The School for Good Mothers

Throughout the novel, the spaces where “bad” parents live, work, and go to “school” are compared to prisons in order to capture the dystopian surveillance of parents and their resulting self-policing. These spaces are not actual prison buildings; rather, Child Protective Services (CPS) transforms other spaces into prisons, for the alleged purposes of protecting children from abuse and neglect. CPS installs cameras throughout Frida’s home to monitor her behavior and track her emotions. Frida’s home becomes a prison because she has to spend enough time there to appear normal, while also policing her behavior and not displaying excessive negative emotions despite the nightmarish reality around her.

Later, Frida and other mothers attend “school” at an old, bankrupt liberal arts college campus that has been transformed into a prison. Although the campus retains its beautiful buildings and arboretums, it’s surrounded by barbed wire fences and vast expanses of unforgiving wilderness so escaping without the help of a guard is not feasible. Although one mother, Helen, is allowed to quit the program after the first day, the rules soon change and the women are kept on the premises.

There are several other similarities to prison: The women are ordered by a judge to attend the program, otherwise forfeit any chance of regaining custody. Guards are omnipresent, hygienic conditions are lacking, contact with the outside world is severely limited, and abuse is prevalent. No visitors are allowed, and the mothers’ weekly 10-minute phone calls are revoked, often without explanation, for most. The mothers are forbidden from sharing information about the program with others (and if they do, they automatically lose custody), allowing the staff to do anything without consequences. The women wear uniforms, perform labor (such as cleaning the school, taking care of the grounds, and cooking for each other) with no pay, and have other restrictions beyond what are placed on normal citizens, such as not being allowed to drink alcohol or have romances. There is an excessive amount of racial and class-based tension, most of which is created by the institution itself, which its “inmates” (and dolls) then respond to in kind.

In addition to illustrating the plight of parents who have had their children removed and are thus treated like criminals, the school’s resemblance to prison highlights the potential failure of actual prisons. The school’s conditions are supposed to help the mothers become “good mothers”—however, most of them do not learn whatever it is they are supposed to learn, and therefore do not regain custody. Along the way, they get abused, traumatized, physically injured, and some even die. When Frida gets out, she has nothing, so she experiences a downward spiral and resorts to kidnapping, which will land her in actual prison. This is an example of how the prison system often fails people, creating a spiral or pattern of crime rather than rehabilitating inmates.