Rating: 
Summary: Grinding an axe or profitting from the aging boom?
Review: This book is such an embarrassing outpouring of disorganized emotion about an admittedly sensitive topic. Regarding fertility technologies, we use technology to extend life, go to the moon, etc., so why not use it to extend childbearing years, expecially when Ms. Hewlett's alternative is marrying some [one] at an early age. Speaking of humiliation. ...Why is there no mention in this book of freezing embryos when one does have young eggs or efforts (as yet unsuccessful) to freeze eggs? Perhaps a little too radical for this book's retro recommendations for women. Obviously this book was a ploy to profit from the aging boom.
Rating: 
Summary: Rather boring read...nothing new, nothing spectacular.
Review: I picked up Hawlett's book hoping to find some truly inspirational stories about women who traded their high-power positions to raise their children themselves, which is my background, and what I found instead were too many boring statistics on who has children when and at what cost (yes, there will always be a trade-off). I wasn't interested in the fact that women are having children later and later in life because I thought that this fact wasn't a secret. I also didn't need to know that employers will never favor working mothers over their single and childless employees-I know this! I wouldn't expect Hawlett to provide any solutions for us either. She concentrates on the fact that women put off the child bearing months until they're middle aged, and 40 is middle-aged, not fifty, as she indicates. And everyone seems to understand why pregnancies do happen so late, indeed. Not enough support for the mothers who choose to take a "break" from their careers. How do one gets to come back to the workforce after a decade of raising children and without starting on an entry-level salary again? Now that is the question. I recently took a 60% paycut after being absent from the workplace for five years to raise my beautiful son, whom I've had at 33. Not for a minute I thought I would have my old job back or a similar one for that matter, and with the same pay of nearly six figures. I knew this would never happen as soon as I decided to stay at home. Do I wish I was still making the same salary from years ago? But of course. Do I regret it? Never. Being at home provided me with far more inspiration and challenge than my high power, high stress position. Perhaps money isn't the meaning of life. I returned the book, I don't like the author profiting from me, she doesn't deserve it.
Rating:
Summary: Give me a break
Review: I watched Hewlett on the talk shows. She told interviewers that she started out just wanted to write a book about Successful Women. Give me a break - just take a look at her other books and you will see she is on a crusade to send women back to the home. Everyone has choices and then they have to live with them. She talks about the successful men having children but she doesn't talk about their relationship with their children. She says that senior women don't have rich family lives, well plenty of senior men don't have rich family lives. I don't care if a man can father a child at age 60 it still doesn't make it a good idea! My understanding is she was very "selective" about who she interviewed to get the results she wanted to write this book! Understand also that statistics can be manipulated and usually are. People read statistics in a book and think it is an absolute fact! You have to look at every aspect of the study to really judge it! This woman is crazy pushing herself to have another child at age 51 when she had 4! Here is a direct quote from Hewlett - she hopes ''young women will absorb this information and put it to good use.'' Focusing on a career ''with a laser beam and postponing all else works for men, but not for women.'' Things are different than they were when Hewlett was in her early 30s. Many men are deciding to stay home these days. Don't let this book scare you - make your own choices!
Rating:
Summary: Ms. Hewlett misses the mark big time
Review: If we take Ms. Hewlett's observations to the natural conclusion in a perfect world American women would all be white trash and get knocked up at 19 regardless of their ability to succesfully provide for themselves and their children. I have no delusions about my biological clock yes I went to grad school and did the career thing, but the real problem is finding decent,intelligent, emotionally available, finacially stable, non-commitmentphobic men. Why isnt that that the cover story of Time magazine?! As if we dont have enough stress post 9/11 world, do single women really need to have this [nonsense] thrust in their faces?
Rating: 
Summary: What an eye-opener
Review: I thought I knew what the statistcs were and the reality of having a child later in life. I'm shocked at how little I know.
Many of my friends are reading this bok, and are having the same reaction. It's fascinating & I hope that young women today will get the message -- don't only plan for your career if you want to be a mother. Plan for that, too. It doesn't "just happen". I can sadly attest to that.
Rating: 
Summary: Wake up America!
Review: I am a working mother and I am so happy that Ms. Hewlett has finally turned a spotlight on what we working moms have all known for years: corporate America does not look kindly on our group. What's more, co-workers who do not have children (whether by choice or due to an intense career track) are resentful of any adjustments our employer might make to allow us to continue our jobs AND be decent parents. Young women should not think of this book as an alarmist anti-feminist tool--rather they should take this opportunity to hear both sides and then make informed decisions about how they want to shape their lives. For many in my generation nothing about our personal lives was intentional--only our careers were well mapped out and strategically played. While I am no longer the so-called audience for this book, I read it out of curiosity and it made me feel incredibly grateful that when I was ready to have children and slow down at work (at age 39) I was actually able to conceive and that I was in a new job where my employers were willing to work with me in order to make both my home and work life satisfactory to all parties involved. But it is clear that I am an exception. This book should serve as a wake up call to all of corporate America--there are some brilliant, useful, hard working women out there who are being ignored and belittled simply because they want to be mother's as well. Hewlett has some great ideas on how any corporation can (and should) make adjustments for working moms.
Rating:
Summary: finally someone questions the superwoman ...[life]
Review: It's refreshing to read a woman finally challenging the ...feminist notion that a woman can compete in the working world at the same level as a man, and also have a loving marriage with children. The feminist movement forced the idea down our throats that we had to compete with men, while putting family life on the back burner--as if a husband and children can magically appear with no effort on our parts. While I am saddened that I don't have a husband or children at age 40, I think it is childish to whine about how our society oppresses women -- but Hewlett manages to be only a little whiney. The feminist movement has done a lot of damage to women by pushing us to devalue love and family life. Sylvia Hewlett's book is an important first step in warning younger women to stop overemphasizing the world of work, and to pay attention to the truthfully limited window of time that we have to rope in a nice husband and have children. ...Nevertheless, this book is a good wake up call.
Rating:
Summary: Just giving the facts.
Review: This is not a book about having your cake and eating it to. The author is simply telling women the facts of child bearing. It has been said for years that women over 40 can bear children without a problem, but the truth is it is not that simple. Women need to be aware of the facts so they can make choices. I think it is better to know that maybe you won't have children if you wait, rather than go on believing you will conceive whenever you want.
Rating:
Summary: Encouraging parenting or catapulting women back to the 1950s
Review: I have seen Hewlett making her way on the talk show rounds. She has said that what's disturbing is that women in the highest income brackets with the most prestigious, powerful jobs are the ones least likely to have children while the reverse is true for men. I fail to see why this is disturbing and why the solution to this so-called problem is to use scare tactics to try and convince women to have children while they are young. What is most often lacking in these discussions is the notion that parenting, far from being a biological phenomenon, is quite clearly sociologically, politically, and culturally determined. There is most often a push for a return to traditional roles for women (as in the current pronatalist rage, complete with the encouragement for women to stay home) after great feminist activity. There is definite political backing to have children, complete with perks for those who do. Furthermore, the encouragement for children is directed at middle/uppermiddle class White women. It rings eerily of the eugenics movement and is quite clearly rooted in sexism, racism, and classism. Any cogent discussion about parenting need consider these factors. Lastly, the idea that women can/should "have it all" is ridiculous and just adds to the pressure women internalize. Truth be told, there are choices to be made, sacrifices to encounter, and priorities to declare.
Rating:
Summary: The rantings of a women in mid-life crisis
Review: While the sociological and statistical portion of the book are of some interest--the fact that the author interjects her personal life of how after being married to her spouse since the mid-seventies and raising 4 children with him, goes on to force her body through assisted reproduction techniques to have a child at age 51 (while her husband is over 60). What arrogance! She states it is her love of children. I can't believe it is anything but her love of self and her unwillingness to age gracefully. How unfair and selfish to force that child to have her 70 and 80 year-old parents to send her to college, if they are still alive, and not sick or disabled. Is this what the women's movement has come to. Middle age is not 51 and 61--most of us don't live, and certainly don't live vigorously, to 102-122, shame on you Sylvia Ann Hewlett.
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