Mam

Quick Facts

• Role: Abusive mother of Ada and Jamie; the novel’s primary human antagonist
• First appearance: The opening chapter, in the cramped London flat where she keeps Ada hidden
• Setting and power: Rules the one-room home through fear, scarcity, and humiliation
• Key relationships: Daughters/victims — Ada and Jamie; Foil — Susan Smith

Who She Is

At her core, Mam is a study in shame weaponized as power. She is the immediate source of the children’s suffering and the spark that sends them away from London, turning Ada’s survival into a direct confrontation with parental cruelty. As Ada’s “private war,” Mam embodies the wounds and patterns explored in Trauma, Abuse, and Healing and the suffocating dynamic of Freedom and Imprisonment. Rather than a nuanced figure who changes, she remains chillingly constant—an unyielding mirror of what Ada must recognize and reject.

Personality & Traits

Mam’s defining feature is her need to control. That control stems from profound shame—especially about Ada’s disability—twisted into contempt. The author withholds extensive physical detail, allowing Mam’s presence to be felt through sound, motion, and menace: a “shouting” voice, a “slow smile” that makes Ada’s “insides clench,” and the taunting wiggle of her “two good feet.”

• Abusive and punitive: Locks Ada in a roach-infested cabinet under the sink; smacks and backhands her; uses pain, hunger, and darkness to enforce obedience.
• Cruel and taunting: Calls Ada a “cripple,” a “monster,” and “nobbut a disgrace,” taking pleasure in humiliation rather than correction.
• Neglectful: Leaves the children alone with little food; cares only that Jamie stays out of her way, not that he is safe.
• Manipulative, with targeted threats: Tries to control Ada’s only escape—her window—by threatening to board it up; punishes Ada for Jamie’s misbehavior to keep both children off balance.
• Shame-driven and image-obsessed: Treats Ada’s clubfoot as “my shame,” focusing on how others might judge her rather than on Ada’s pain or potential; her parenting is fundamentally about concealment and control.

Character Journey

Mam doesn’t change; the transformation belongs to Ada. At first, Ada absorbs Mam’s judgments, internalizing blame for her foot and imagining that good behavior might someday win maternal pride. Over time, distance and care expose the lie. By the time Mam arrives to reclaim the children, Ada recognizes that Mam’s fury is not love but the anger of a tyrant who has lost control. That clear sight severs the psychological tie: Ada stops confusing cruelty with care and moves toward a hard-won Identity and Self-Worth.

Key Relationships

• Ada Smith: For Ada Smith, Mam is both captor and voice of internalized hatred. The relationship’s defining features—imprisonment, insults, deprivation—forge Ada’s flight and fuel her recovery. Ada’s arc is measured by how thoroughly she rejects Mam’s definitions of her.
• Jamie Smith: With Jamie Smith, Mam’s neglect masquerades as lenience. She shows him less overt cruelty because he is “normal enough,” but the lack of real care is total. Her indifference pushes Jamie to the streets—and pushes Ada to imagine a world beyond their flat.
• Susan Smith: As foil and rescue, Susan Smith exposes what Mam is not. Where Mam humiliates, Susan dignifies; where Mam withholds, Susan teaches. Their contrast clarifies The Meaning of Found Family and lets Ada test a new model of safety, one that is not contingent on secrecy or shame.

Defining Moments

Mam’s power is built through repeated acts of degradation. Each key moment deepens Ada’s fear—and, paradoxically, Ada’s resolve to escape.

• The cabinet punishment
  • What happens: Mam forces Ada into a dark, damp, roach-filled cabinet under the sink.
  • Why it matters: It crystallizes Mam’s cruelty and becomes the sensory imprint of Ada’s panic; later, overcoming those memories marks Ada’s psychological growth.
• Refusing to evacuate Ada
  • What happens: When London children are shipped to safety, Mam forbids Ada from going, reducing her to a prisoner whose existence must remain hidden.
  • Why it matters: This refusal triggers Ada’s decisive act—teaching herself to walk and fleeing—turning survival into defiance.
• The final confrontation in Kent
  • What happens: Mam rages at Ada’s new clothes, riding, and the prospect of surgery; she admits she never wanted either child.
  • Why it matters: Her unmasked motive—control and shame, not love—frees Ada from blame and closes Mam’s grip for good.

Essential Quotes

“He ain’t a cripple. Not like you.” This line divides the siblings and weaponizes disability to isolate Ada. By positioning Jamie as “not like” Ada, Mam justifies differential treatment and cements Ada’s belief that love is scarce and conditional.

“You’re nobbut a disgrace!” she screamed. “A monster, with that ugly foot! You think I want the world seeing my shame?” Mam collapses Ada’s body with her own reputation, revealing that her core fear is exposure. The insult is telling: Ada is not a child to be helped but a spectacle to be hidden, making secrecy the central instrument of control.

“Get down on your knees and get into that cabinet.” The command reduces Ada to bodily submission—knees, cabinet, darkness. It’s a ritual of power that turns the home into a carceral space, mapping the novel’s larger pattern of Freedom and Imprisonment onto Ada’s daily life.

“Who’d want you? Nobody, that’s who. Nice people don’t want to look at that foot.” Here Mam projects rejection before the world can offer acceptance, preemptively sabotaging Ada’s hope. The line exposes Mam’s tactic: define Ada as unwanted so she will never test the lie.

“And why would I? It was all him, calling me unnatural, wanting babies all the time. Then I got stuck with a cripple. And then a baby. And then no husband. I never wanted either of you.” This admission strips away any ambiguity about Mam’s motives. Her resentment predates the children and crystalizes around Ada’s disability; the final sentence severs the illusion of maternal love and, ironically, liberates Ada from it.