Frances's Mum

Quick Facts

A single parent and bedrock in her daughter’s life, Frances’s Mum first appears in the novel’s early home scenes, puncturing the tension of sixth-form stress with humor and practicality. Key relationships include her daughter, Frances Janvier; Aled Last, whom she immediately treats with warmth and protection; and, by contrast, the local parent whose behavior she distrusts from the start. A white woman who draws “brief, confused stares” as the mother of mixed-race Frances, she’s most memorably at home in a cozy unicorn onesie.

Who They Are

Warm, witty, and reliably sane, Frances’s Mum is the novel’s counterweight to harmful parenting. She’s the parent who listens, jokes, feeds everyone, and says yes when it counts—especially when school anxiety swells to the point of drowning out joy and self-knowledge. She offers a humane alternative to the control and cruelty of Carol Last, consistently pushing back against the pressure of academia that threatens to swallow Frances whole. In doing so, she embodies unconditional, non-romantic care—an adult expression of platonic friendship and love—and stands as a beacon against the novel’s portrait of abusive family dynamics. Her presence reframes success: not grades at any cost, but a life in which Frances can be honest, creative, and at ease.

Personality & Traits

Underneath the unicorn onesie is an incisive observer who refuses to confuse achievement with worth. Her jokes defuse shame and panic; her pragmatism turns into action when protection is needed. Crucially, she recognizes the split between “School Frances” and the real Frances and keeps steering her daughter back to herself.

• Supportive, opportunity-first: When Frances hesitates about becoming the artist for Universe City, her mum urges risk over rigidity, making clear that passion can be as important as grades.
• Humorous, nonjudgmental: Finding a boy in her daughter’s bed, she quips rather than scolds, signaling trust and setting a tone that makes honesty possible.
• Perceptive about masks: She notices when “School Frances” disappears and reads stress and avoidance without shaming, nudging Frances toward balance instead of burnout.
• Pragmatic and protective: She doesn’t just sympathize—she plans, notably engineering the Filofax scheme to safeguard young people from harm.
• Quietly anti-establishment: She treats school as a tool, not a religion, repeatedly insisting that well-being outranks prestige.

Character Journey

Unlike many characters, Frances’s Mum doesn’t arc so much as anchor. The more the novel exposes toxic models of parenting and the brittle promises of elite pathways, the more her approach—listen, joke, believe, act—gains moral weight. She becomes a refuge where setbacks aren’t failures, opportunities aren’t threats, and love isn’t conditional on performance. That steadiness allows Frances to experiment, make mistakes, and ultimately choose a life aligned with her identity and authenticity, knowing home won’t punish her for telling the truth.

Key Relationships

• Frances Janvier: Their bond runs on honesty and warmth; Frances can bring home stress, secrets, and dreams and expect to be taken seriously. Mum’s reaction to the Cambridge rejection and later to Frances’s decision not to attend university—comfort first, judgment never—shows how her love detaches worth from accolades.
• Aled Last: She instantly treats Aled as someone to care for, not to control. Her humor makes him feel safe in her house; her resolve (especially around the Filofax) shows she’ll bend rules to protect him when adults fail him elsewhere.
• Carol Last: As a foil, she exposes what’s wrong with coercive, image-obsessed parenting. Initial irritation hardens into moral clarity and action once the extent of Carol’s behavior surfaces, confirming Mum as the novel’s model of protective, ethical adulthood.

Defining Moments

Her scenes are small in scale but enormous in impact, each one re-teaching the book’s lesson that love equals safety plus freedom.

• The Universe City offer: She urges Frances to accept the artist role, prioritizing joy over resume-building. Why it matters: It reorients the stakes—from “What gets me in?” to “What makes me alive?”
• Finding Aled in bed: She greets the discovery with jokes instead of suspicion, trusting Frances’s judgment. Why it matters: Her nonjudgment creates an environment where truth is easier than lying.
• The Filofax heist: She orchestrates the plan to obtain Carol’s Filofax, acting with nerve and creativity to help Frances, Aled, and Carys Last. Why it matters: It’s where maternal care becomes decisive intervention.
• The Cambridge rejection: She comforts first, reframes later, insisting that one result doesn’t define a life. Why it matters: She interrupts the shame spiral that academic culture often triggers.
• “That’s okay”: On the phone, she immediately accepts Frances’s decision not to go to university. Why it matters: The simplest words become the most radical affirmation—love with no conditions attached.

Essential Quotes

I think you work yourself too hard for school anyway and you should take an opportunity for once and do what you want.
This line flips the novel’s default script: instead of pushing Frances toward prestige, Mum pushes her toward desire. It legitimizes art and curiosity as ends in themselves, not extracurriculars to be justified by a CV.

Speaking of which,” she continued, “I was just wondering who exactly the lovely young chap sleeping in your bed is.
Delivered with teasing warmth, this turns a potentially punitive moment into a trust-building one. By refusing to shame, she keeps channels of communication open—vital for the honesty that drives the plot.

You’re an idiot. Not an unintelligent idiot, but a sort of naïve idiot who manages to fall into a difficult situation and then can’t get out of it because she’s too awkward.
Tough love, calibrated perfectly: frank without cruelty. She names a pattern Frances can actually change, modeling feedback that’s corrective and kind at once.

It’s just school, isn’t it? ... It doesn’t matter though. In the Big Scheme of Things.
This zooms out from exam-season tunnel vision to a humane perspective on value. It’s the antidote to panic, reminding Frances that systems are smaller than they feel and that her worth outlasts any grade.

Oh, Frances. That’s okay.
Four words that carry the novel’s emotional thesis. In a world where acceptance is often contingent on performance, her unconditional assent grants Frances permission to choose herself.