Chan creates a society that mimics our own, but she includes training centers for mothers and fathers who have been deemed unfit parents. In our society, one can find reports or news articles about children being taken away from their caregivers, but if a mother is at the center of the story, she is often the object of speculation and, possibly, contempt. 

Chan also emphasizes the inclusion of gathering data, with the intention to “…eliminate human error. Decisions would be made more efficiently. They’d be able to correct subjectivity or bias, implement a set of universal standards” (20-21). She also describes the use of data when the mothers are introduced to their dolls (Chan 102-103). 

The collection of data could be a contrast to the human intervention and judgment by the social workers, judges, and instructors of the training. However, human “intervention” must analyze the data for whatever outcomes, and, in this case, whether the mothers are fit to be mothers.

The data, in some ways, as well as the decision makers portrayed the mothers as villains with the expectation that “[a] mother is always patient. A mother is always kind. A mother is always giving. A mother never falls apart. A mother is the buffer between her child and the cruel world” (Chan 115-116).

How do you think the data (this could be from earlier recordings of Frida or the dolls), the barrage of rules in the training, the interference of decision makers, or the difference between how the mothers and fathers are treated contribute to the unrealistic expectations of mothering or motherhood?