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Summary: A daily affirmation
Review: I really enjoyed this book. I am a woman who chose the career of raising my children from day one, but it is still easy to lose sight of the things in life that are important and ultimately bring joy. I got a lot from this book, it reminded me of the importance of not rushing through my life but instead enjoying it. It reminded me to enjoy the stages my kids are going through. She emphasizes the power and the freedom we have as mothers. I really got a lot out of it and I have sent it to several friends.
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Summary: Reply to Miranda Prince
Review: I think the previous readers comment..."IF [capitalization added for emphasis] I were a mother" says it all. Until you are a mother, you could NEVER understand what the experience exacts from your heart and gives to your soul. As mothers we ARE strong women. We have the strength to restrain our zeal for self and surrender to the most basic of all desires..to love another MORE than yourself...Again, Thank you Iris for writing a book that lets me know I am not alone...as one can see from Ms. Prince's review not everyone understands what it feels like to stand over your sleeping child, the one you prayed would fall asleep an hour before, and want to wake him or her and just snuggle and sing and answer those tough questions like...mommy will you always be here when I open my eyes from sleeping and look up?
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Summary: a book that I could feel "Shaping Me" as I read it
Review: I think this is what I was looking for when I picked it up off the shelf - a book that is honest about how tiring and difficult parenting can be, and at the same time realizes the glimpses of the spiritual one can find through the most exhausting and seemingly menial tasks. (a bit like the Quotidian Mysteries and Kathleen Norris). I really felt this book shaping me as I read it - giving me a new way to view the prospect of motherhood. Krasnow is honest about the difficulties and the grime, so I can trust her when she also talks about the gifts and the wonder.There was only one gap in the book for me - the role of fathers. Krasnow did describe the difficulty she experienced in her marriage and alluded to the role having 4 children so quickly played in these problems. She described how she and her husband worked on their marriage and held it together. However, throughout the book, she talks about parenting and the highs it brings her without reflecting on her husband's role in raising the boys. What highs does parenting bring him? Is he ever around? I would have expected more "together my husband and I did this great thing with the kids" or "after we had all the boys in bed, we reflected on the day together and such-and-such that little so-and-so did and what the boys meant to us". Maybe Krasnow decided she wanted to appeal more to single mothers and cut much of the mention of her husband's role in parenting the boys out of the book. All I know is that part of parenting is learning to share the children and the caretaking with your mate, and this was not addressed. Back to the positive, after you begin to read the book it turns into a real page-turner, which is rare for a book of its genre. Krasnow includes enough of her life to make it feel like a story, so it keeps you interested until the end. She also includes excerpts from her interviews with some very interesting figures (Barbara Bush, Yoko Ono, Queen Noor, etc. etc.) from her days as a journalist. These excerpts flow very nicely into the story. Krasnow also shares some insight she has gained about her own parents, including her pain of losing her father. These become assets to the book as well. All in all, I would highly recommend this book to others. I am hoping to find another book that will fill in this one small gap for me. The book really is 90% excellent and 90% is pretty darned good in a book oriented to "parentintg/self-help/spiritual", a field that too often produces fluff and feel-good-moments that don't last because they placate instead of actually re-shaping you.
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Summary: Is this what one calls Surrendering?
Review: I was introduced to this book by my husband.He was listening to a radio talk show, while driving to work. Their guest was Iris Krasnow, the author of Surrenderig to Motherhood. He apparantly liked what he heard, because he came home, raving about this book. He insisted that I MUST read it. He claimed that it would make my life as a mother oh so clear. I finally agreed. He bought me the book and waited expectantly. I told him that I must first READ it before gaining insight. I started into this autobiography of sorts. I don't know what exactly I was expecting, but it certainly was not this. I honestly did not like this book. I forced myself to finish it, just to make my husband happy. I did not feel as if I had gained anymore wisdom or insight in my role as a mother. I stay home with my children of my own free will, I would sacrifice everything for them. Yet, it nearly took the death of Iris Krasnows firstborn child, to realize that she was missing out on everything. I cannot see what was the huge sacrifice that Iris Krasnow made. Nothing is too good to let go of for your own flesh and blood. Besides, she supposedly had the perfect life. College in sunny California, Jet Setter jobs in Chicago and Houston. A perfect journalistic opportunity in Washington. She fell in love with and married the so called perfect man. Maintained the perfect size 6 body. I mean this woman had absolutely no complaints. Good jobs, lots of money and a great loving and supportive husband. And to top it all off, she was in her late thirties when she had her first child. Far from being a young chick. This woman had and has it all. She is happy and content with her life. She has accomplished many dreams in her forty some years. Staying home and raising your children should be a given. Especially if you have the means, as Iris Krasnow does. I truly do not see that she had much surrendering to do. Stay home and raise your children? Yes, that would be great and perfect. I am sure that anyone given the means would jump at the opportunity to make their children first priority. But unfortunately some people live in the REAL world. That is not always what one can do. Sometimes surrendering is out of our hands.
Rating: 
Summary: Surrendering?
Review: I would hardly call writing books (she has written two others since Motherhood, I believe), going on book promotion tours, and have nannies and household help "surrendering" to motherhood. Please. She has merely shifted gears and is now surrendering to being the stay-at-home mom cheerleader, without any of the discomforts, the problems, or worries that millions of other women face. And just to add, many women would love to be able to stay at home with their children, at least while they are very young, but can't afford to.
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Summary: Surrendering?
Review: I would hardly call writing books (she has written two others since Motherhood, I believe), going on book promotion tours, and have nannies and household help "surrendering" to motherhood. Please. She has merely shifted gears and is now surrendering to being the stay-at-home mom cheerleader, without any of the discomforts, the problems, or worries that millions of other women face. And just to add, many women would love to be able to stay at home with their children, at least while they are very young, but can't afford to.
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Summary: Surrendering to the Backlash
Review: In chronicling her journey from driven career-woman to driven mom, Iris Krasnow makes some valuable points, such as the importance of enjoying one's children on a day-to-day basis, and the value of living in the here and now. However, she takes an enormous leap in implying that to do this requires one to "surrender" to housework and childcare and give up, or drastically curtail, many of the career interests that a woman had before bearing children. The life at home advocated by Krasnow, involving cleaning up children's messes and ignoring more adult interests, sounds suspiciously like the depressing 1950s myth of fulfilled womanhood that Betty Friedan worked to dispel in The Feminine Mystique. Her advocacy of such a life is also more than a little disingenuous, given that Krasnow is actually working nearly half-time as a writer and has a significant amount of childcare available. I wonder if her joy in the life of a housewife and stay-at-home mom would persist if she did not have her career as an intellectual outlet.
Rating: 
Summary: A good memoir for working mothers, but don't expect advice.
Review: In this memoir, Iris Krasnow describes her long search for inner peace and personal satisfaction, and how she finally found it as the mother of four young children. As a memoir, the book is very interesting, and Krasnow has some interesting observations about the difficult balancing act that women who value their professional lives and their children face.
I was vaguely disappointed by the book, however. For as much as Krasnow emphasizes the joy she finds in motherhood, she spends well over half of the book telling about the glamorous life she led as a professional woman. I couldn't help think that she was sounding a bit defensive in the "I'm happy now and I don't need those thrills anymore," while going on at length about just how thrilling her life was. Also, she does end up sounding a bit patronizing toward women who choose to continue their professional lives--unintentionally, I imagine--but describing them at one point as "dabblers" in motherhood sounded a bit judgmental from someone who was professing to advocate tolerance for all choices.
All in all, there is much inspiration in the book, and lots to think about for mothers and mothers-to-be. But don't read this for advice, or expect to be told how you can find similar enlightenment.
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Summary: Engaging and heartfelt but repetitious towards the end
Review: Iris Krasnow captures perfectly the world many of us entered in the late 1970s, when we said to ourselves, "I can have it all!" Then life happened and we matured and realized having it all comes at a price. I loved reliving with Iris all the same dilemmas: wrong-choice boyfriends (but oh the passion!), ego-stroking job offers, baby duty or business suit? I didn't even mind the constant name-dropping, which I suspect helped her get this book published in the first place. Sometimes her angst got tiring, especially toward the end of the book, when she started rambling. But she has the ability to laugh at herself and grow, so I was able to forgive some of the pontificating. And she landed in the same place as I did (and others), overcoming self-absorption and finding spiritual nourishment in family and religion. I hope Iris keeps her intellect sharp and uses it again to enlighten readers in a few years, when the boys reach adolescence and she and Chuck face new challenges and milestones.
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Summary: This book will rekindle the fire of the stay-at-home mom.
Review: Iris Krasnow paints an honest picture of the struggle moms face between career and home. "Surrendering to Motherhood" is an affirmation for at-home moms struggling with their decision to stay home with their children. It is also a wake up call for career women who have chosen the workplace. It is a reminder that children grow up too quickly, and that it is up to us to capture and savor these precious years. Most rewarding for me were memories Krasnow shares from past interviews with celebrities and politicians, and descriptions of day to day interactions with her own children. There is much pressure on women today to "have it all". Krasnow reminds us that in staying home with our children we do "have it all".
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