Rating: 
Summary: A Good Book But a Pulled Punch
Review: "The Baby Boon" is a good policy-issue book and not just an outcry of personal complaining, although the author does occasionally use personal examples. In the book, Burkett examines the kinds of sacrifices childless people have made for those with children and concludes that the childless have been asked for too much. Property taxes for public school? No problem. Welfare, or whatever replaced it? Of course, there has to be a social net. But what of companies that give liberal maternity/paternity leave to new parents with no comparable benefit to the childless? Free corporate childcare centers? Or parents who assert practically a moral privilege not to work on weekends but expect their child-free cohorts to do it for them? Burkett is annoyed, as are many of us, by the assumptions of parents that (1) no amount of social engineering is too much when one has children; (2) single people don't have social lives so infringing on their spare time is no big deal; (3) the needs of kids supercede other adults needs so that "adults only" zones like restaurants or legitimate theaters are dwindling. It's almost as though one isn't a full citizen without a child and, as Burkett mentions several times, it's almost as though one isn't a woman without also being a mother. Much of the unfairness resides in governmental policy. For each of the many, many tax-reform laws passed during the 1990s "for the children," single people have lost out. This has swelled the parental sense of entitlement but transferred the tax burden to the childless (who, ironically, may be the ones working extra hours to take up the slack). Burkett points out that many of these entitlements are not targeted toward the poor but to the middle-class, which made them politically popular. The title of this book could almost have been "The Middle-Class Scam" instead of "The Baby Boon." At that point I felt she could have embarked on a full-scale critique of the Clinton era and its social policy but was reigned in by her topic and so had to pull a punch or tow. Still, fascinating reading and highly digestible "wonk" subject matter. "The Baby Boon" is a worthy book to read. About my only other criticism is that it gets a bit repetitive at times as Burkett reminds us that the definition of woman=mother is a regressive social policy. That's a small price to pay, though, for a fresh and interesting book for people who feel they've been "had" but don't really have counter-arguments against their situation.
Rating: 
Summary: Much To Think About
Review: An eye opener, especially for those who are childfree. This is required reading not only for the childfree, but those who are working class. Read the book and you'll see what I mean.
Rating:
Summary: required reading for human resources departments
Review: Burkett addresses two separate issues that affect the childfree: government policies and corporate sponsership of parenthood. While sometimes her tone gets a bit strident, and her complaints can be repetitive, the overall message is an important one that is frequently overlooked. Adults who choose to live a childfree life are often obliged to play second fiddle to the loud and proud parents in our midst. Burkett never says that parents don't deserve various benefits; her message is that childfree folks deserve comparable benefits to choose from. More employers are offering parents such treats as flex time, 4-day work weeks, adoption and fertility treatment assistance, subsidized child care and education, and extended paid and unpaid leave while offering non-parent employees absolutely nothing. It seems obvious that if a minority (according to Burkett's stats) of the workforce is being presented with these benefits, then it's only fair to provide the entire workforce with a package of benefits with a similar dollar value. Linking these corporate offerings with government attempts at everything from forcing employers to offer special rooms for breastfeeding workers to Clinton's attempt at making parents a "protected" class of citizens, Burkett has managed to compile a wealth of information that adds up to some pretty heavy discrimination. Don't read it and weep- read it and forward it along to the head of human resources wherever you work.
Rating:
Summary: Parents deserve equal treatment, not priviledged treatment
Review: Burkett did an excellent job of exposing the truth that family- friendly policies have little to do with helping children and more to do with cooing the votes of the baby boomers, the majority of which happen to have them. I believe that people should be able to pursue careers and be parents, but they have to figure out a way to make it work on their own. Parenting requires sacrifices that are the responsibility of those who choose to have the children. The decision to become a parent is a lifestyle choice. Everybody has to take responsibility for their choices. I believe in family policies that help the poor and low income families- if I knew my tax dollars were helping poor parents feed, clothe, and educate their children, I would have no complaints. But I detest the fact that I will continue to pay more in taxes than those who have exactly the same income as I do simply because they have children and I don't. I , like the author, am a feminist who believes in equal pay for equal work. All employees should get equal benefits which they have the ability to take advantage of whether they have children or not.
Rating:
Summary: An Island of Sanity
Review: Burkett is thorough and eloquent in her detailing the illogical social trend of rewarding those who add to the number of people using our finite resources and punishing those who abstain from such behavior. If our pronatalist society continues to marginalize the childfree and treat them as second class citizens, those citizens will surely fight back. Let Burkett's book serve as a warning to the powers that be that one segmant of the population cannot be abused for the benefit of another segment. Most important points: 1. "Woman" and "mother" and not synonomous, and mother-friendly policies are not necessarily woman-friendly policies. 2. There is nothing *wrong* with people who choose not to produce offspring. 3. Tax benefits and other charitible motions should be focused on the poor, not the parents. There are poor both with and without children, as well as wealthy folk with and without children. Instead of giving advantages to everyone with children, the advantages should be given to everyone who is poor. That is, childed status does not determine need - income level does. That's the nutshell version anyhow. An excellent reminder to us all that all people deserve fair treatment regardless of their reproductive activities.
Rating: 
Summary: Biased
Review: I think that this book is one that is mostly based on bitterness. While Ms. Burkett claims to have done a plethora of research about family-friendly companies, benefits to parents and situations where society has equated "woman" to "mother", it is clear that her research is skewed to support her point of view. There are parts of the book which are well written, where I can't even guess what her personal opinions are on the topic, and for that I applaud her. This book discusses a topic that most people have strong opinions on and it is geared to get a reaction. I believe that Ms. Burkett intended to show how ungrateful parents are for the "special privileges" that they are awarded. What this book illustrates is that there are people in this world who are ungrateful for everything that they are given, including the author. There have been many positive changes in this world as we strive to make it a better place for the next generation. And parents are the ones who are making many of those sacrifices. I don't agree with parents being inconsiderate to non-parents, whether it's allowing their children to misbehave in public, assuming that other co-workers will take up the slack while they leave early or come in late, or just being such bad parents that their children grow up to be thugs. Becoming a parent is the hardest decision that a person has to make with their life. The problem that Ms. Burkett doesn't really acknowledge is that people do not take enough responsibility to plan having children when they are financially ready and emotionally stable enough to become parents. Ultimately, it makes sense that a country will invest in people who are building the next generation. For people who don't have children, they opt out of taking benefits that are just as available to them. It's sad to see that so many people spend their lives comparing themselves to others to actively search for reasons to feel angry.
Rating:
Summary: GREAT Premise, WEAK Conclusion
Review: I was thrilled to see that somebody else noticed what many of my friends and I have been complaining about for years: that irresponsible parents demand the right to our time and money so they can have the fruits of adulthood while evading the costs of raising the children they *chose* to breed. Not only are we childfree adults forced to pay to send other adults' kids to school, but we have to pick up the breeders' slack at work, tolerate their kids' terrible behavior at public places, and live with their screaming and romping beside our very homes. As the author very perceptively notes, this sense of entitlement is buttressed entirely by a slew of special laws that have been created and supported by both the political left and right, from Betty Freidan (who hung up on the author!) to George W. Bush (who will soon begin lactating if he doesn't quit pandering to Soccer Moms). The only problem with the book is that it's prescriptions don't fit the disease: the erosion of self-responsibility. While I understand that we can't do it overnight, it seems that steps like school privatization are the only sorts of steps that respect an individual's choice to be childfree. Agree or not, the authors' prescription is "compromise," and all of her examples are the same sorts of compromises that childfree adults have been making for years--paying for other adults' contrary choices. (As for being "selfish," I am, and I'm proud enough of my selfishness TO PAY FOR IT MYSELF.)
Rating:
Summary: More eloquent and persuasive than I ever could have hoped...
Review: I've made a lot of the arguments in this book in casual conversation dozens of times. There is no right to have children, there is no right to have your personal choices subsidized by the state, government shouldn't favor some citizens over others, companies are being unfair when the give workers with kids more pay for the same work, etc. But never have I seen so many salient objections to the "child-friendly culture" put together with such excellent examples and research. Hopefully, with what I learned from reading this book, I'll actually have a shot at winning some of these arguments in the future. But I won't hold my breath, because as Burkett observes, people are unwilling to admit that they're wrong when they'd have to give up so many priveleges to do so.
Rating:
Summary: Right Points, Wrong Tone
Review: If people feel bitter about their colleagues with children, there's something wrong with them - not their colleagues. This book merely points more fingers for the overly embittered to clutch on and follow suit. I must agree that having children and the associated issues are very personal and individual decisions. However, the complaints about parents being "bad workers" can be flipped any which way - the same could be said for a lazy, just-out-of college, underachiver. I don't think many who condemn parents for prioritizing (and taking the appropriate time off) would be very sympathetic to the underachieving party-boy. The issue of taxes is one that most people should see both sides of - I am not sure that a child tax credit is necessary, myself. However, if an extra $500 for families who qualify is to be scrutinized, a lot of tax perks that are even fairly universal should be taken down as well. If the issue is "taxation based on behavior" - we should stop giving tax credits to parents, and stop giving tax breaks to those who have retirement plans, stop giving tax breaks for health insurance, and stop giving deductions to students and for student loan interest. Oh, and the most swooping tax reform would be to stop giving tax deductions to those who pay interest on mortgages. See, each of those tax relief items is a "chosen" behavior on the part of the citizen. In the grand scheme of things, revoking the child tax credit would be a relatively useless measure unless one wants real tax reform. But do the authors want real tax reform? A read through this book should clarify that the answer is a definite NO. I do not see, personally or managerially, what is "criminal" about parents taking leave from their accrual to do things with their children. Parents do not get additional vacation leave in most companies, yet they use their leave for their childrens' functions and needs --- just like anyone childless would use their leave for the functions and needs of someone they cared about/was a family member. Which leads me to my last point. The Family Medical Leave Act can be used by anyone. It can be used to stand by a dying mother's bedside. It can be used to help a spouse with a medical condition (if, of course, one is married). It is not a parents-only perk. This book, in short, takes anecdotal evidence of "lazy workers" and presents it as a universal truth. If the parents of today's workforce were required to cover up the fact that they had children; or were required to lie about the purposes for which they were leaving early... we would see "lazy workers" as a whole. I do realize there are some parents who do function badly at the workplace once they bear children. I'll go out on a limb and say that those people are not good employees in any sense if they cannot balance their time. This would go for a parent, or for someone who can't get over a bad breakup, or for a party-minded young worker. Anyone who cannot put in the work required is not likely a model employee, whether they have offspring or not.
Rating: 
Summary: The "victimization" of America continues.........
Review: In The Baby Boon : How Family-Friendly America Cheats the Childless Elinor Burkett continues what apparently was the major sport of the `90's-portraying oneself as a victim of some sort of social policy or social trend. Here, Burkett-in a writing voice elegantly reminiscent of a whiny 6 year old-argues that the childless are in fact a discriminated against subset of the populace. In point of fact, Burkett does raise some valid points and provide some interesting and compelling arguments for her case. Clearly there are some ways I which those with children benefit from social policy. The problem is that few working parent enjoy anything like the full smorgasbord of "benefits" Burkett is upset about. To hear Burkett tell it, every parent everywhere has it easy/better/whatever than the childless over a huge range of perks/benefits/allowances. Most people, in most jobs and circumstances, might enjoy one or two of these, but not much more. These "benefits" are irregularly deployed and highly regional in nature. Of course, there are ways the childless benefit from others having children. Who is it all these bellyaching whiners think it is that will provide the wage taxes to pay their Social Security payments, for example? It's the children of those who they are griping about. However, not a single word about the benefits these other people provide the childless by having kids ever pops up in this text. Moreover, there is plenty of reason to believe that, insofar as companies do provide these benefits, they do so not to be nice to their "parent" employees but do so to further their own selfish interests-they provide these benefits to attract the quality and quantity of employees they need to further their corporate interests. I'll give this 2 stars as a few valid points are made, but if you are looking for a fair and balanced examination of this topic, you won't get it here.
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