The School For Good Mothers

We took the kids out tonight a bit too late to see an open mic night at a coffee shop. It was great. A typical line up for that sort of place, but fun. A night out we couldn’t have contemplated even a year ago. 

When we got home, in anticipation of a quick decline in mood, I started with the arrival instructions as we walked from the car. Go inside. Shoes off. Hang up your jacket in your closet. Bathroom. Hand washing. Bed. Nothing unreasonable. But 5 minutes later when I walk in the room, none of it has been done.

Shoes everywhere. Coats on the floor along with dirty socks and piles of shed clothing shells whose layers you can see like the age lines in a tree. Rings of socks inside panties inside pants, blanketed by shirt-and-sweatshirt drifts. Books lying prone under beds, rugs, toys, and—most horrifying—the birthday slime bucket that literally made me gasp when it came out of the packaging. A foot-long smear of dried slime has embedded glitter into the antique wooden chair I’ve used since I was in my 20s. 

I lose it as calmly as I can. I pick up dirty clothes, shoes, jackets and toss them into the closet. Close the door. Turn out the light. I pile books and confiscate the bucket of slime. I just need to see the floor clear so I don’t feel like I like in a fucking barn. The whole time I’m muttering my list of frustrations. 

“How can you guys live like this? We spent hours over break cleaning and organizations and you haven’t put a single thing away since. Why? Why do you want your toys messed up? Is this the way you’re supposed to treat your books? Didn’t I tell you no slime on the clothes, bed, furniture? It sticks to everything. Didn’t I tell you to hang up your jacket?”

I can feel my husband bristling from the other room as he steers clear of this squall. It feels like a further abandonment, since the kids room might as well not exist in the architecture of the apartment as it is in his head. I don’t know if he just doesn’t care to keep it clean, or if his mothers’ incessant childhood cleaning has trained him to assume it’s someone else’s problem. It’s not a place I feel super supported in our marriage, let’s just leave it there.

All the while I’m grumbling the guilt builds. I shouldn’t be breathing my children about their cleaning habits before bed. I shouldn’t wreck an evening with my spouse because I can’t ignore the kid filth for a night. I know this. But I’m fuckimg sick of saying things to my kids and being ignored and lied to. I’m fucking enraged by my spouse’s annoyance with me when I feel like he’s almost as lacking in give a shit as the kids are. It’s exhausting. It’s got me hyped and even though I’m doing my best not to really get mad…I just can’t stop this frustration from bubbling up. 

It ends with one daughter asleep. One in tears, self-flagellating for her stupidity (“please don’t talk badly about your self my love”). And my spouse and I barely speak until bedtime.

The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan is the sort of book where you think you know what you’re reading, and then in a page it turns, and you don’t. 

In the world of Ms. Chan’s School, the lack of self-controlled parenting I displayed tonight could have gotten me taken from my kids, potentially forced to terminate parental rights for my untrustworthy and unloving behavior. It’s not just a cutting takedown of the state’s freewheeling lack of concern for parental bonds, however fucked up they may seem to some. (Or how fucked up they can actually be in some instances.) It’s also a rigorous interrogation of the feelings of authentic parenting. Can you trust your instincts? Should you? If you’re fucked up, can you ever have a chance to raise not-fucked-up kids? And if you can, how much work, self-sacrifice and discipline does it take? 

Chan’s astute descriptions of the high school cafeteria that is contemporary motherhood hits home on too many levels. Somehow managing to elegantly take down white feminism, neo-liberal wokeness, cultural superiority and the underhanded competitiveness of female intimacy in vivid clips of mealtime conversations. Crafting a central character in Frida who feels utterly righteous, relatable and self-hating - it’s a poignant reflection for the reader who can’t help but assess their own parenting mistakes with the lens of inherent criminality. For those without kids, this is the sort of story that could convince or confirm that it’s just not worth the pain of continuous loss associated with growing humans. 

I’m already plenty aware that I can be a better parent. More skilled at managing my own and my kids emotions. More playful. More understanding. More patient. More empowering. Less angry. I can envision the fully-resourced parenting of some stay-at-home wealthy person’s reality. But is loving your kids through the stress and suck of limited choices, time, money a more meaningful parenting experience? Doesn’t it better prepare kids for the likelihood of their own lives? And can’t we just forgive ourselves for the inevitable damage in spite of the best intentions? Can we parent without the panopticon? Without the internal judgment that always says you’re not doing/giving/being enough?

These are a handful of the topics Jessamine Chan battles in her book. It’s a mind-fuck, a constant wonder, and a curious journey through the (often self-inflicted) trials of parenthood. I loved it. 

I read it in 8 hours, 1 minute over 3 days on the Libby app. 

I’m not editing. Just posting. Don’t judge me for the typos. 

The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan