The Never Good Enough Mother: Escaping Motherhood in Two Contemporary Novels

Abstract

Two contemporary novels speculate about alternative realities for women as mothers. In When Women Were Dragons (2022), Kelly Barnhill imagines an alternate history set in 1950s United States where women assert agency by becoming literal dragons and abandoning their families and responsibilities. Sisters and nieces take on the mother role but also feel constrained by the responsibility that has been thrust upon them. While Barnhill resolves the conflict through a maternal utopia, The School for Good Mothers (2022) by Jessamine Chan creates a dystopian future where women are punished for failing to be good mothers. Bad mothers are given the choice to attend a school to become good mothers and earn their children back. Drawing upon Sharon Hays (1996) definition of intensive mother and Solinger and Ross’s (2017) reproductive justice, this paper interrogates contemporary anxieties about motherhood that these two novels reflect by examining bad mothers. While Chan explores the consequences of surveillance culture particularly for mothers from marginalized groups, Barnhill imagines an alternative, more hopeful result of second wave feminism, but to become free the women must literally transform.