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Summary: Amazing contrasts in opinion... A good read.
Review: You know, there is no doubt that this book touches some VERY raw nerves out there. As a loyal husband and father, I see this conflict in my wife's life. Should she be a 'stay-at-home' mom or not? It doesn't have to mean servitude, surely there is a middle-ground. It seems that our society has made it more difficult than ever to make that choice. And yet, we wonder how a child can walk into a school and shoot without remorse. Many children lose touch with their parents early on, and those formative years are so critical. It shouldn't be some sort of profane wish to have a family or want to be with them more. My own work doesn't understand how I will turn down a promotion or now, even a raise so that I can continue to spend more time with my family. If there was anything missing from Danielle's book, it was the fact that today's men seem to reward each other for needless 'macho' and sick behavior. For example, a guy in my management brags about how he stayed on the job during his wife's c-section. I was horrified to hear it. Nothing is more important to me than mine. I stayed with my wife for almost a month straight after the birth of our son. It set us back financially, but brought us together more than anything else. I think the book shows that there are serious repercussions to the feminist lifestyle - ones feminists are sure to disavow, but most *reasonable* women will agree with. People who say they got nothing out of this book are either fooling themselves, or very strange. No one should be punished for trying to build a stronger family and it's high time someone spoke up about it.
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Summary: This is a must-read book
Review: As a woman in my late 20's, I grew up convinced by our culture that the desire to be a wife and mother, and to stay home with children was less meaningful than, inferior to, having a career. I have secretly felt like an aberration for desiring those things above the pursuit of a career, even as I completed a graduate degree and joined the work force. Similarly, many of my female friends have gotten PhD's, gone through arduous years in medical school, put in long hours at law firms, traveled like maniacs for consulting firms- all to hit their 30th birthdays with an overwhelmingly difficult dilemna and sense of disappointment: "Now I have made strives in my career and I just want to get married and have children. How in the heck do I make this all happen?! Are my years of law school all for naught? Is it wrong to want children- am I "selling out"?" Worse, many of them wonder where all the eligible single men have suddenly disappeared to. In my opinion, it is the love of a partner, children and family that sustains and inspires us more than anything else. When I look back over my life as an older woman, I would like my memories to be filled with the joy of loved ones who needed and cherished me. This is not an unworthy goal! Crittenden reaffirms this in her book and liberates women who have felt oppressed by those who would tell them that the only way to make a significant mark in this world is to throw on a suit/uniform and join the workforce. All of the striving that women have done is not in vain- it is wonderful that American women can choose to enter any field of work they could wish for themselves: that we can vote, own property, obtain a divorce, control our bodies to a much higher degree, travel freely by ourselves, sit on the Supreme Court, and remain unmarried without the public stigma of "spinster". But Crittenden identifies and articulates the deep longing women have to be mothers and wives, roles that have been repressed and diminished within the past 20+ years. Why should we be ashamed to feel something so natural? Why is being a mother no longer good enough? Perhaps that is where the feminist movement failed us- by trashing the entire system without perserving the fundamentally good and necessary aspects within it. Many of Crittenden's critics seem to be hung up on the fact that she married a wealthy man. That is irrelevent; I believe a lot more women could choose to stay home if they lowered their very high expectations for material "needs". Guess what? A family can live on one salary if they make sacrifices- a more modest home, one car, fewer vacations, fewer possessions in general. I realize that there are many, many families in which one income is simply not enough to make ends meet and that the woman is financially forced against her will to enter the workforce. (As a society we need to address this overwhelming problem) But when I hear a woman say, "We don't feel financially stable enough for me to stop working yet," and I know that her partner makes a significant income, I can't help thinking that our culture has a distorted sense of living standards. Crittenden's book is a painful reality; for those people who say "This is just an elitist writer telling other women to return to the 1950's and a lot of neoconverative bunk", I would like to respond that I have had conversations with many smart, with-it women who, like myself, are starting to realize that careers are great, but not enough. We want husbands and children, we want them to be our priority, and we want to live in a society which celebrates that priority with us!
Rating: 
Summary: Problem only going to get worse?
Review: Danielle Crittenden advises young women to look for a husband while they are young and most attractive to eligible men. She points out that for a woman in her early twenties, there is no man shortage, but by the time she hits 30, her attractiveness to marriage-minded, child-desiring men is on a sad slide. Unfortunately, the problem she decries may soon be facing younger women as well, at least those with educational aspirations. For whatever reasons, men are staying away from college, and now 55% of college students are female, with the number rising. Perhaps some of these absent young men are too busy starting companies to bother with college. But one suspects most are headed for a sullen underclass of maladaptive males looming just over the horizon. A young woman who starts looking in her late teens and early twenties for a similarly-educated man, one who is willing and able to support her, at least in her childbearing years, as Crittenden recommends, is going to be facing lots of competition. Proposals for a return to a "cartel of virtue" may run into the same problem that oil exporters had, namely, a huge new glut on the market. Many in society, especially young women, seem to be having second thoughts about the bargains we have made at the behest of the feminists and the sexual revolutionaries. In a way, Crittenden's book is an attempt to tell young women how they may start to renegotiate the bargain. But despite some acute analysis and some helpful suggestions, there may be too little here even to begin, if the avalanche in relations between the sexes is still gathering force. As for the brighter vision held in the book, on its own terms it is open to the criticism that Crittenden doesn't quite seem able to make up her mind. At times, she seems to want women to have exactly the same opportunities in the workforce as men, while at others to have the option of extended or even indefinite support as mothers and homemakers. One suspects these are mutually contradictory options that cannot simultaneously be sustained even in an ideal world, let alone the one in prospect for the young men and women of tomorrow. Still, this book is a stimulating attempt to survey the damage of the past decades and ask where we might go from here.
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Summary: Good advice but where are the men?
Review: This book advises women to marry young while they are still attractive to men who want to have children. Many people ask where are the men who want to marry young, though? This is a weakness of the book, maybe the author doesn't have the answer (she found a millionaire, lucky for her). What do the rest of us do? A point she makes is that marriage isn't as good a deal for men as it used to be. This seems to me to be true. Why should they want to support and protect us anymore? The feminists and their allies (who included many, many men) mocked women who wanted to marry and have kids, mocked the male supporter role, in fact any distinct role for men, so like now, we even have women boxers, women soldiers, etc. Who is surprised that so many men want to bail? A new good book on this is by Lionel Tiger called The Decline of Males. Another one is by F. Carolyn Graglia. It is frightening to think where it is all going to end. But, I'm afraid we brought it on ourselves.
Rating: 
Summary: Why is she telling WOMEN to marry younger how about the MEN!
Review: Why doesn't her book address all the 20 year old men who delay marriage?? Why doesn't she address the work force that makes parents leave their children for 8 hours a day!! With the proliferation of computers in homes today how many people are actually able to find work at home??Why doesn't she just come out & tell woman to marry millionaires? The man who doesn't want a thirty something woman is a immature pig!! It's about personal choices. My parents were in their 40's & late 30's when they had me & you know what I think I'm going to wait until I'm 40 to have my first child.
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Summary: Elitist & condescending book
Review: The only women who could benefit from reading this book are white, wealthy, pretty, and lucky. Crittenden assumes that all women would benefit from marrying young and forgoing careers to have babies in their twenties. It MIGHT work - if the woman is lucky enough to get a first-rate education and find a man who is wealthy enough to support her and moral enough not to divorce her. The rest of us (and that's about 95%) will just have to tough it out and invest in our careers. The reality is that most people who marry young wind up divorced, and that with no-fault divorce there is NO guarantee of life-long marriage anymore. Crittenden also condescendingly imagines that no woman in her 30's can possibly attract a decent men - her "shelf life" has expired. I thought Susan Faludi debunked that long ago in "Backlash". Crittenden's book is elitist claptrap that simply has no bearing on the lives of most American women
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Summary: A common-sense questioning of feminist ideas.
Review: As a husband, father, son, brother, I really enjoyed this book. Crittenden's writing is practical and comes from her own experience and observations. She's not afraid to question some of the pop culture feminist ideas of recent years. Crittenden doesn't pretend to have all the answers, but asks if feminist ideas have furthered a basic end: the happiness of women.
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Summary: Get married early so we can have kids early?
Review: Silly me, I always thought people should get married when they felt emotionally and financially ready -and have kids when they were emotionally and financially ready, too! Thank heaven I have Danielle Crittenden to tell me that's all wrong. We should marry young because when we're "older" (like 30?!) men won't want us. All I can say to that, honey, is that any man who doesn't want me because he prefers young things is a man I DON'T WANT TO HAVE ANYHOW!
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Summary: Incredible Book, I'm going to send copies to all my friends
Review: I'm a 22 y.o. male-- I thought that this was an insightful book-- which put into words a lot of things that many of my friends have been discussing - I think that the author is right-- time will tell whether 70s feminism is rejected or embraced-- and if the people who I know of my age are any indicator, it will be rejected, by many. Not putting children at the heart of out families and our culture is already reaping disastorus consequences. This book is not about the details-- (i.e. marry early, have a child, then carreer)-- the critics seem to focus on those things and make personal jabs on the author's life (i.e. marrying a millionarie)-- why do they do this?? and not attack the substance of the book??? If you'd like respond to her logic the 95% of the book that leads up to her suggested solution-- this 95% is the important part-- why don't you critics reply to her logic. Why are women not happy????? Why are children more "messed up" and insecure??? Could it be because of the values we are now holding as a society?? Of course feminism is not the only factor (consumerism, etc also play a role which is not addressed in the book). Anyways, real critics, if you're out there, write a book that answers that question-- and I'll read it. Until then, I'm for the view that Crittenden takes. And most importantly, that's the way I'd like to live my life. You MUST read this book-- it will make you think. I'm buying copies for every young girl and female friend that I have....
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Summary: This is a great book.....
Review: I mean it. I could do without the various right-wing-isms at various places in the book, but let's face it, this woman is in-your-face throughout. And usually right. I could have written parts of this book myself. I am a married male, and at least once a week, some 35-40 woman asks me "Where are the men?" This book explains "where the men are" for 30-40 year-old never-married women. They are probably not looking for you, that's for sure. They are one or more of the following: divorced, immature, weird, or chasing 23-year-olds. That's just the way it is. If you ask a 22 year-old woman "Is there a man shortage?," she will laugh at you. For her, all options are open, men want her. If you ask a 37 year-old single woman, she knows exactly what you're talking about, and she's upset about it. So upset that she can barely talk about it. Yet, the same thing keeps happening -- women put off marriage until the men who really want them aren't interested anymore or have married someone else. I see it happening time after time after boring time. The author tries to address these issues, and does so well. So well, that if I gave this book to any of my late-30s female single friends, they would strangle me. Frankly, I don't care that this woman is "rich" or that her husband is a rabid neo-conservative. She makes some great points, and you should read it.
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