Rating: 
Summary: I'd like to give it no stars.
Review: Ms. Crittenden's book is drivel. Many of my heterosexual female friends are married with kids and still miserable. Some of them don't want to work but have to due to health insurance issues. Others enjoy their work and/or need the money and desperately need their male partners to shoulder their weight at home instead of sitting on their butt in front of the TV because they "worked all day" Blaming feminists for women's problems is tired but it sells books. Women have changed and it's time for men and the culture to catch up. On a personal note, as a 39 year old infertile woman, yeah sure I would have liked to have kids ten years ago but I was smart enough to know that I wasn't in the right relationship to do so. Now that I have the right relationship and the financial security, it's just not happening. I would no sooner try to blame this on feminism as I'd try to blame it on my cat. I disagree with her analysis of attraction. Desire is created by the media which is obsessed with the thin, white, rich, young and able-bodied. Lastly, given her limited treatment of ageism, it doesn't seem as if she's given thought to the realities of a woman launching a career at 35.
Rating:
Summary: This is 1999, isn't it?
Review: My friends and I just passed this book along amongst ourselves; it was a 'gift' and did we ever enjoy it! We're having a party this weekend, and we plan to use 'What Our Mothers Didn't Tell Us' and 'A Return To Modesty' as kindling for our bonfire. As far as we're concerned, these books are poison to young girls.
Rating:
Summary: Regressive and concerning
Review: Kirkus is on target here. This book prescribes the "easy solution" so many regressive conservatives are peddling these days: a return to the golden age of 1950 (when so many women who did as they were expected to were frustrated and so far from fulfilled they couldn't define the term.) In spite of Crittenden's efforts, there is no one answer for all women. And absolutely nothing here that I can see working in my childfree yet still very full real life.
Rating: 
Summary: Realistic; visionary; possibly life-changing
Review: "What Our Mothers Didn't Tell Us" absolutely stuns me. Aside from the author's obvious felicity with words, and the depth and breadth of her knowledge, I found myself pretty much shocked as I went from chapter to chapter. Simply put, Ms. Crittenden has done an excellent job of research and of drawing ideas to their logical conclusions. Based upon hundreds of interviews, and what were probably endless hours at the Library of Congress reading tome after tome about the conditions of women, Ms. Crittenden has written a policy book that I believe every couple should read--both the man and the woman. Single people in their twenties and thirties should read it--it will starkly clarify for you much of how the world works. But reader beware: cheesy as this may sound, the honesty of the book is not for those whose minds are caulked by ideology. You will find yourself challenged. But ultimately, Ms. Crittenden writes with what seems to be unanswerable logic, and also with great heart. I truly hope that this book sets off the national debate that it should.
Rating: 
Summary: Very interesting and thought provoking but limiting
Review: I found Danielle Crittenden's book to be a very interesting read however I was struck by one thing that I noticed again when reading the other readers comments. People are very complex and whether male or female, they generally defy simple descriptions. Just as readers have different reactions and views on this book, within any group of women or any group of men, you will find different reactions and views on life, sex and marriage. I am a housewife and mother of two who has always labeled herself a feminist. Crittenden hit some of my issues dead on and missed others by a mile. As for some vast chasm between the sexes, I have always been amazed at how most of the men in my life have had similar viewpoints and feelings as mine on many issues, considering how different I frequently read they are supposed to be. Perhaps that is the reason why I have been happy with my husband for 10 years now, I have done a good job of finding a mate who is a good fit for ME. I think there is greater variation within the sexes then there is between. Problems with the opposite sex? It's not them, its him! Read Critenden's book. It is worth pondering. But don't take it as gospel or the truth. It is one woman's opinion. She doesn't speak for all men or women just as I do not.
Rating:
Summary: Finally!!!! The pendulum swings the other way.....thank God!
Review: What a breathe of fresh air...whew!...I only wish I had written it but I am sure I wouldn't have been as witty! ....I 'gave up' career to stay at home with two girls now 6 and 8 and wouldn't have missed it for the world....I was/am a 'feminist' from the get-go...read all the material and loved it while I was doing so (although my boyfriend at the time always wondered why I was always so angry after I had read a pivotal work...thank God he had a sense of humor)..went to Smith, a year at Wellesley, got the (fashionable) MBA at M.I.T. (although MIT grants an M.S)..worked for 10 years, made lots of money by my late 20's...etc, etc..but when it came to my children I couldn't give them up to another person..for so many reasons..BUT felt ambivalent in so many ways, I don't think I will ever get over this ambivalence..but I have no doubt my kids are and will be okay..they are fabulous kids...who have an equally fabulous father..yes I cook dinner every night and even do my own cleaning...BUT have many other interests on the side and have a project in the works...Critenden's work spoke so loudly to my so-called 'sacrifices'..but which are not in fact... Her book gives a plausible explanation as to why so many people are SO self-absorbed today..heaven forbid a woman does anything for anyone else without feeling something is owed to her..case in point...a mother I know told me she doesn't want to spend the time with her daughter to help her get caught up in her reading, 'doesn't have the time...will have to hire someone else to do it', yet within the next breathe asks me if I'd like to meet her for a drink some night soon...after the kids are in bed...yikes... There's a real need for women to become more human again...I too worry that I will 'become my mother', but the older I get I realize that my mother wasn't so far off the mark and far more charitable towards the people around her than most people I meet today... This book needed to be written....I couldn't read it fast enough
Rating:
Summary: Every young woman should read this book.
Review: I wish I had read this book when I was a teenager. It would have prevented, or at least cautioned me against, many mistakes I have made. But when I was growing up, it never occurred to us that waiting for marriage and having multiple sex partners might be hazardous to one's emotional, not to mention, physical, health, or that dumping a baby with a full-time babysitter might be a wrenching experience. The readers who have criticized this book, like the one from Pleasanton, seem either not to have actually read it or to have misunderstood its message. Ms. Crittenden NEVER suggests that women "ought" to have children, nor does she suggest that infertility is something women "deserve". She merely points out something many women have learned the hard way -- fertility declines precipitously after one reaches 35, as I and many, many of my friends have learned painfully. Because she is speaking to such deeply personal issues, and because it is difficult sometimes to reexamine (and question) one's own past decisions, she has enraged some readers and captivated others. But that only demonstrates how serious and important these issues -- and this book is -- to the happiness and fulfillment of women. Every woman should read this book and discuss it with others.
Rating: 
Summary: Gloom and Doom
Review: What a depressing book! I wasn't unhappy before I read this book, but I sure am now! This was not a helpful book in the slightest for anyone wrestling with the stay at home, go to work issue. It is mostly an accusatory guilt trip for modern women! Her solution to this is to troll for a husband and crank out those kids early, and then you can go on to have a satisfying career while tose kids are safe in school. What utter nonsense! While I feel her premise that there is no substitute for a parent's care, there are alternatives to completely giving up one's career. For a really good perspective, read Cokie Robert's book about a modern woman balancing career and family. It can be done, and done well. The happy spin that this author put on the 1950's parent is a view a lot of overworked moms are now clinging to. The 50's weren't so great, and moms had issues as well.
Rating:
Summary: Let's be women of the 90's - the 1890's that is
Review: If you don't want another woman in your womb, don't read this slop! Women can make the choice to have children OR a career if they so choose. Who is this Ms. Crittenden to take the moral high ground about what is or is not selfishness on the part of a woman, or a man. If a woman doesn't want children, then to have them because someone says that that is the only way a woman can be fullfilled, is just plain stupid. It would be damaging not only to the reluctant mother but to the children that she DOESN'T want. If you think for yourself, reading this political agenda of Ms. Crittenden's will only anger you at her presumption of telling you what you SHOULD think, and do
Rating:
Summary: I used to be a Republican, but--
Review: It seems I'm going to have to turn in my membership. I know where I'm not wanted. Ms. Crittenden's primary argument is for a return to the traditional feminine timetable: get married and have children in your early 20s (presumably after having gotten the Mrs. Degree), then step out to enjoy a fulfilling career after your children go to school. This isn't as revolutionary as she seems to think it is. I'm sure that in the author's world of upper-class women with degrees from Smith and Bryn Mawr and "interesting" careers, there really are women who sit around in power suits drinking wine and bemoaning their lack of free time while the men change diapers and do dishes. But this isn't a universal condition. I know many more women who work "mother's hours" or part-time when their children are young than I do women who dump their newborns at day care two weeks after the delivery. She also seems to ignore the fact that while she and her intellectual cohorts may well suffer from a lack of extended family, there are many women who do not. I'm not a believer in institutional day care, but I'm not at all sure a child would suffer horribly from spending 20 hours a week in the care of a beloved aunt, cousin, or grandparent. What I found more troubling about this book is the author's jugdmental--and, at times, absolutely vicious--remarks about women's "selfishness" and "childishness," especially with regards to the trends of late marriage/late childbearing. While her arguments for younger mothers are convincing (again, these aren't especially original), she seems to ignore the fact that this "ideal," while it may have worked well for her, may not be in line with the reality of everyone's life. One doesn't, I hope, just choose the best candidate among the men you happen to be dating at the age of 23. Ideally you'd want a partner with whom you shared a few values, ideas, etc. There is no perfect choice, obviously, but some are better than others. I speak from some experience: I married for the first time at the age of 17, in 1989, and finished college while still married to him. Was that too young? Yes, but in the area of Michigan where I grew up, nobody thought I was. I married again at the age of 22, which has been successful. Still, I doubt we would have suffered by delaying it another year or so. The eeriest part of this book deals with the concept of delaying children. To begin with, maybe waiting until you're 45 to begin a family is very common in Manhattan or Washington DC; it doesn't seem to be a big problem anywhere I've looked. But the author implies that those women who "wait" (again, the implication is, out od "selfishness," fear that a child will hurt her career or her "personal autonomy," or because her husband, listening to her feminist rhetoric, "took her at her word" and has no intentions of supprting a stay-at-home mom)are deserving of whatever they get, including infertility. I am personally offended, as my husband and I have undergone 3 (as yet unsuccessful) IVFs in an attempt to have a biological child. I am (or used to be, anyway) a conservative, and I can say for certain that my infertility had nothing to do with politics. I'm not sure it does for any other woman, either. What Ms. Crittenden seems to forget is that some choices are moral choices; others are not. Some people just meet partners or happen to conceive at different ages. Some women may forgo parenthood or marriage for a career; while others choose--or just happen to have--large families. There is much more randomness, I suspect, than real design in the lives of most women. Is it really so hard to recognize that? The Libertarian Party is looking better all the time.
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