The School for Good Mothers is a dystopian science-fiction novel by Jessamine Chan, published in 2022. The novel explores the American institution of motherhood and the impossibility of being a “good” mother. After one parenting mistake, Frida loses custody of her daughter and is sent to a new program being launched by Child Protective Services (CPS): a school for “bad mothers” where they can supposedly learn to be “good” and regain custody of their children.

This guide is based on the 2023 Marysue Rucci Books/Scribner paperback edition.

Content Warning: The School for Good Mothers includes references to death by suicide, depression, racism, xenophobia, pedophilia, and extreme stereotypes about women and motherhood. There is also a brief mention of miscarriage.

Plot Summary

Frida receives a call from the police, who have her toddler daughter, Harriet. After experiencing depression, insomnia, and heartbreak over her ex-husband, Gust, divorcing her for another woman, Susanna, Frida left Harriet alone for two hours while she got coffee and retrieved a file from work. Frida’s neighbor heard crying and called the authorities, who explain that Harriet will be going home with Gust and that Frida might lose custody. Over the next 60 days, Frida will have three hour-long, supervised visits with Harriet, after which a judge will make a ruling. Frida’s divorce lawyer, Renee, claims Child Protective Services (CPS) is unveiling secret new programs. CPS installs cameras throughout Frida’s house to observe her emotions.

Frida feels lonely: She moved to Philadelphia with Gust to raise a baby, but her parents live in Illinois and her friends live in New York. Gust left Frida when Harriet was three months old, and she works from home half the time. Frida goes to visit Will, Gust’s best friend and Harriet’s godfather—Frida’s only friend in Philadelphia. Frida and Will have been flirtatious in the past, and they kiss. Frida and Harriet must both obtain psychological evaluations. During Frida’s evaluation, the psychologist doesn’t appear to be a parent, and seems to think that Frida’s parents being immigrants from China is the source of her parenting issues. The night before Frida’s first visit with Harriet, she sleeps with Will, who comforts her.

The supervised visit takes place at Gust and Susanna’s apartment, an unfamiliar place for Harriet to see Frida. The social worker, Ms. Torres, is late. When Ms. Torres arrives, she demands that Harriet and Frida play with toys, films everything, and sits two feet from Harriet the whole time. Harriet is tired and confused, so she throws a tantrum and bites Ms. Torres, wanting to cuddle with her mother and not play near strangers. At the second visit, which gets postponed multiple times, Ms. Torres asks Gust and Susanna to leave, which causes Harriet to throw another tantrum. The third visit never happens. The judge rules that Frida go to a new year-long, live-in rehabilitative institution where bad mothers can learn to be good and regain custody.

A bus takes so-called bad mothers to the beautiful campus of a bankrupt liberal arts college, which is swarming with guards and surrounded by barbed wire fences and wilderness. The mothers introduce themselves by their offenses, which include things like “neglect,” “abandonment,” and “emotional/verbal/physical abuse,” but in reality, they are mostly minor mistakes, such as complaining about a child on Twitter, “coddling” a teenager by tying his shoelaces for him, letting a child play in the yard alone, or spanking a child in a store.

Frida is the only Asian mother, as most are Black or Latina, with some white mothers, most of whom are working-class or young. The mothers wear uniforms, sleep in dorms with roommates, eat in cafeterias, and attend classes in groups based on the age and sex of their youngest child. Those with multiple children have extra classes, and those with messy houses (including Frida) have cleaning duty. There are strict rules, and if the mothers break any, they’ll be expelled and will never regain custody. Frida dislikes her roommate, Helen, but the latter quits after the first day.

The instructors, Ms. Khoury and Ms. Russo, assign the women A. I. “doll” children that resemble the mothers’ real children. Frida names her doll Emmanuelle. The other mothers in her class are Lucretia, Linda, Beth, and Meryl. The dolls contain cameras to record the mothers and track their emotions. There is a nearby school for bad fathers as well, who will be joining the mothers in future units about socialization.

To start the first unit about nurture, the instructors slap the dolls repeatedly until they cry, then instruct the mothers to console them using hugs. Across all age groups, the mothers have little success consoling the dolls after extensive abuse, which they reflect is “real” despite the dolls not being human. The instructors say this method protects the mothers’ real children from harm while allowing them to learn applicable skills, but the mothers empathize with the dolls’ pain and feel the skills they’re learning aren’t realistic. The instructors don’t have children and believe the myth that mothers can do anything, even physically impossible things like lifting cars. Frida gets a new roommate, Roxane. She is finally able to console Emmanuelle after developing a bond with her for a few days, imagining the emotions she used to feel when consoling a hurt Harriet.

The dolls don’t need to eat, but the mothers are supposed to get them to eat like human children. The instructors force-feed them so they need diaper changes every 30 minutes, resulting in rashes and discomfort. Lucretia’s doll dies because her “skin” comes into contact with snow, resulting in a fight between Lucretia and Linda, and Lucretia’s dismissal from the program. Frida learns that Susanna has put Harriet on a gluten-free diet, causing Harriet to lose weight. Distracted and frustrated in class, Frida pinches Emmanuelle, which lands her in “talk circle” with other misbehaving mothers and a counselor who reprimands them, especially those in lesbian relationships. The counselors feel that LGBTQ+ women are “unmotherly” and that mothers should not need anything besides their own children, including romance of any kind.

A preteen doll dies trying to escape, for which his mother is punished and held financially responsible. The mothers practice curing fevers with hugs. Ms. Torres claims Frida’s phone calls “retraumatize” Harriet, so her phone privileges are suspended indefinitely. The instructors briefly give the women cell phones, then reprimand them for neglecting the dolls and calling their real children, taking the phones away. On Easter, an older boy steals Emmanuelle’s basket and hits her, so Frida yells at him, landing her in talk circle once more. The mothers practice removing dolls from hot cars, fake burning houses, and the like, while watching psychologically torturous videos of their real children to distract them. Frida’s prognosis for regaining custody of Harriet is “fair to poor” (215)—most have the same prognosis, or just “poor.” A woman named Margaret dies by suicide and others get in trouble for crying about it, because negative emotions are considered unmotherly and dangerous. Meanwhile, Susanna announces she is pregnant.

The school hosts a picnic for the mothers to meet the fathers from the other school before beginning the socialization unit. Frida and Emmanuelle bond with a man named Tucker and his doll-son, Jeremy. The conditions at the fathers’ school are not as bad, and there are fewer fathers there. In class, the instructors program the dolls to call each other racist and sexist slurs, so numerous fistfights ensue. Parents practice rescuing children from pedophiles by having the instructors sexually abuse the dolls until the dolls correctly recite a sentence beyond their language skills. They fight fake kidnappers, and everyone gets injured.

Tucker flirts with Frida, but she resists him because the counselors warn her that any romance could jeopardize her chances of regaining custody; however, Tucker wants to form a relationship with Frida when they get out. Meryl and Roxane escape with the help of a guard whom Meryl is sleeping with, but Meryl gets caught and is returned. The mothers teach the dolls empathy toward injured birds and homeless people, and Emmanuelle does well at the final evaluation before having her brain erased, which is devastating to Frida after forming a year-long mother-daughter bond with her. Meryl also dies by suicide.

After the program’s end, the judge terminates Frida’s parental rights; Harriet can contact Frida when she’s 18 if she wants. Gust, Susanna, and others testify on Frida’s behalf, arguing that severing contact would further traumatize Harriet, but the judge claims the data collected from the dolls and cameras eliminates human error and proves Frida is unfit to mother because of her negative emotions. Frida has a final visit with Harriet, who has to be pried from her arms, with Frida escorted by security before she passes out in the street. Strangers put her in a taxi and she goes to Will’s apartment, quickly consuming all his liquor. For a while, he watches her and is concerned she’ll attempt suicide.

Susanna’s baby is born premature with health problems and has to live in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Gust asks Will to babysit while he goes there, and Frida convinces Will to allow her an hour alone with Harriet. She withdraws cash, packs supplies, and kidnaps her daughter, driving off into the night, knowing she will be caught eventually but has nothing to lose.