Rating: 
Summary: Worth the Read
Review: This book offers a searing criticism of the ways that mothers pay a price in our society. I read this book for my own edification and loved her honesty. It's written in easy to read style. I also used excerpts of this book in one of my women's studies classes and the students enjoyed it. Many of the re-entry students actually told me that they either checked it out at the library or purchased the book. I perused the reviews and was amused at how some reviewers felt that this book was whiny. Why is it that when we disagree we have to say that she (usually a woman under attack!) is whining. Motherhood isn't all bread and roses and this book explains why.
Rating: 
Summary: Thoughtful, well-researched, readable book
Review: Unlike MANY of the other reviews on this book here at Amazon.com, this review is NOT a discussion of my personal politics or values. It is simply thoughts on a book I've recently read. This is an extremely eye-opening book. In fact, it manages concisely summerize many issues that families of all races and income levels think about, but may have trouble articulating and discussing. I was very pleased to see a reasonable explaination of questions that face families today...everything from finally having a basic handle on the tax code for married couples to understanding why families suffer so much impact financially when parents divorce or seperate from one another. It's also nice to see a well-balanced discussion of child-rearing vs. work...what could be done to make staying in the workforce more feasable for mothers without devaluing the work of parents who elect to stay at home. Unlike many books onthe subject, this one doesn't pit one group of moms against one another. It's not a contecst of poor moms vs. wealthy moms, or working moms vs. at-home moms...in fact, quite the opposite. This is a book about what all families and parents (female and male...) have IN COMMON with one another and should be working as a group to understand. Her suggestions and insights regarding tax relief for families and children, work incentives, early childhood education options, paid parental leave, etc., explain how these issues impact each of us directly, even if we don;t have kids. I can understand why so many poeple wrote in with such vituperative reviews of this book. It's really hard and scary to have your presumptions about something as basic as family money and our kids turned upside-down. Having a vitriolic response is, for some of us, the only response. Hopefully, the vast majority of the readers who sit down with this book will be able to see past their own fears and petty politics and see the really big picture of Ms. Crittenden's book. Reagardless of which side of the polictical isle you sit on, this book is a wonderful study of mother's work in America and where it will lead our children in the 21st century.
Rating:
Summary: A very important book.
Review: We hear so much about the rewards of mothering, but so little about the costs. Because we love our children, women avoid discussing the heavy emotional and economic price we pay to become mothers. This book presents good solid evidence about the difficult reality of parenting in contemporary America, and it offers an intriguing solution...
Rating:
Summary: A very important book.
Review: We hear so much about the rewards of mothering, but so little about the costs. Because we love our children, women avoid discussing the heavy emotional and economic price we pay to become mothers. This book presents good solid evidence about the difficult reality of parenting in contemporary America, and it offers an intriguing solution...
Rating: 
Summary: Who Would Have Thought
Review: Who would have thought that finally after having and doing it all this well known celebrity of sort, would become a mommy and discover motherhood as a real job? I must laugh at people who think for even one minute she is standing up for stay at home moms or even for working moms. People are truly fooled into anything from the media. It does have a few good points but please, don't insult all of us who have always known what motherhood stood for and gave it the respect it needed and deserved from the start! If you want to read about moms who are really performing their own child raising tasks, driving carpools, volunteering at school and are grand leaders in their own households, read a few other books that stress to moms how important we are way before this book showed up on the shelves and in the media spotlight: Mommy-CEO, Constantly Evaluating Others, 5 Golden Rules, Revised Edition, by nationally syndicated family/parenting expert, Jodie Lynn and Your Baby and Child, by Penelope Leach, and even Stacy Deborff's new book, 4278. They will offer individuals a true inside-looking-out everyday mom's view on motherhood and life with kids. To me Ann is just another high profiled individual who goes, "oh, so this is what I've been avoiding this whole time and no pay for a job well done. Why?" Then, goes on to write a book about it and makes it look like a professional labor of love with money quotes and footnotes? Pooh-Pooh, on the whole idea. There's no breakthrough light bulb moment in this book for the whole world! In fact, this is exactly what is in the other books, especially, Mommy-CEO, Revised Edition, as Mrs. Lynn is telling us upfront we are the true CEOs in the world and to be proud of our leadership skills and to go tell the world who we are. I love books with spirit and guts to shout to the world that moms, ALL moms, are important and can make the cut in any CEO meeting as well as kiss and wrap up a skinned knee. We just don't make the salary of CEOs - but those kisses, hugs and memories add up to a mighty hefty income over the years called "motherhood" and we knew it way before we had kids from our own moms.
Rating:
Summary: The Price of Motherhood is invisible!
Review: Why Motherhood is the Most Important, and Least Valued, Job in America. This economics journalist draws from hundreds of interviews & years of research in child development, history, law & economics to argue the case for the most dependent & under-rated laborers in the world. "Not again!" I hear you mutter, "Another Feminist ranting & raving about how downtrodden are women who choose to become wives, who choose to become mothers." Well they are, legally & financially! What price motherhood? Dare we count the cost? The costs of motherhood are apparent everywhere: college-educated women pay a "mommy tax" in lost income when they have a child; family law deprives mothers of financial equality within marriage; childcare & elder care(essentially female fields of work) are not figured into the GNP; at-home mothers are not counted in the labor force & social security simple ignores mothers & housewives - at best offering them half of their husbands' pensions in old age. With chapters entitled: The Invention of the Unproductive Housewife; The Mommy Tax; The Dark Little Secret of Family Life; What Is A Wife Worth?; Who Really Owns the Family Wage?; Who Pays for the Kids?; The Welfare State Versus a Caring State; The Toughest Job You'll Ever Love; An Accident Waiting to Happen & It Was Her Choice, Ann Crittenden takes us through the maze of innuendo, law, history & prejudice that plague women who become full time wives & mothers & casts them as economic untouchables. A very good read & one I hope everyone contemplating marriage & parenthood would read to see how they, in their private relationship, can balance the books so that both partners & parents are of equal value, to themselves & their society. Do check out my eInterview with Ann Crittenden - an interviewer's dream: she takes the questions & runs! I think you'll like it!
Rating:
Summary: The Price of Motherhood is invisible!
Review: Why Motherhood is the Most Important, and Least Valued, Job in America. This economics journalist draws from hundreds of interviews & years of research in child development, history, law & economics to argue the case for the most dependent & under-rated laborers in the world. "Not again!" I hear you mutter, "Another Feminist ranting & raving about how downtrodden are women who choose to become wives, who choose to become mothers." Well they are, legally & financially! What price motherhood? Dare we count the cost? The costs of motherhood are apparent everywhere: college-educated women pay a "mommy tax" in lost income when they have a child; family law deprives mothers of financial equality within marriage; childcare & elder care(essentially female fields of work) are not figured into the GNP; at-home mothers are not counted in the labor force & social security simple ignores mothers & housewives - at best offering them half of their husbands' pensions in old age. With chapters entitled: The Invention of the Unproductive Housewife; The Mommy Tax; The Dark Little Secret of Family Life; What Is A Wife Worth?; Who Really Owns the Family Wage?; Who Pays for the Kids?; The Welfare State Versus a Caring State; The Toughest Job You'll Ever Love; An Accident Waiting to Happen & It Was Her Choice, Ann Crittenden takes us through the maze of innuendo, law, history & prejudice that plague women who become full time wives & mothers & casts them as economic untouchables. A very good read & one I hope everyone contemplating marriage & parenthood would read to see how they, in their private relationship, can balance the books so that both partners & parents are of equal value, to themselves & their society. Do check out my eInterview with Ann Crittenden - an interviewer's dream: she takes the questions & runs! I think you'll like it!
Rating:
Summary: This should be required reading for men and women
Review: Wow, how many times did I say, "I've always said that". This book takes a very pragmatic view of how motherhood has increased female poverty. This may sound strange, but the facts are certainly there and as a mother strive to do what is right for their families they risk an uncertain economic future. What I really like about this book is that both working and non-working mothers could come together with a common viewpoint after reading. What an accomplishment. We need to talk about these issues now, so our daughters will be in a better place when they face our work/life challenges excellent
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