descriptions indicate very real emotions; they carry grudges from previous experiences and interactions, feel pain, and seem to develop real love and hate for their test parents. The dystopian element feels the strongest in this section of the novel, as the synthetic children are on one hand treated like just tools to help the parents' growth and thus are intentionally pinched and burned and put in dangerous situations. However, the mothers are simultaneously expected to care for the synthetics like their own children, showing them love and care and comfort at the same time that the school-heads promise they're "just tools" that need to experience real pain so the parents get accurate practice soothing. 

"The dolls cry longer and louder than real children. They cry without pause. They don't get tired. Their voices don't get hoarse. They push themselves out of their mothers' embraces... Hours pass. The instructors wear headphones. At lunch time, they pause the dolls mid-wail, their mouths stretched open, their throats red and wet and pulsing. They resume the same high pitch of grief when the mothers return. The mother's aren't making their dolls feel safe. If they felt safe, they'd stop crying."

The scenes with the synthetic children are horrifying and sad; I found myself reminded of so many other science fiction stories, such as Westworld or Blade Runner, where robots or synthetic lifeforms are used horrifically for humanity's either entertainment or convenience. But having all the synthetics be children that need to be taken care of made each test and lesson in the school even more unsettling to me. 

Very creepy concept art for Westworld

Ultimately, Chan's novel is a tragedy. As the story makes clear, the tests set up by the school are impossible to pass fully. The expectations keep getting higher as the mothers progress, and it soon becomes clear that perfection at all times and in all circumstances is what is ultimately needed to satisfy the school: 

"'A mother must never look away,' [the instructor says]. She pauses and repeats herself, asks the mothers to repeat after her. They bow their heads..."

"The instructors tell [the mothers] to manage their frustration... they [must] show their child that a mother can handle anything. A mother is always patient. A mother is always kind. A mother is always giving. A mother never falls apart. A mother is the buffer between her child and the cruel world." 

No mothers, no parents at all, can meet these expectations. No parent is perfect all the time. I found myself with tears in my eyes at the novel's conclusion, and I thought about how the School for Good Mothers exists in some form all around us. How we expect parents to be perfect and judge them based on their worst moments; how children are often treated as props or tools on social media; how mommy influencers and "experts" promise they have the answers if you follow their advice and if your child still doesn't eat or sleep in the "ideal" way then it's clearly your fault. I didn't find Chan's novel without flaws, but it rang true to me in an essential way and really spoke to me emotionally. 

It was, however, horribly depressing. 

As I cuddled my sleeping baby (contact napping, something controversial that I'd read could cause negative sleep habits and sleep association problems), I wiped my tears and decided I needed to read something else before my baby awoke, something that would act as a kind of mental pallet-cleanser.

So... I opened Reddit. And I was still scrolling through posts when my baby woke up again.