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Those who argue that the battle of feminism has been won should read THE PRICE OF
MOTHERHOOD by Ann Crittenden, a former New York Times reporter and a Pulitzer Prize
nominee. Crittenden's thorough research on the status of mothers in American society gives
strong factual support to the frustration felt by women all over America, including
mothers who have given up careers and financial security in order to care for their
children, mothers who remain in the work force in order to make ends meet and agonize over
the effect this has on their children, and also those women who choose not to have
children because our society has made motherhood so difficult.
Crittenden paints a grim portrait of the place of women in America today. Women make an
average of around 75 cents for every dollar earned by men (59 cents when part-time work is
included). Divorced and separated women have a 30% chance of needing government
assistance. Women who stay at home to care for their children earn zero Social Security
dollars during that time and thus jeopardize their subsistence during retirement.
Crittenden assembles many statistics like these that show why it's no surprise that the
rate of poverty among women and children is much higher than among men. She explains how
precarious women's financial security becomes when they choose to stay at home to raise
their children, sacrificing hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost wages and making
themselves vulnerable to very serious financial trouble in the case of divorce. Crittenden
asks why in such a prosperous society we require women to pay such an absurdly high price
for having children, especially when the future stability and economic health of our
country depends on children being born and nurtured.
Crittenden demonstrates that it is possible for society to do more to make parenting
easier. She shows how other countries have done it, such as France, which provides cash
payments and free health care for all mothers; and Sweden, where mothers can take a year's
maternity leave with 75% pay, and parents of children under eight are allowed to work a
shortened work week. She offers proposals for making it easier to balance work and
child-rearing, changing the way family income is distributed and taxed to make it more
equitable, and creating new family support networks in our communities. While some of her
suggestions are radical and very unlikely, most of them seem to be simple common sense.
Although THE PRICE OF MOTHERHOOD is based on sober facts, it is highly readable.
Crittenden weaves in stories about real women and their families to give life to her
statistics and bring her points home, and her subject is such a fundamental part of life
that it touches every reader. The book's only weakness is its one-sidedness. Crittenden
never once sheds light on the opposing perspective, so that even a sympathetic reader
wonders what important parts of the big picture have been left out of the book.
Nonetheless, Crittenden makes her points so strongly that anyone who reads this book will
be moved to feel concern for the issues she talks about. THE PRICE OF MOTHERHOOD provides
inspiration and ammunition for today's women to demand that society give them the respect
and support that they deserve.
--- Reviewed by Emily Mathieu
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