I am still trying to bring my emotions down after reading The School for Good Mothers. It is a maddening, frustrating, anger-inducing book that I couldn't stop reading.

Frida Liu has had a very bad day. She leaves her daughter, Harriet, home alone for a couple of hours and is reported to the police. Because of her "neglect," Frida is sentenced to attend a school for bad parents, a coed facility for both mothers and fathers. What Frida has to go through is indicative of the Hell mothers are subject to in the real world.

I am a mother and I can tell you with all honesty that had a judge sentenced me to attend that school, I would have grabbed my kid and left the country. The hoops these mothers had to jump through, the judgments, feelings of shame and inadequacy and plain abuse is believable. Mothers, in the real world, are scrutinized for absolutely everything they do. From their breast-feeding schedules to the amount of time it takes for them to "snap back" to their pre-baby weight is catalogued and quantified by family and strangers alike. Social media has only made things worse, which is why so many women these days are saying no to having babies. Many don't want the financial, physical or emotional burden of taking care of a child, while others do not want to bring a baby into a world that is literally on fire.

I think the author did a great job of writing this book from an Asian woman's perspective, one readers are starting to see more of in fiction. The mothers in the program come from different backgrounds and are sent to the school for pretty much anything. Some mothers did truly terrible things but others are at the school for "offenses" that were due to lack of child care, or being poor. I'm glad the author included the differences in the school's programming for the fathers, which is nowhere near as intense or strict as it is for the mothers (shocker).

This book is going to open up a lot of discussions about parenting in general, discussions that need to be had, especially after seeing how that dynamic has been pushed to the forefront during this ongoing pandemic. I, for one, cannot wait.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

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