Rating: 
Summary: Challenges our culture to put our money where our mouth is..
Review: Our culture gives alot of lip service to how great motherhood is, but the statistics of mothers and children in poverty say it all: we truly do not value this career. Ann Crittenden does a marvelous job outlining all the various economic, social and political facets to this problem, as well as gives a wonderful "checklist" at the end as to how we can change things and make motherhood a valued and economically viable career in our society. Other countries have done it and have shown how it can work and work well. This is a wake up call for mothers - because every mother is a working mother.
Rating:
Summary: You MUST read this book
Review: Several of the other reviewers have summarized important points so I won't repeat, but need to stress to you that you must read this book! If you are a working mom, stay-at-home mom, one of those lucky part-time working moms, or even if you just have a mother, you need to read this. I am going to buy a copy for my boss!
This is a book that should have gotten more discussion in the public media -- it cuts to the heart of our culture, about how we pay a lot of lip service to how important motherhood is, but totally devalue it in terms of money and status. If motherhood is important to this country, then we should start treating it that way, and truly supporting it in a helpful way. This book is the first one to point out that our culture needs some changing, and makes some suggestions.
Rating:
Summary: You MUST read this book
Review: Several of the other reviewers have summarized important points so I won't repeat, but need to stress to you that you must read this book! If you are a working mom, stay-at-home mom, one of those lucky part-time working moms, or even if you just have a mother, you need to read this. I am going to buy a copy for my boss!
This is a book that should have gotten more discussion in the public media -- it cuts to the heart of our culture, about how we pay a lot of lip service to how important motherhood is, but totally devalue it in terms of money and status. If motherhood is important to this country, then we should start treating it that way, and truly supporting it in a helpful way. This book is the first one to point out that our culture needs some changing, and makes some suggestions.
Rating:
Summary: Finally someone is telling the truth!
Review: Since I have been a stay-home mother (four years), I have read countless books about feminism and motherhood, searching for someone who would own up to how much society touts motherhood but does not support mothers. As soon as a woman stays home with her children, she disappears from the face of society. Ann Crittenden thoroughly researched this book, interviewing countless mothers, lawyers and lawmakers, child caregivers, and economists and feminists. Ms. Crittenden tells the truth: as much as we say mothers and their children are the values we love the most, that is exactly how little we support them. Read this book, then send a copy to your favorite (or not-so-favorite) legislator. It's time working mothers and stay-home moms banded together to get things changed for the better!
Rating:
Summary: Everything rings true
Review: Sorry to dissapoint the one-star crowd, but this book is most definitely NOT one big whine for entitlement by rich
white married women. This is real. I am one of the lucky ones. I do scientific research at a
small private company, so I make my own (part-time) hours as long as I get research grants. I also have a very supportive and helpful spouse. OK, so he doesn't clean as well as I do, but he spends nearly all of his time with the kids
when he's home, and also does all the gardening. Still,
I'm the one who keeps all the balls in the air, remembers all the appointments, runs the kids around and for the most part deals with the emergencies. Both my husband and I are perfectly aware that if I worked full-time it would be a zero-sum gain financially and a degredation in the quality of our kids' lives, if we had to put them in afterschool care. But would a family court judge see it that way? Not likely.
Everything Ann says rings true, and is well-supported by
the facts. I can't figure out why it took so long for a book
like this to appear. I do have faith that the system can be changed as long as we elect more women and mothers into office.
Rating: 
Summary: Save time ... admit you're a communist.
Review: The basic question seems to be: Who should be responsible for children? Their parents or society? It's the old two-sided coin, with freedom on one side, and responsibility on the other. Parents, if you want the freedom to raise your children as you see fit, you must also accept the full responsibility for them - and that includes paying for them. Otherwise, no one's holding a gun to your head. You don't HAVE to have kids. Find another way to be fulfilled.What IS society, anyway? What it boils down to is nothing but a collection of individuals, who may or may not work together, have relationships with each other, or get along with each other. When you say "society" should appreciate parents more, what you really mean is, "other people" should show more appreciation for your choices in life. Perhaps it hasn't occurred to you that other people don't care whether you have kids or not. We DON'T need your kids to support us in our old age - we can support ourselves. Most elderly people provide for themselves in their retirement - or were you under the illusion that your children will work for free someday? Please dispense with the illusion that you're doing society a favor for which you deserve compensation. Have kids for your own enjoyment, or find something else to do. None of the empty, emotional rhetoric in this book amounts to anything more than wanting to have one's cake and eat it too - at someone else's expense. A simple fact of life is, we only get so many hours in a day, and our paychecks come in specific amounts. With a limit to our resources (time and money), we are forced to choose between things. Having a child means you will have less time and money for other things, so choose wisely. But don't expect other people to sacrifice their time and money so you can "have it all."
Rating: 
Summary: Several solid points
Review: The main reason I gave it 4 instead of 5 stars is the redundancy of the message. Other than that I truly enjoyed reading her book. I agreed with several main messages such as the importance of every mother's works and how they were undervalued. I could see all those through my mother. The book helped me appreciate and value what my mom did even more. I was glad that at the end the author outlined the solutions-no matter how likely they are. One thing I'm sure of is the contempt and resentment toward her arguments and debate on this sensitive issue esp. among the opposit sex.
Rating:
Summary: Reality check
Review: The title of Ms. Crittenden's book encapsulates its two biggest faults: 1) The author is fixated on personal wealth, and 2) she is intent on shunting the job of parenting entirely onto the mother. Let's start with #1. If you want to read 300 pages of white middle-class whining, look no further. Ms. Crittenden writes indignantly of the hundreds of thousands of dollars in income she was forced to forgo when she had a child. Page after page relates the story of this attorney or that executive who was cheated of her rightful salary because the demands of childrearing took her away from her job. We might ask, What about all those truly destitute mothers out there? Well, we can feel less sympathy for them - they had far less to lose! Only in the name of motherhood could one dream of defending such appalling greed. Here's a thought: If you want your precious money that badly, don't have kids. This applies to men as well as women, which brings me to #2. It's no wonder that women's work, inside and outside the home, is not valued in a society that considers it perfectly OK for a woman to live off her husband's income and raise his children. In this situation, she is no better than his employee! Ms. Crittenden suggests that mothers should be offered more opportunities to work part-time, and that ex-husbands should pay more support so that single mothers don't need to work - "solutions" which would only drive men and women further apart. Women need to be employed outside the home, and men need to participate equally in the job of parenting. When there is no longer a distinction between men's and women's work, then there will be no need to complain about a "mommy tax." Ms. Crittenden will need to find a better excuse for women to stay home. In short: Lazy rich women with a sense of entitlement will really like this book. Everyone else should give it a pass.
Rating:
Summary: Entitlement Mentality Abounds
Review: There are several flaws in Ms. Crittendon's whining, er, writing. The first is that she ignores the fact that not all women wish to become mothers, and not all of those who wish to are able to. Secondly, she conveniently ignores that simple fact that everyone makes choices in life, if you choose to not go to the office, you will not be getting a paycheck. Just because Ms. Crittendon wanted to be a stay at home mom, does not mean it is incumbent upon the rest of us to hand over our paychecks, which we do in the form of tax breaks and other benefits she whines about. Is somebody who spent ten years not working supposed to have the same treatment as somebody who showed up at the office every day and put in a full day's work? Would that not be discrimination against the full time worker? Last, this give weight to the lie that feminisim is a middle class racket. Most women do not have the choice to work or not. Ms. Crittendon had the luxury to sit at home being supported by her husband, and then writes this book to complain that she is not being additionally financially rewarded.
Rating:
Summary: A "must" for our reading group!
Review: This book is a great read, for men as well as women. It helps explain why so many men don't do what they would really like to do -- spend more time with their children. I'm recommending it for our mixed reading group.
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