All the Other Mothers Hate Me

In All the Other Mothers Hate Me, Harman uses the fish-out-of-water trope to highlight the discomfort Florence feels as a lower-middle-class American attempting to navigate the wealthy, upper-class community of her son’s private school in London. The tension she feels between herself and the other St. Angeles mothers directly affects the way she feels about herself. In the opening chapters, Harman contrasts Florence’s position as a former girl-group member with a part-time balloon arch business with the other mothers who “spend all day hanging out with [their] girlfriends, doing gentle exercise and eating slices of fruit that someone else had cut” (30). To pre-empt their rejection, Florence judges the other moms because she assumes they are judging her, preventing her from forming meaningful connections with them. For instance, she presumes that the wealthy “Horse Girl Allegra” is a snob when, as Jenny points out, Florence has never actually spoken to Allegra, who is “actually really nice” (318). Florence fixates on the designer labels and luxury accessories of her peers and compares them to her own, more eccentric, discount wardrobe, revealing the hidden resentment, loneliness, and discontentment she feels with her life.

These class and cultural divides define Florence’s relationship with her ex-husband, Will, a former “St.