Here we go! It’s the inaugural Burnt Toast Book Club. I’ll be hanging out here live from 12pm to 1pm Eastern (okay, technically I need to go pick a kid up from camp towards the end, but I’ll be checking back in once that’s done!).
We’re talking about The School of Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan. My big feeling about this book is that it is so important, and so beautifully written, and also that I do hesitate to recommend it, especially now, because it’s also so gut-wrenching in all the obvious, but also many not-so-obvious ways. And: THE ENDING IS BRUTAL. In the sense that, it’s both exactly what I would do and also I was screaming the whole time, no, stop, this goes nowhere good for either of you. Gah. Tearing up just thinking about it again.
So… the thread is open! Let’s discuss!
Feel free to also share:
What you’re eating for lunch if you are doing this thread in real time with me (and on the East Coast)
Suggestions for what we should read next!
And here’s the other Book Club intel you may want/need/missed yesterday:
Who is invited? While we test out the whole book club concept over the summer, I’m making these threads open to everyone! Come September, this will be a perk for paid subscribers. (So hey, subscribe now and you’ll be on that list!)
Will there be spoilers? Sorry, yes, at least this time, because I HAVE TO TALK ABOUT THE ENDING. You can totally still come if you haven’t finished reading, but you’ve been warned.
Commenting belatedly to say this book wrecked me! I work in child welfare policy and try to do advocate around rules that better support families so the idea of this system and how counter it is to all the research about what’s good for kids and families just destroyed me (especially I think because of how bleak everything currently is it seems like I could see some tech company proposing these dolls??) but very glad for the recommendation from this book club and to have read it. I can’t stop thinking about so many things from it and have recommended it friends (with trigger warnings…)
Chiming in very belatedly, but just wanted to say that I STRUGGLED through this book and was glad I finished it in the end!! It seems like I’m in the minority of people who was like, she left her baby alone for a couple hours, is that really so bad?? But, I’m not a mom and when I was describing the plot to a friend they literally gasped in horror. Also just tiny side note that I loved how not fatphobic this book was— that we’re supposed to be horrified that the stepmother puts Harriet on a diet. So many books I’ve been reading lately just have that constant low level fatphobia.
Ooh yes, we didn't even talk about the stepmom's diet culture nonsense! I loved how firmly Chan equates "cutting carbs for a toddler" with bad parenting -- but the system she's interrogating doesn't see it at all. DEFINITELY BASED IN REALITY.
I’m on the west coast and missed the initial discussion but just read through all the comments while inhaling my lunch (cauliflower fried rice w/shrimp). I loved this book until the very end and was completely let down. I put the book down and announced to whoever would listen in my house (no one) that I could NOT believe after all that - that whole horrible year - that she would go down like this. I mean she obviously knew she would get caught because she even wondered whether it would be hours or maybe days. So maybe it was worth it because she got a few more hours with Harriet.. before she goes to prison… and maybe she’ll be out by the time Harriet is 18?! Ugh. I can’t. 😩
I did really love this book though. I have one child and could just feel my emotions going through the ringer throughout the whole story. I do not condone her actions on her “bad day” but I think most parents (esp mothers) can relate to that feeling of just escaping for a few minutes. It’s worth noting that she was sleep deprived, possibly fighting depression and still navigating a divorce due to her partner cheating on her and leaving her for that other woman. It makes my stomach hurt just to type that sentence out.
For what it’s worth, I was glad she did not end up with Tucker. He was a tool.
I am not a mother but I was excited to read this book from the first time I learned about it. I have many friends who are parents and want to stand in solidarity with them and with all mothers. This book shocked me, and then I was shocked again after going down a rabbit hole of related news articles and blog post-type articles - shocked but sadly not surprised at how much institutions and individuals in this country want to control, punish, and judge mothers (and especially certain types of mothers). I have a cousin who allowed her boyfriend to severely abuse her children, and it took years of family members making complaints and trying to go through the court system for my cousin to finally lose custody. Years after her friend, who is a police officer, first reported the abuse when he saw bruises on her daughter. The abuse continued during all those years. But I have to remind myself that, while my cousin doesn't have a lot of money, she is a blonde, thin, white woman and as such probably received a lot of privileges and positive bias that made it take so long for her to lose custody. It makes me so sick - the over-punishment and intense scrutiny of some mothers, as well as the systems that allow parents who are truly abusive to slip through the cracks and avoid punishment.
I can't stop thinking about the mother who was in the school because she allowed her nine or ten year old daughter (I think that's the right age?) to walk a few blocks home from the library alone. Is that actually something that would be punished? Sadly it wouldn't surprise me if it would.
One thing I found really interesting that was peppered through the book was that Frida was previously on antidepressants and went off them because of various pressures- eg. her husband & his new girlfriend's disapproval, her parents' disapproval, etc. Frida's "very bad day" comes from several accumulated pressures, including the fact that she's probably depressed.
In this book, mothers are expected to have perfect behaviour AND perfect emotions. Without any support. Because a "good mother" shouldn't need support.
Oh goodness, this book. I happened to read it right after reading Orwell’s 1984, and I think that made it extra chilling because it felt so much closer to something that could actually happen. It’s also amplified by watching my brother, who became a single parent of four after his partner died last year, live in terror that his children will be taken away from him because he has complications from diabetes. I agree that Frida‘s “lapse in judgement” was severe enough to cause the reader to struggle with judging her, but some of the other mothers’ transgressions hit so close to what actually happens to parents, especially mothers, in our ableist society.
Ugh. Honestly, when I finished this book I was slightly angry with you for choosing this. It was so, so hard to read. (I was on a six hour flight and had to take a break to watch a shitty movie. Fittingly, “Bad Moms”). I think it was important to the story/commentary was that the teachers did not have children. I also wondered if the version of motherhood they are promoting is actually the best. It seems that it’s not promoting children developing into their own whole, separate people. My goal is to raise a productive member of society/not an asshole. This feels like those goals would not be met.
I thought it was especially notable that in the "stress/distraction" test part of the school, they were shown video of their own children, which they were supposed to ignore in favor of saving this robot proxy. It ignores the human element entirely - that you are a fallible human being who loves YOUR CHILD, just like sometimes that you are a fallible human being who needs a break. Mothers are meant to be robots themselves, in essence, reducing motherhood to a binary of "perfect/insufficient" when in reality it is a daily navigation of the highest and lowest feelings humans can feel.
Re: your point about not raising an asshole - I think this a lot when getting sucked into the deeper wormholes of gentle parenting. The parts where people believe that letting your child know that something hurts your feelings = parentification. Like, nah dude, my kids hurt me (emotionally and physically) sometimes, and it's okay if they occasionally know that. Also, how can a child come to understand the immense and rare gift of forgiveness, unconditional love, etc, if they do not ever understand that they have hurt someone. How can they learn to absorb, articulate, and make peace with their own hurts, if they have no framework of having been on the other side of it, and seeing it modeled? I'm not saying I sob and whine if my kids hit me or something, but I'm a person and it's okay that they know that. I'm getting a little off-topic here, I know.
Have to hop off a little early to go pick a kid up from camp. Feel free to continue discussing amongst yourselves! I'll catch back up later tonight. And thanks so much to everyone for this thoroughly enjoyable and cathartic book chat! Can't wait to do it again! (Ideas for next month?)
I think NSFW by Isabel Kaplan would be a great one: It's about a young woman trying to make it in Hollywood without selling her soul. But also she's forced to reckon with how she's complicit in a power structure that holds women back, and her own experiences that oscillate between uncomfortable to sexual assault. It was written in the years before #MeToo exploded on the scene and we had a language to discuss all of this. And ... it's funny. Well, funny until it's not. The ending was a huge cliffhanger and not unlike School for Good Mothers, it haunts me and I'm very eager to hear what people would do!
I am so excited to discuss this with people because no one in my life will touch this book with a ten foot pole! When I described it to my friends and spouse, they all asked me why in the hell I was torturing myself with this.
I read it as I found out that this next school year we are again waitlisted for after school care and have very little options. I keep thinking parenting will get easier as my kids get older and I am continuously just gobsmacked by the utter lack of fucks given.
We also got wait-listed for aftercare at multiple places, really struggled to find any kind of child care at all, and it's not emblematic of *everything* that's wrong with our society but it's smack in the middle of that genre.
I was so emotionally wrecked by this book. I had such a hard time reading it, especially because the overall point I wanted to take away from it (that our society is unduly harsh on mothers and holds them to impossible standards) did not jibe with the actual offense committed by the protagonist. I have had some extremely dark moments in motherhood but I don't think I would ever just walk out the door, drive away, and leave my baby alone for hours - and more relevant, I think someone who does this, DOES need some sort of intervention.
I DO NOT believe that that intervention needs to be even the temporary removal of children, though. The punitive weaponization of motherhood - something to be taken away for the slightest infraction - is the point, and it is a frighteningly real point. And I understand the courage involved in having your main character commit a fairly unsympathetic offense - because the real point is, we should not need to be perfect (even in our flawed moments - the stereotypical "clumsy" female protagonist, never so flawed as to actually be worthy of judgment) to inherently deserve support and compassion and acknowledgment of the fact that we are human beings at all. And the reality is, our society (now more than ever) affords no support or compassion for mothers, however far they fall short of the unattainable goal of perfection.
I completely get this -- I was just saying below, it's actually one of the things I liked best about the book, because it made me challenge my initial judgment of her and realize, wow, she did this clearly shitty thing for pretty understandable reasons and why are we responding so punitively to mothers in these circumstances. The disconnect is part of what makes it feel so real, to me. (While also exagerated and dystopian.)
Yes, I agree that Frida needed some kind of intervention, but what she needed was a safety net. Someone to recognize the ways she was drowning and throw her a lifeline not an anchor.
A friend of a friend went to one of her postpartum checkups, and after talking with her for a few minutes, the doctor told her that she couldn't leave the office alone with her baby because her PPD was so severe, and I really just feel like Frida needed someone in her life to recognize that she was so far past her limit and needed help.
Something else I super appreciated about this book, though it was uncomfortable to read: I 100% judged her in the beginning for leaving for Harriet for two hours. I was like, what are you doing? The baby is alone in the house!! I didn't think she should lose custody but I did think she really fucked up. And then the book helped me face up to all the bias I was bringing to that scene. And why don't we let mothers fuck up, even a little, when all of parenting is fucking up in little bits every day. It helped me realize my own tendency to judge other parents and work on curbing that impulse, especially when it intersects with race and class.
So I appreciate that Chan made the initial "offense" just bad enough that we (or at least I) would have to go through this process of judging and unlearning.
I absolutely felt the same way. I was completely shocked and appalled when she left Harriet. And then I realized that the point is, people fuck up! Sometimes hugely! And in those situations, where there is not direct malice or intent to harm, rehabilitation/mediation/support is almost always preferable to punishment.
I once, in a frustrated fit of impotence, screamed at my 1.5-year old because he would not let me buckle him in. And I didn't hit him, but I did grab his little arm and brusquely force it behind the belt so I was one step closer to getting him buckled in. It had been a very stressful grocery trip, my older kid was sobbing, the younger one did the flat-as-a-board thing, and I just lost it. And then I immediately remembered seeing, only a few weeks earlier, a video that had gone viral, where someone filmed a mother screaming at her kid while buckling the child into the car seat. And I was so scared that someone had videotaped me, had gotten my license plate, was going to call CPS. What would I say? What could I say? I was wrong. I should not have done it. What could I do except beg for mercy?
I really appreciated, by the end, having to go through the process of untangling my own judgments.
Yes, I once yelled at my kids while they were in the bathtub and then walked out and slammed the door -- and it LOCKED BEHIND ME. Thank goodness Dan was home and could calmly unpick the (not very hard to undo) lock while talking to the girls through the door while I basically curled up on the floor and silent screamed. Tearing up just thinking about it! And yes, if I were a single mom, what the fuck would I have done, or if I had to call a judgy neighbor or someone else for help, etc, etc. It was a deeply human moment that could have ended in utter disaster but certainly what I needed in that moment was another calm adult who could give me a break, not judgment or punishment.
Oh god, this gave me so much anxiety because it isn't even that I could see myself doing it - I HAVE seen myself do it! I have yelled at my kids in the tub and slammed the door behind me. And really the rest of it all is just up to chance, luck, and the fates - is it a guilty outburst that fades into history or is it a tragedy? And what it really comes down to, over and over, is that mothers are constantly at the brink of sanity with absolutely no reprieve. And building a social infrastructure where there is some reprieve is a hell of a lot more possible than insisting that mothers simply be perfect and not need that reprieve, but guess which one we as a society choose, over and over? And double down on, even!?
Yes! 100% so many times throughout that book, I thought like "of course you're tired, but you can't just LEAVE YOUR BABY. How hard would it have been to take her with you?" But also, I have definitely had bad parenting moments that I am very selective who I talk to about because of how it could be perceived by outsiders. I felt for her so much.
I totally agree! It wasn't a minor offense. And she was exhausted and not thinking straight and had zero support and didn't know what to do and made, what she felt (however misguided), was the best decision at the time.
Oh absolutely! There was so much room to judge! And the offenses the other mothers did. There was such a spectrum of some pretty bad stuff to pretty mild stuff.
Currently 34 weeks pregnant and I loved this book. It made me so angry and I cried at multiple points, but it was SO good. I read some of the more critical goodreads reviews about the pace being slow or it paling in comparison to other similar "dystopian" novels, but I felt like Chan built this incredible complexity into the text that I loved. Like yes, I can see how the middle parts might have felt redundant, but to me they cement the brainwashing, the psychological manipulation. When Frida first gets to the school, she can only mouth the words, "I am a bad mother, but I'm learning to be good." As she progresses through the school, you see the way that she actually internalizes their messaging. It goes from performative to something she actually believes about herself. You need the maybe tedious middle parts to effectively build this change. I don't know, I could talk about this book for days. I liked the ambiguous ending. I also liked that the book started with her neglecting her daughter, blind to any potential consequences, and ends with her risking everything for her daughter, fully aware of what her actions could bring about.
Oh my god, this book! It's definitely one that I needed to talk about with someone afterwards because the ending was so freaking harrowing and horrible. There were so many times throughout when I thought, as the mother of a daughter about Harriet's age, that maybe I shouldn't be reading this, that it hits too close to home, but I'm so glad I stuck it out.
I 100% was expecting some sort of robot revolt, and in all the many different tradegies of this book, I feel especially sorrowful for the robots. Knowing myself, I would have fully imprinted on that fake baby and wouldn't have been able to leave her behind, and when I think about their memories being wiped and the pain they had to experience for the mothers' lessons, my heart breaks.
I finished this book on my lunch break at work, and I couldn't contain my feelings and blurted them all out to one of my colleagues, who has not read the book.
Just thinking about how they created these dolls that feel emotions and pain and then abused them over and over, justifying it because they aren't real. And like, man, what does it mean to be real if a being that thinks, feels, and learns isn't real?
I felt like there were so many comparisons to be made to the way we have to exist as mothers in today's culture. Like the modeling at the school really mirrored the aggressively perfect Instagram moms. Especially those who are like the models for gentle and/or attachment parenting. It was very reflective of language we hear from mom influencers. Maybe I won't get packed up and sent to a school when I scream at my kid, but if someone catches me doing it on IG, I'm sure to have an army of perfect influencer gentle moms calling me out.
Yes!! A lot of parallels with current mom-fluencing culture and the impossibilities of having and doing it all. There was a bit towards the end that really resonated with me: "Isn't the school really teaching them that what they really need is a partner who earns the money? Aren't they being trained to be stay-at-home mothers? Where else is the money supposed to come from? The instructors have never mentioned jobs outside the home or day care or babysitters. She once hear Ms. Khoury say 'babysitter' in the same tone as some people say 'socialist'" (236). Or when the school was preaching that good mothers can never be lonely. Just really captured the idea that society/culture expects mothers to be flat, one-dimensional people; that we can't have multiple aspects to our identity or character, while also fully denying the material realities that so many of us live in.
Yes, the patently terrible parenting advice that continously does not work and yet she's the failure for not executing it well enough was too fucking real. I also related so deeply to the sheer exhaustion of parenting a toddler - both her human child and her robot child. It was so real. And the absolute lack of space we're given for failures.
Jul 13, 2022·edited Jul 13, 2022Liked by Virginia Sole-Smith
YES. The huge takeaway from this book, for me (my kids are 5 and 2), was that as mothers we all live in fear of judgment. We're gripped by the possibility of someone accusing us of not taking care of our children well enough, or of not loving them well enough. And sure, the precise setting of this novel is borderline unrealistic, but it feels like it's only a fraction of an inch from reality.
I wanted to recommend to friends so we could discuss but by the end i was very disturbed. I would like to know why others classify as a "love" while i found it rather torturous to read as a mother. the dolls were so creepy and awful to read about!
The ending was so depressing. But if there is some redeeming quality to this book (for me) it was that it made the reader reconsider assumptions about what is good parenting vs what is abusive when seen from other perspectives (ie the tropes we accept at face value about poor, single moms, etc).
I think for me, it felt like such a clear articulation of the ways we judge mothers (especially POC moms) that it was a necessary suffering? But I also wish more men were reading it; every person I know who has read it is a mother and yes, hi, we ALREADY FUCKING KNOW THIS.
I read this book back in March and cannot get it out of my brain. I'm a social worker (though could never work in family services) and this felt way too prescient.
The perfectionism that we expect of mothers and the much lesser expectations of and control over fathers was a great magnifier of our world today.
I thought the ending also threaded that needle really well and, I too, was screaming the whole time.
I can totally understand how this book might not be everyone's jam. I've recommended it to so many people and no one has read it, so I appreciate this opportunity to dig into it.
Like he really embodied that idea of "is he handsome or is he just tall?" (Or in Frida's case, THERE). But I really felt for him, too, when he was introduced; like, you can't control when your kid is going to fall out of a tree! I had SO many friends growing up with broken arms and legs because of that kind of thing.
Ohhhh so curious to hear your take as a social worker (even if you don't work in family services). Do you see a version of this, in terms of what causes parents to lose custody of kids? Like I both want you to tell me no no it's not this bad and to tell me, yes, she nailed it.
Oof, from what I've heard from parents who have lost custody this is, sadly, pretty accurate in most organizations. The system is so difficult to navigate and sets up so many arbitrary hoops for mothers jump through that if feels almost impossible for many (especially single moms, low-income moms, and racialized moms). And the whole system neglects that often, these families just need a bit of help and support not to be split up.
I think that's why this book disturbed me so much, it felt too too real.
THIS BOOK completely wrecked me. I tore through it because I needed what I assumed would be redemption at the end. Why, whyyy did I assume that?? I share your hesitation to recommend it, especially to mothers, even though I think it is a brilliant piece of literature. It's so brutal. And aren't moms going through enough these days?
I was holding out hope that, even if her rights were terminated, Gust and Suzanne would still let her be a part of Harriet's life because they're not monsters, but when the author made it clear that no, they weren't allowed to let her visit Harriet, I was so gutted. What else could she have done but run away with her? So heartbreaking.
I feel like if there had been a moment of redemption, it would have made it seem like the school and their methods were justified. Like, anarchy and rebellion are the only ways for Frida to move forward.
I don't generally get emotional when I read, even really heavy stuff, but I full on sobbed at the scene near the end when she said goodbye to her daughter. Like even now, two weeks later, typing this out I'm kind of tearing up.
I was sitting alone in my bedroom really late, reading the part of the book where she says goodbye to her daughter feeling absolutely wrecked, and my daughter suddenly came walking in the room with her arms outstretched for a hug and crawled into bed with me. It was like she knew!! luckily she was very sleepy so she didn't hear me quietly crying while I held her. I think it took me a full two weeks to not keep flashing back to that scene repeatedly.
I loved this book and I hated this book. It was impossibly hard to read - and I'm not a mother! I did think there was quite a bit of repetitiveness especially with the lessons in the middle - I felt like I knew what was coming and rehashing the emotions over and over got a little old for me. However, what an original concept! When the dolls were first revealed I gasped out loud. The exercises they were put through were unimaginable, and I can't believe more women didn't outwardly have breakdowns. As far as the ending - I loved it. I think it was the only logical ending since the book was so tumultuous. How could she NOT steal her daughter away for a few more precious moments?? I definitely had conflicting feelings about this one and can understand the people who adored it and the people who didn't like it, I am somewhere in the middle.
Good afternoon, I'm really excited to discuss this book BUT I haven't finished reading it yet. Almost done, but since I don't want any spoilers, I'm going to read the discussion thread once I'm finished (very soon!).
Suggestions for the next book..."Take My Hand" by Dolen Perkins-Valdez has been on my TBR list and sounds really good!
Exciting! For me these days it's a big tomato sandwich with basil mayonnaise (the one herb I can grow that the deer don't eat) and avocado and arugula, on sourdough. Delicious especially with some salt and vinegar chips on the side.
Ah! I am so excited to see what people say about this book. I devoured it but then shared it with a friend who asked if I'd be offended if she stopped reading it b/c she was just not into it. I have seen a lot of people who wanted to like it/though they'd like it and just couldn't. So I'm curious to delve into the love/not-love.
I have a very nice lunch today--Smitten Kitchen's tomato/white bean roast and this salad I made with beets, lentils, arugula, hazelnuts and cheddar.
God that sounds delicious. I do think this is a book that walks the line of brilliant and traumatizing -- there were points where I wasn't sure I could keep going. And I've read other books that walk that line (Room, A Little Life, My Absolute Darling) where I ended up really mad I stuck with them because they just fucked me up too much. This one stayed on the right side for me personally, but YMMV.
OK also, I wrote this after Nancy commented on yesterday's thread that she loved the ending so now I'm really curious -- who loved it? Who thought it was traumatizing? I was so so scared about how fast she would get arrested and lose her daughter again that I couldn't even find it hopeful. But maybe it was supposed to be hopeful? Is there a possibility of escape? GAH.
I loved the ending because it felt cathartic, and a call to resistance as other have said. She spends the whole book submitting, so now it's time for a FUCK YOU, because the ending is devastating either way. I also spent the whole last chapter shouting- just drive to Canada drive to Canada drive to Canada.
I was just relieved that Frida didn't die by suicide even though she would inevitably still lose everything/her freedom, etc. I wouldn't have been able to take that utter bleakness and it would've been even more trauma inducing.
I took the ending as a call to resistance because of her plan to leave the photo of the doll with Harriet. That photo would inevitably raise a lot of questions and hopefully outcry against the practices of the state, the school etc. I found it hopeful only in that she was able to be with her daughter one last time, but also do what she could to change the future for other mothers. It felt like an honest, realistic ending and terrifyingly close to reality. We're pushed up against harsh odds that break us down emotionally, but we haven't lost our will to do something however small.
I do see that. And I had the same thought that a suicide ending (totally where I thought we were going/was ready to go) would have felt even more gutting and pointless.
I loved the ending in a kind of FUCK YEAH kind of way. Like she finally fought back, you know? She didn't submit, play along, follow the rules. She did precisely what she intuitively felt she needed to do to be a mother. She is finally listening to herself rather than the influencers and the "good mothers".
Is it inherently a good thing? Ehhhhhhh.
But I would say neither is going along with the system and agreeing to never seeing her daughter again until said daughter is 18.
Totally. Love a good burn it all down moment -- just wish she could do that AND keep her kid and the clear path to another brutal separation was killing me.
Oh I 100% think it was meant to be traumatizing and there was absolutely zero hope. And I think that's the only outcome? There is no happy ending available for this mother, in this culture, at this time.
Everyone I know who couldn't read it or didn't get into it was someone who does not parent a child. Every mother knows this is only a stone's throw away from they way we are already living our lives in public as mothers.
I feel like it threaded the needle between a horrible bummer traumatizing ending and an actual happy ending which I think we knew was never going to happen.
But I wanted and needed it so badly?! I know it was never going to happen. Maybe it's just that I know I do not have the character to pull off a heist like that and I was just so anxious for her the whole time they were in the apartment and driving away.
Commenting belatedly to say this book wrecked me! I work in child welfare policy and try to do advocate around rules that better support families so the idea of this system and how counter it is to all the research about what’s good for kids and families just destroyed me (especially I think because of how bleak everything currently is it seems like I could see some tech company proposing these dolls??) but very glad for the recommendation from this book club and to have read it. I can’t stop thinking about so many things from it and have recommended it friends (with trigger warnings…)
Chiming in very belatedly, but just wanted to say that I STRUGGLED through this book and was glad I finished it in the end!! It seems like I’m in the minority of people who was like, she left her baby alone for a couple hours, is that really so bad?? But, I’m not a mom and when I was describing the plot to a friend they literally gasped in horror. Also just tiny side note that I loved how not fatphobic this book was— that we’re supposed to be horrified that the stepmother puts Harriet on a diet. So many books I’ve been reading lately just have that constant low level fatphobia.
Ooh yes, we didn't even talk about the stepmom's diet culture nonsense! I loved how firmly Chan equates "cutting carbs for a toddler" with bad parenting -- but the system she's interrogating doesn't see it at all. DEFINITELY BASED IN REALITY.
Ooooh i missed this today. .Would have definitely attended...
I’m on the west coast and missed the initial discussion but just read through all the comments while inhaling my lunch (cauliflower fried rice w/shrimp). I loved this book until the very end and was completely let down. I put the book down and announced to whoever would listen in my house (no one) that I could NOT believe after all that - that whole horrible year - that she would go down like this. I mean she obviously knew she would get caught because she even wondered whether it would be hours or maybe days. So maybe it was worth it because she got a few more hours with Harriet.. before she goes to prison… and maybe she’ll be out by the time Harriet is 18?! Ugh. I can’t. 😩
I did really love this book though. I have one child and could just feel my emotions going through the ringer throughout the whole story. I do not condone her actions on her “bad day” but I think most parents (esp mothers) can relate to that feeling of just escaping for a few minutes. It’s worth noting that she was sleep deprived, possibly fighting depression and still navigating a divorce due to her partner cheating on her and leaving her for that other woman. It makes my stomach hurt just to type that sentence out.
For what it’s worth, I was glad she did not end up with Tucker. He was a tool.
Excellent pick.
Totally agree about Tucker!
Reading all y'all's insight has made me appreciate the book so much more. #bookclub4thewin
This book was amazing and devastating. The ending killed me. I really recommend “The Violin Conspiracy” by Brendan Slocumb.
I am not a mother but I was excited to read this book from the first time I learned about it. I have many friends who are parents and want to stand in solidarity with them and with all mothers. This book shocked me, and then I was shocked again after going down a rabbit hole of related news articles and blog post-type articles - shocked but sadly not surprised at how much institutions and individuals in this country want to control, punish, and judge mothers (and especially certain types of mothers). I have a cousin who allowed her boyfriend to severely abuse her children, and it took years of family members making complaints and trying to go through the court system for my cousin to finally lose custody. Years after her friend, who is a police officer, first reported the abuse when he saw bruises on her daughter. The abuse continued during all those years. But I have to remind myself that, while my cousin doesn't have a lot of money, she is a blonde, thin, white woman and as such probably received a lot of privileges and positive bias that made it take so long for her to lose custody. It makes me so sick - the over-punishment and intense scrutiny of some mothers, as well as the systems that allow parents who are truly abusive to slip through the cracks and avoid punishment.
I can't stop thinking about the mother who was in the school because she allowed her nine or ten year old daughter (I think that's the right age?) to walk a few blocks home from the library alone. Is that actually something that would be punished? Sadly it wouldn't surprise me if it would.
One thing I found really interesting that was peppered through the book was that Frida was previously on antidepressants and went off them because of various pressures- eg. her husband & his new girlfriend's disapproval, her parents' disapproval, etc. Frida's "very bad day" comes from several accumulated pressures, including the fact that she's probably depressed.
In this book, mothers are expected to have perfect behaviour AND perfect emotions. Without any support. Because a "good mother" shouldn't need support.
Oh goodness, this book. I happened to read it right after reading Orwell’s 1984, and I think that made it extra chilling because it felt so much closer to something that could actually happen. It’s also amplified by watching my brother, who became a single parent of four after his partner died last year, live in terror that his children will be taken away from him because he has complications from diabetes. I agree that Frida‘s “lapse in judgement” was severe enough to cause the reader to struggle with judging her, but some of the other mothers’ transgressions hit so close to what actually happens to parents, especially mothers, in our ableist society.
Ugh. Honestly, when I finished this book I was slightly angry with you for choosing this. It was so, so hard to read. (I was on a six hour flight and had to take a break to watch a shitty movie. Fittingly, “Bad Moms”). I think it was important to the story/commentary was that the teachers did not have children. I also wondered if the version of motherhood they are promoting is actually the best. It seems that it’s not promoting children developing into their own whole, separate people. My goal is to raise a productive member of society/not an asshole. This feels like those goals would not be met.
I thought it was especially notable that in the "stress/distraction" test part of the school, they were shown video of their own children, which they were supposed to ignore in favor of saving this robot proxy. It ignores the human element entirely - that you are a fallible human being who loves YOUR CHILD, just like sometimes that you are a fallible human being who needs a break. Mothers are meant to be robots themselves, in essence, reducing motherhood to a binary of "perfect/insufficient" when in reality it is a daily navigation of the highest and lowest feelings humans can feel.
Re: your point about not raising an asshole - I think this a lot when getting sucked into the deeper wormholes of gentle parenting. The parts where people believe that letting your child know that something hurts your feelings = parentification. Like, nah dude, my kids hurt me (emotionally and physically) sometimes, and it's okay if they occasionally know that. Also, how can a child come to understand the immense and rare gift of forgiveness, unconditional love, etc, if they do not ever understand that they have hurt someone. How can they learn to absorb, articulate, and make peace with their own hurts, if they have no framework of having been on the other side of it, and seeing it modeled? I'm not saying I sob and whine if my kids hit me or something, but I'm a person and it's okay that they know that. I'm getting a little off-topic here, I know.
Have to hop off a little early to go pick a kid up from camp. Feel free to continue discussing amongst yourselves! I'll catch back up later tonight. And thanks so much to everyone for this thoroughly enjoyable and cathartic book chat! Can't wait to do it again! (Ideas for next month?)
I think NSFW by Isabel Kaplan would be a great one: It's about a young woman trying to make it in Hollywood without selling her soul. But also she's forced to reckon with how she's complicit in a power structure that holds women back, and her own experiences that oscillate between uncomfortable to sexual assault. It was written in the years before #MeToo exploded on the scene and we had a language to discuss all of this. And ... it's funny. Well, funny until it's not. The ending was a huge cliffhanger and not unlike School for Good Mothers, it haunts me and I'm very eager to hear what people would do!
I really loved Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon. It's more explicitly sci-fi, but Solomon's writing is stunningly good. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/48915089-sorrowland
Night Bitch? Has anyone read this one? Totally outside my comfort zone until I realized that it was also so flipping relatable.
Was going to suggest Nightbitch for the next one! It’s so incredible
I have never heard of this, but just read the description & put it on hold for me at the library. It sounds right up my alley!
It's on my list! I'm very into literary depictions of motherhood.
I am so excited to discuss this with people because no one in my life will touch this book with a ten foot pole! When I described it to my friends and spouse, they all asked me why in the hell I was torturing myself with this.
I read it as I found out that this next school year we are again waitlisted for after school care and have very little options. I keep thinking parenting will get easier as my kids get older and I am continuously just gobsmacked by the utter lack of fucks given.
We also got wait-listed for aftercare at multiple places, really struggled to find any kind of child care at all, and it's not emblematic of *everything* that's wrong with our society but it's smack in the middle of that genre.
Oh god, I'm so sorry. The lack of support networks and safety nets in this country is JUST FUCKING WILD.
Oh gosh me too! every time I tell someone about it the response is "it sounds really interesting, but no thanks." Which is totally fair.
I was so emotionally wrecked by this book. I had such a hard time reading it, especially because the overall point I wanted to take away from it (that our society is unduly harsh on mothers and holds them to impossible standards) did not jibe with the actual offense committed by the protagonist. I have had some extremely dark moments in motherhood but I don't think I would ever just walk out the door, drive away, and leave my baby alone for hours - and more relevant, I think someone who does this, DOES need some sort of intervention.
I DO NOT believe that that intervention needs to be even the temporary removal of children, though. The punitive weaponization of motherhood - something to be taken away for the slightest infraction - is the point, and it is a frighteningly real point. And I understand the courage involved in having your main character commit a fairly unsympathetic offense - because the real point is, we should not need to be perfect (even in our flawed moments - the stereotypical "clumsy" female protagonist, never so flawed as to actually be worthy of judgment) to inherently deserve support and compassion and acknowledgment of the fact that we are human beings at all. And the reality is, our society (now more than ever) affords no support or compassion for mothers, however far they fall short of the unattainable goal of perfection.
I completely get this -- I was just saying below, it's actually one of the things I liked best about the book, because it made me challenge my initial judgment of her and realize, wow, she did this clearly shitty thing for pretty understandable reasons and why are we responding so punitively to mothers in these circumstances. The disconnect is part of what makes it feel so real, to me. (While also exagerated and dystopian.)
Yes, I agree that Frida needed some kind of intervention, but what she needed was a safety net. Someone to recognize the ways she was drowning and throw her a lifeline not an anchor.
A friend of a friend went to one of her postpartum checkups, and after talking with her for a few minutes, the doctor told her that she couldn't leave the office alone with her baby because her PPD was so severe, and I really just feel like Frida needed someone in her life to recognize that she was so far past her limit and needed help.
"A lifeline, not an anchor" EXACTLY
Something else I super appreciated about this book, though it was uncomfortable to read: I 100% judged her in the beginning for leaving for Harriet for two hours. I was like, what are you doing? The baby is alone in the house!! I didn't think she should lose custody but I did think she really fucked up. And then the book helped me face up to all the bias I was bringing to that scene. And why don't we let mothers fuck up, even a little, when all of parenting is fucking up in little bits every day. It helped me realize my own tendency to judge other parents and work on curbing that impulse, especially when it intersects with race and class.
So I appreciate that Chan made the initial "offense" just bad enough that we (or at least I) would have to go through this process of judging and unlearning.
I absolutely felt the same way. I was completely shocked and appalled when she left Harriet. And then I realized that the point is, people fuck up! Sometimes hugely! And in those situations, where there is not direct malice or intent to harm, rehabilitation/mediation/support is almost always preferable to punishment.
I once, in a frustrated fit of impotence, screamed at my 1.5-year old because he would not let me buckle him in. And I didn't hit him, but I did grab his little arm and brusquely force it behind the belt so I was one step closer to getting him buckled in. It had been a very stressful grocery trip, my older kid was sobbing, the younger one did the flat-as-a-board thing, and I just lost it. And then I immediately remembered seeing, only a few weeks earlier, a video that had gone viral, where someone filmed a mother screaming at her kid while buckling the child into the car seat. And I was so scared that someone had videotaped me, had gotten my license plate, was going to call CPS. What would I say? What could I say? I was wrong. I should not have done it. What could I do except beg for mercy?
I really appreciated, by the end, having to go through the process of untangling my own judgments.
Yes, I once yelled at my kids while they were in the bathtub and then walked out and slammed the door -- and it LOCKED BEHIND ME. Thank goodness Dan was home and could calmly unpick the (not very hard to undo) lock while talking to the girls through the door while I basically curled up on the floor and silent screamed. Tearing up just thinking about it! And yes, if I were a single mom, what the fuck would I have done, or if I had to call a judgy neighbor or someone else for help, etc, etc. It was a deeply human moment that could have ended in utter disaster but certainly what I needed in that moment was another calm adult who could give me a break, not judgment or punishment.
Oh god, this gave me so much anxiety because it isn't even that I could see myself doing it - I HAVE seen myself do it! I have yelled at my kids in the tub and slammed the door behind me. And really the rest of it all is just up to chance, luck, and the fates - is it a guilty outburst that fades into history or is it a tragedy? And what it really comes down to, over and over, is that mothers are constantly at the brink of sanity with absolutely no reprieve. And building a social infrastructure where there is some reprieve is a hell of a lot more possible than insisting that mothers simply be perfect and not need that reprieve, but guess which one we as a society choose, over and over? And double down on, even!?
Yes! 100% so many times throughout that book, I thought like "of course you're tired, but you can't just LEAVE YOUR BABY. How hard would it have been to take her with you?" But also, I have definitely had bad parenting moments that I am very selective who I talk to about because of how it could be perceived by outsiders. I felt for her so much.
I totally agree! It wasn't a minor offense. And she was exhausted and not thinking straight and had zero support and didn't know what to do and made, what she felt (however misguided), was the best decision at the time.
exactly. it made me think how many "serious offenses" of bad parenting are also likely the result of no support, resources, poverty, etc, etc, etc.
Definitely, and also not taking cultural differences into account - forcing people into a Western way of parenting as the only "right" way
Oh absolutely! There was so much room to judge! And the offenses the other mothers did. There was such a spectrum of some pretty bad stuff to pretty mild stuff.
Currently 34 weeks pregnant and I loved this book. It made me so angry and I cried at multiple points, but it was SO good. I read some of the more critical goodreads reviews about the pace being slow or it paling in comparison to other similar "dystopian" novels, but I felt like Chan built this incredible complexity into the text that I loved. Like yes, I can see how the middle parts might have felt redundant, but to me they cement the brainwashing, the psychological manipulation. When Frida first gets to the school, she can only mouth the words, "I am a bad mother, but I'm learning to be good." As she progresses through the school, you see the way that she actually internalizes their messaging. It goes from performative to something she actually believes about herself. You need the maybe tedious middle parts to effectively build this change. I don't know, I could talk about this book for days. I liked the ambiguous ending. I also liked that the book started with her neglecting her daughter, blind to any potential consequences, and ends with her risking everything for her daughter, fully aware of what her actions could bring about.
I also didn't think it dragged at all in the middle -- that repetition felt so key to the process, as you say.
Oh my god, this book! It's definitely one that I needed to talk about with someone afterwards because the ending was so freaking harrowing and horrible. There were so many times throughout when I thought, as the mother of a daughter about Harriet's age, that maybe I shouldn't be reading this, that it hits too close to home, but I'm so glad I stuck it out.
I 100% was expecting some sort of robot revolt, and in all the many different tradegies of this book, I feel especially sorrowful for the robots. Knowing myself, I would have fully imprinted on that fake baby and wouldn't have been able to leave her behind, and when I think about their memories being wiped and the pain they had to experience for the mothers' lessons, my heart breaks.
I finished this book on my lunch break at work, and I couldn't contain my feelings and blurted them all out to one of my colleagues, who has not read the book.
I think it's essential to have someone standing by to blurt feelings at after this book. I was texting Sara Petersen at 6 in the morning!
I was sternly telling myself the whole time not to get attached to the dolls. And of course I did.
Just thinking about how they created these dolls that feel emotions and pain and then abused them over and over, justifying it because they aren't real. And like, man, what does it mean to be real if a being that thinks, feels, and learns isn't real?
YUP
I felt like there were so many comparisons to be made to the way we have to exist as mothers in today's culture. Like the modeling at the school really mirrored the aggressively perfect Instagram moms. Especially those who are like the models for gentle and/or attachment parenting. It was very reflective of language we hear from mom influencers. Maybe I won't get packed up and sent to a school when I scream at my kid, but if someone catches me doing it on IG, I'm sure to have an army of perfect influencer gentle moms calling me out.
Yes!! A lot of parallels with current mom-fluencing culture and the impossibilities of having and doing it all. There was a bit towards the end that really resonated with me: "Isn't the school really teaching them that what they really need is a partner who earns the money? Aren't they being trained to be stay-at-home mothers? Where else is the money supposed to come from? The instructors have never mentioned jobs outside the home or day care or babysitters. She once hear Ms. Khoury say 'babysitter' in the same tone as some people say 'socialist'" (236). Or when the school was preaching that good mothers can never be lonely. Just really captured the idea that society/culture expects mothers to be flat, one-dimensional people; that we can't have multiple aspects to our identity or character, while also fully denying the material realities that so many of us live in.
Yes, the patently terrible parenting advice that continously does not work and yet she's the failure for not executing it well enough was too fucking real. I also related so deeply to the sheer exhaustion of parenting a toddler - both her human child and her robot child. It was so real. And the absolute lack of space we're given for failures.
YES. The huge takeaway from this book, for me (my kids are 5 and 2), was that as mothers we all live in fear of judgment. We're gripped by the possibility of someone accusing us of not taking care of our children well enough, or of not loving them well enough. And sure, the precise setting of this novel is borderline unrealistic, but it feels like it's only a fraction of an inch from reality.
I didn't enjoy reading it, but yes, this was my take away too. Very well said!
I wanted to recommend to friends so we could discuss but by the end i was very disturbed. I would like to know why others classify as a "love" while i found it rather torturous to read as a mother. the dolls were so creepy and awful to read about!
The ending was so depressing. But if there is some redeeming quality to this book (for me) it was that it made the reader reconsider assumptions about what is good parenting vs what is abusive when seen from other perspectives (ie the tropes we accept at face value about poor, single moms, etc).
I think for me, it felt like such a clear articulation of the ways we judge mothers (especially POC moms) that it was a necessary suffering? But I also wish more men were reading it; every person I know who has read it is a mother and yes, hi, we ALREADY FUCKING KNOW THIS.
I read this book back in March and cannot get it out of my brain. I'm a social worker (though could never work in family services) and this felt way too prescient.
The perfectionism that we expect of mothers and the much lesser expectations of and control over fathers was a great magnifier of our world today.
I thought the ending also threaded that needle really well and, I too, was screaming the whole time.
I can totally understand how this book might not be everyone's jam. I've recommended it to so many people and no one has read it, so I appreciate this opportunity to dig into it.
Oh my gosh, the completely different set of standards for the dads!
Also, the entire time she was developing that romance with Parker, I was just like yelling at her NOO, DON'T DO IT.
Ughhh yes, Parker was SO NOT WORTH IT
Like he really embodied that idea of "is he handsome or is he just tall?" (Or in Frida's case, THERE). But I really felt for him, too, when he was introduced; like, you can't control when your kid is going to fall out of a tree! I had SO many friends growing up with broken arms and legs because of that kind of thing.
SAME!
Ohhhh so curious to hear your take as a social worker (even if you don't work in family services). Do you see a version of this, in terms of what causes parents to lose custody of kids? Like I both want you to tell me no no it's not this bad and to tell me, yes, she nailed it.
Oof, from what I've heard from parents who have lost custody this is, sadly, pretty accurate in most organizations. The system is so difficult to navigate and sets up so many arbitrary hoops for mothers jump through that if feels almost impossible for many (especially single moms, low-income moms, and racialized moms). And the whole system neglects that often, these families just need a bit of help and support not to be split up.
I think that's why this book disturbed me so much, it felt too too real.
Yep. That completely tracks. Gah.
THIS BOOK completely wrecked me. I tore through it because I needed what I assumed would be redemption at the end. Why, whyyy did I assume that?? I share your hesitation to recommend it, especially to mothers, even though I think it is a brilliant piece of literature. It's so brutal. And aren't moms going through enough these days?
I was holding out hope that, even if her rights were terminated, Gust and Suzanne would still let her be a part of Harriet's life because they're not monsters, but when the author made it clear that no, they weren't allowed to let her visit Harriet, I was so gutted. What else could she have done but run away with her? So heartbreaking.
True true true. The sheer lack of logic in that decision was overwhelming.
same. I'm also SO MAD that she's just going to face more trauma as soon as she's caught.
It's the inevitability of her being caught that killed me too.
Exactly. We suffer so much, I really needed a moment of redemption at the end and then it just gets worse. But it is so brilliantly written.
I feel like if there had been a moment of redemption, it would have made it seem like the school and their methods were justified. Like, anarchy and rebellion are the only ways for Frida to move forward.
Oh that's very true.
Yes, such a good point.
I returned it to the library immediately after I finished it. Like I just wanted it out of my house as fast as possible.
I so get that. I have several books I can't get out of my brain years after reading them, and was very worried this would be one of them.
I don't generally get emotional when I read, even really heavy stuff, but I full on sobbed at the scene near the end when she said goodbye to her daughter. Like even now, two weeks later, typing this out I'm kind of tearing up.
I was sitting alone in my bedroom really late, reading the part of the book where she says goodbye to her daughter feeling absolutely wrecked, and my daughter suddenly came walking in the room with her arms outstretched for a hug and crawled into bed with me. It was like she knew!! luckily she was very sleepy so she didn't hear me quietly crying while I held her. I think it took me a full two weeks to not keep flashing back to that scene repeatedly.
SAME. I read it months ago.
I loved this book and I hated this book. It was impossibly hard to read - and I'm not a mother! I did think there was quite a bit of repetitiveness especially with the lessons in the middle - I felt like I knew what was coming and rehashing the emotions over and over got a little old for me. However, what an original concept! When the dolls were first revealed I gasped out loud. The exercises they were put through were unimaginable, and I can't believe more women didn't outwardly have breakdowns. As far as the ending - I loved it. I think it was the only logical ending since the book was so tumultuous. How could she NOT steal her daughter away for a few more precious moments?? I definitely had conflicting feelings about this one and can understand the people who adored it and the people who didn't like it, I am somewhere in the middle.
THE DOLLS OMG THE DOLLS. And I kept saying, "don't get attached, it's just a doll!" and then she got attached. I got attached. Agh.
Good afternoon, I'm really excited to discuss this book BUT I haven't finished reading it yet. Almost done, but since I don't want any spoilers, I'm going to read the discussion thread once I'm finished (very soon!).
Suggestions for the next book..."Take My Hand" by Dolen Perkins-Valdez has been on my TBR list and sounds really good!
Thanks Jessica! We'll be here when you're ready to process!
Thanks Virginia, enjoy the book discussion! It's a great book - great choice!!!
Exciting! For me these days it's a big tomato sandwich with basil mayonnaise (the one herb I can grow that the deer don't eat) and avocado and arugula, on sourdough. Delicious especially with some salt and vinegar chips on the side.
I made this for lunch yesterday!! Today I am eating my children's Uncrustables because that is the kind of morning it has been.
Feeling this--solidarity. Cheers 🍻 but with a sandwich/uncrustable. And looking forward to hearing you on Julia Turshen's podcast later.
Ah! I am so excited to see what people say about this book. I devoured it but then shared it with a friend who asked if I'd be offended if she stopped reading it b/c she was just not into it. I have seen a lot of people who wanted to like it/though they'd like it and just couldn't. So I'm curious to delve into the love/not-love.
I have a very nice lunch today--Smitten Kitchen's tomato/white bean roast and this salad I made with beets, lentils, arugula, hazelnuts and cheddar.
God that sounds delicious. I do think this is a book that walks the line of brilliant and traumatizing -- there were points where I wasn't sure I could keep going. And I've read other books that walk that line (Room, A Little Life, My Absolute Darling) where I ended up really mad I stuck with them because they just fucked me up too much. This one stayed on the right side for me personally, but YMMV.
OK also, I wrote this after Nancy commented on yesterday's thread that she loved the ending so now I'm really curious -- who loved it? Who thought it was traumatizing? I was so so scared about how fast she would get arrested and lose her daughter again that I couldn't even find it hopeful. But maybe it was supposed to be hopeful? Is there a possibility of escape? GAH.
I loved the ending because it felt cathartic, and a call to resistance as other have said. She spends the whole book submitting, so now it's time for a FUCK YOU, because the ending is devastating either way. I also spent the whole last chapter shouting- just drive to Canada drive to Canada drive to Canada.
I was just relieved that Frida didn't die by suicide even though she would inevitably still lose everything/her freedom, etc. I wouldn't have been able to take that utter bleakness and it would've been even more trauma inducing.
I took the ending as a call to resistance because of her plan to leave the photo of the doll with Harriet. That photo would inevitably raise a lot of questions and hopefully outcry against the practices of the state, the school etc. I found it hopeful only in that she was able to be with her daughter one last time, but also do what she could to change the future for other mothers. It felt like an honest, realistic ending and terrifyingly close to reality. We're pushed up against harsh odds that break us down emotionally, but we haven't lost our will to do something however small.
I do see that. And I had the same thought that a suicide ending (totally where I thought we were going/was ready to go) would have felt even more gutting and pointless.
I loved the ending in a kind of FUCK YEAH kind of way. Like she finally fought back, you know? She didn't submit, play along, follow the rules. She did precisely what she intuitively felt she needed to do to be a mother. She is finally listening to herself rather than the influencers and the "good mothers".
Is it inherently a good thing? Ehhhhhhh.
But I would say neither is going along with the system and agreeing to never seeing her daughter again until said daughter is 18.
Oh agreed. There was no possibility for a "good" (as in happy) ending, either way.
Oh agreed. There was no possibility for a "good" (as in happy) ending, either way.
Right! And I think Frida realized that so she turned to burn it all down mode. And I sometimes kind of love it when women do that :)
I still remember that scene from the 80s movie She-Devil when Roseanne's character burned down the house. That really made an impression on me haha!
Totally. Love a good burn it all down moment -- just wish she could do that AND keep her kid and the clear path to another brutal separation was killing me.
Oh I 100% think it was meant to be traumatizing and there was absolutely zero hope. And I think that's the only outcome? There is no happy ending available for this mother, in this culture, at this time.
Everyone I know who couldn't read it or didn't get into it was someone who does not parent a child. Every mother knows this is only a stone's throw away from they way we are already living our lives in public as mothers.
Yep, yep, that all sounds right to me.
I feel like it threaded the needle between a horrible bummer traumatizing ending and an actual happy ending which I think we knew was never going to happen.
But I wanted and needed it so badly?! I know it was never going to happen. Maybe it's just that I know I do not have the character to pull off a heist like that and I was just so anxious for her the whole time they were in the apartment and driving away.
Yes - I am a RULE FOLLOWER. I was all, "No no! Follow the rules!" But then again, who knows about what the Mama Bear inside is capable of?