Rating: 
Summary: The real story of Mary Pride
Review: As Mary Pride's eldest daughter, I was checking out for fun what people have written about my mother's books here on Amazon. Naturally, I am very proud of my mother, and I think this book is wonderful.I would like to respond to some of the other reviewers, who have posted suppositions about my mother and her life to support their criticism of The Way Home. First, staying at home is _not_ a 20th-century invention. Quite the opposite, in fact. Yes, women worked hard through the ages, but at _house work._ Who does this particular reviewer think scrubbed the floors, cooked food over a fire, spun, wove and sewed the clothes, etc? This was the women, and they raised the children. Any elementary study of history will tell you this. To the people who commented on my mother's "hypocrisy" in working and telling other mothers not to: While I was growing up (I am 20 years old now), my mother traveled to two or three conventions a year, this is true. She always took at least one of us kids with her, however; conventions were a learning experience, and never lasted more than a week. She writes and works from our home, and mixes the time with correcting assignments and talking to kids. I cannot tell you how wonderful it has been having her at home. I cannot imagine it any other way. Big families: To the woman who said that it can hardly be helpful to have older kids help raise the younger, obviously she has never encountered a large family. My older brother spontaneously taught me to read when I was three years old, meaning that by the time I was eight I was reading Isaac Asimov's science fiction. I myself helped teach my younger siblings many subjects, including Latin, so that now when I think about teaching any future children, I know that I _can._ This was profitable for both me and my siblings. Several of my friends from one- or two-kid families cannot even imagine themselves able to be parents! I grew up in the halo of this book. I don't know even how much of an influence it had. All I know is that, whenever I went with my mother to homeschool conferences, dads and moms would bring up their children and say, "Look! He wouldn't be here if we hadn't read your book!" I am so proud of my mother. I wish everyone would read the real historical accounts and see what has indeed happened to our country. Read Alexis de Tocqueville's "Democracy in America" at least. But begin with this book of my mother's.
Rating:
Summary: Saving lives and changing others
Review: For fun, just like my older sister, I was also looking through the reviews on my mom's books, especially this book, The Way Home, because, as I have been the office manager of my parents' business for almost seven years, I have received very many calls from people who have told me that this book managed to not only change their lives, but it has managed to help bring other lives into the world. I have gotten literally hundreds of calls from mothers who have told me that this book is the reason they have several children instead of one or none. It has encouraged people beyond belief.
As to what some of the reviewers have said, my older sister is correct. Up to the time of the Industrial Revolution, a woman's place was at home supporting her family. Generally the young women who worked during that era were unmarried, and were only working until they did marry.
As for the people who said that my mother is a hypocrite because she "obviously" works outside of the home, nothing could be further from the truth. My mother hasn't spoken at a convention for over five years. She has worked from her workstation at home for as long as I can remember, and the longest time she has ever been away from home was a week and a half for a convention. Most of her business is done over the phone. She has never put work above our wellbeing, and if we need to talk to her about something, she is always willing to talk.
We are all products of my mother's dream. As a dyslexic child I would have been labeled "slow" or "special ed" in school, and more than likely I would have been ridiculed and mocked by my peers. Learning at my own rate has helped me to not only avoid that stigmatism, but to excel academically.
I agree with what some of the other reviewers have said. There seems to be a "take it or leave it" attitude in the reviews. A lot of the mothers who read the book, and accepted the message in the book told me that at first they did not want to accept it because it hit way to close to their comfort zone. Perhaps the best thing to do when reading this book would be to read it expecting your comfort zone to not only be challenged, but also very definitely shaken.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful book!
Review: I found this book tucked away in the back at the store and it was the best money I've spent on a book in a long time.
As a former student (and feminist) at a very liberal university, I can say that what she says about the links between working women and the radical feminist agenda is very true. As a Christian, I have to say that the verses speak for themselves. She is right about feminism being consistant, and that is why it is winning over Christians where today's Christianity isn't.
The idea of God telling us what to do with our finances and our sex lives is a very uncomfortable idea. Most of the reviews that have hated this book seem uncomfortable with the idea that the moral absolutes in Christianity extend to these areas as well. The idea that you can do something right or wrong with parenting bothers people for some reason, but our children are not a free-for-all morality experiment.
I would especially recommend this book to lower-income women who are having more then one child and who are staying home. This will be an encouragment and a nice break from the "must have a mortage, you are a horrible parent if you live in an apartment and budget" messages of society.
Rating:
Summary: Why an educated woman chose to be a homemaker.
Review: I was glad to find a book that offers an alternative to building a career outside the home. It is one thing to say "stay home with your family and be a homemaker" and another to actually define a fulfilling role inside the home. I spent years of schooling preparing to work outside the home, but this is the first book I have read that explains how to be fulfilled while staying in the home. Mary Pride was an engineer before she started a family. She relates to the educated woman who chooses to invest her time and talents into her family instead of a career outside the home. I appreciated the outline that she has for practical ways to do this. I felt like I was inspired to see my role at home as significant and necessary to the well being of my family and friends. Most media tells me that it doesn't make any difference whether you are at home or not. She talks about working from the home and working your career around your family, even if it means putting it on hold for other priorities. I have recommended this book to lots of people who are thinking of staying home with their children, but aren't sure they will be happy staying at home.
Rating:
Summary: Truly an eye opener...
Review: Mary Pride is an inspiration to my family! She has opened our eyes on all that is wrong with parenting today, and set us straight using Biblical truth as her basis. This book tell it like it is with homeschooling vs. public and private schooling, she reveals how people in America today are subconsciencly brainwashed into feminist ideals and anti-child thinking. She explains the beginnings of the planned family roots that end up with abortion as an alternative. She explains how the "World" gets in the way of the family, and how to change the world from with-in. She also wrote a sequel to this book called "All the Way Home" which is a "how to book" compared to "The Way Home" being an "Informative book". I strongly suggest this book above all other books to anyone who is married and thinking of having children. This book is a must read for women today! This book would be the most read book in your church library.
Rating: 
Summary: Happily-Married College-Educated Feminist Homeschooling SAHM
Review: Mary Pride would have you believe women like me don't exist. Baloney! I'm a feminist. I've been happily married for 18 years to the only man I ever dated. We scrimped, saved and lived without credit cards for over a decade so I could stay home with our babies. We have two wonderful children we decided to homeschool 6 months after we got married, with more on the way. After all this time my liberal feminist convictions are even stronger than they were in college. And guess what? There are thousands of women like me!
Mary Pride presents you with a false dichotomy: happyily married Biblical Conservative vs. unhappy single feminist Liberal. But that's not the way the world works.
Feminism is all about giving each woman what Dame Ragnell from the stories of King Aurther says every woman truly wants: her own choice. I'll admit there are some older feminists who get upset when a woman chooses to stay home, but all you have to do is remind them that feminism is about each woman choosing what SHE wants, not what someone else wants for her *including them*. Fortunately these poor souls are few and far between, and have no real power to hurt anyone.
Mary Pride has chosen to be a Conservative Christian homeschooling SAHM, and more power to her. But she could have just as easily chosen to be a Liberal Christian homeschooling SAHM. She could have chosen to be a Unitarian-Universalist hs SAHM, or an atheist, or a Pagan. And so can you.
Rating: 
Summary: Needs less condemnation, more conviction.
Review: Ms. Pride does a good job of illustrating how deceived many Christian women have become by our secular culture and its anti-child attitudes, all in the name of self-fulfillment. This attitude is death to our marriages, our family life, ourselves - the potential of the Christians we could become if we only were willing to listen to the teachings of the Holy Spirit.
However, she does a lousy job of encouraging women who have decided to throw off the world's influences and are facing the sometimes arduous task of swimming upstream in a world that is entirely self-centered, in order to better glorify the Lord. Better to read something like Nancy Wilson's "Praise Her in the Gates" or "Be Fruitful and Multiply" by Nancy Campbell. These authors do more than just condemn - they convict and provide real encouragement (yes! Children can actually be a joy! There can be freedom in following the Lord instead of the crowd!)...even my husband (who is our sole breadwinner and is "quiverfull-minded") was turned off by Ms. Pride's "piss and vinegar" (his words) attitude. The Lord wants us to be more than just slaves to his Word - he wants us to be cheerful givers.
Ms. Pride also has no business giving you her opinion on what she thinks the Bible says you are allowed to do with your own husband, in your own bedroom (re: Chapter 3: "The Joy of Unkinky Sex"). Better to go straight to the Word (see "Song of Songs", The Holy Bible) for THE LORD'S TAKE on what glorifies Him.
Rating:
Summary: One star is way too much!
Review: Ms. Pride's tone in her work is resentful, angry, boastful, judgmental and accusatory. She strongly condemns any and all who do not agree with the lifestyle portrayed in her writings and she encourages her followers to be just as judgmental and condemning. She is, in fact, a mother who works outside the home: attending home schooling conventions, writing books and meeting with editors, among numeous other endeavors. "Me thinks she doth protest too much" the wickedness of having any interest outside of producing babies, breastfeeding, and schooling children inside the home. Touted to "emphasize...a new vision of Christian womanhood which is deeply rooted in biblical truth," (see back cover review) she instead takes scripture out of context, picks and chooses scripture that she intentionally misinterprets to support her contentions and offers "salvation by childbearing" (pp 41 & 42)as an alternative salvation to receiving Christ. Teaching false doctrine is a serious offense and the bible says teachers will be judged more harshly than others. I would not recommend this book to anyone. My intent is to use the book strictly to educate and prepare myself to respond to this type of false doctrine that is used to attack the church body today. If you choose to read this book, have within easy reach your bible, both greek and hebrew dictionaries and a good commentary. If I could, I would give this book a negative 5 stars.
Rating:
Summary: ugh
Review: my my...not one but TWO family reviews on Amazon. I always get suspicious when amidst many negative to average reviews one finds a glowing review clearly written by family members or people known to have very close ties to the author. it is good that Ms Prides children think so highly of her. HOWEVER that does not erase the fact that her book is loaded with error. she takes a basic fact: she discovered that happiness was not a fruit of radical feminism. then she does such a complete 180. she makes many many things that are not absolutes by any means into absolutes. she turns things that are nothing more than personal choice (although dont EVEN get me going on home birth...as I personally know someone whose life was shattered by a home birth gone wrong I just cringe to see someone spiritualize it as "Gods way") into major issues that I doubt that god even cares about (although Satan sure loves the strife stirred up whenever a new "rule" is created in Christendom to entrap Gods followers). re: the full quiver mindset. I have researched it rather thoroughly and I think they make some huge leaps, making scripture say something is not. I have heard the "children are blessings and who would refuse Gods blessings" so many times I could scream. yet the argument could go both ways: many people DO refuse things that could be blessings, taht are stated in scripture to be blessings because int heir situation right now it wouldnt be a blessing. I have heard the "so and so wouldnt be here if their parents hadnt used birth control argument". well, two words for that: Ethel Waters, the gospel singer concieved by rape. Gods ways are beyond our ways and He can bring good out of bad. if the Wesleys would not be here if Susannah used birth control, Ethel Waters would not be here if it were not for the act of rape. and I dont see anyone calling rape good even if good came out of it.....ditto just about any adopted kid...to follow this line of reasoning of the Prides etc...you would have to say that God wanted unmarried parents to fornicate so that they would bring so and so into the world....some things are just beyond our understanding and disecction and I think thats the way God wants it. the church history argument doesnt cut it because there are many things, anti semitism springs to mind, that have had much support in church history that are absolute lies when argued biblically. much of this radical lifestyle that not just Ms Pride but others like her promote is reaction to the culture rather than real scriptural argument. it is said you can prove anything from the bible and this is no exeption. as for the working mother issue: until the industrial revolution the whole idea of "jobs" for male OR female was different. out of neccessity there was a clear division of labor. somewhere in there careerism for both men AND women assumed a very different meaning than providing for their families. two hundred years ago people didnt even think about their work being stimulating or using their gifts. everyone did hard heavy manual grunt work whether in or out of the home. except for a handful of elitist intellectuals. who would covet the others role? no one, I would bet. unless you escape to join the amish or soemthing (an ideal held by a lot of these types..they seem to worship the amish and groups like them) you cannot escape that our world operates very differently than that of two hundred years ago. it is key to remember that both then and now our world is fallen...trying to go back and immitate another time and place wil not erase the fallenness that permeates society. our world has not and never will be a perfect reflection of Gods kingdom. bringing us to working moms: there were no "outside the home working moms" two hundred years ago BUT these mothers lives were most certainly not filled with child nurturing activities day in and day out. much of it was hard manual labor. children were granted a freedom to wander around and do thier own thing in a way that would make most parents today cringe. I am not saying bad or good: it just was. but the point is that their mothers days were not filled iwth "mothering", they were too busy doing laundry by hand, growing food, making bread from very scratch, making all their clothes etc etc. even todays homestead movement glorifies this and does a few of these things in a dilettantish way to express thier disdain for modern society but the reality is these peoples lives were harder than any person living in todays america can even imagine. Ms Pride attempts to "fix" modern family ills by returning to a simpler (or so she sees) time then filling in the blanks with proof texted scripture to try and prove her point. she gets incredibly legalistic with this working at home vs at a job business. by her standards if say, a woman was a graphic designer and had her business in her home she would be doing it "gods way", but if she had to rent a separate office space and hire a babysitter or (God forbid) swing shift with her husband then she would be rebelling against God. this reminds me of people debating around about hem lenght nad just "how much" makeup God has a problem with. the whole working mother debate really should hinge on where someoens heart is...what is their priority>(something I might add goes for men as well as women: workaholism is very detrimental) i have seen this type of mindset as Ms Pride has encourage a man to put himself in an early grave (not to mention have nothing to do with his kids but provide a paycheck) all so that the wife doesnt "have to work"; unless of cousre her skills run towards hawking tupperware or discovery toys. I have seen, as a fruit of this type of thinking people getting incredibly legalistic over what exactly constitutes a working mother in rebellion and what constitutes an obedient stay at home wife. somehow I dont think htis is what god had in mind. I might echo here too reviewers who find Ms PRides whole tone to be angry, condescending and nasty towards those who dont see things the way she does. it is sadly something I have found to be very very common among people who hold her viewpoints. and for my final complaints about making lifestyle choices which apparently worked for her and her family out to be Gods truth for all I have two words: Andrea Yates. I have to wonder if along with all the happy folks coming up to the Prides at homeschool conventions they can also count Russell and Andrea among those who can say that thier lives were irrevocably influenced by Mary's writings.
Rating:
Summary: Truly a convicting and challenging book!
Review: Our present society praises career-minded women and tells us we should "socialize" our children by throwing them into daycares (and public schools) while we climb the corporate ladder to success. We're told to leave child rearing to the "professionals." This book reminds us of who God tells us we are and who is responsible for training our children. The world tells us that children are a BURDEN (so don't have too many!) Mary Pride reminds us in The Way Home, what God's Word says children are....a BLESSING! Erase what our present society has taught you and get your Bible out! Read The Way Home prayerfully and with your Bible in hand! Be prepared to be transformed! Stacy McDonald
Editor-in-Chief
Homeschooling Today
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