Customer Reviews

Knowing Pains: Women on Love, Sex and Work in our 40s

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The stories in this wonderful collection by great writers are what every woman, no matter her age or ethnic background, needs. You will laugh, cry and cheer for these women and find yourself in pieces of each beautifully crafted tale. Bravo! This is a book filled with both heart and humor. You can't beat the combo.

I must have dog-earred more than 20 pages in this fantastic compilation of smart, funny, inspiring and, in many cases, just plain raw stories of what I would have to call aha moments. In almost every story, women share their aha's and how their lives were forever changed. With holiday gift giving quickly approaching, and my budget being tight, I've decided that giving this book as my gift of choice to my gal pals, both young and old, is the gift that will definitely keep on giving into the new year.

It's a fabulous book. i laughed, cried and nodded in empathy as i read through the book in two short days... it left me wanting more. more. more. a must give to all your friends in their forties.

Interesting and enjoyable reading as well as some encouraging words for all women. Profit helps Breast Cancer Research~

A uniqe collection of essays, written from the heart and soul of the authors. Stories to make you smile--especially "Geriatric Mama" by Lori Stott. Should be given as a birthday gift to all women when they turn 40.

Knowing Pains: Women on Love, Sex and Work in our 40s

I read the essays written by 35 or so 40ish persons about being in their forties. It covered many experiences and many trials and tribulations. It was a glimps of the real world and gave me to think about experiences more deeply. I recommend this book to those who want to see what others in their forties have endured, enjoyed and feared.

I love this book! Such great insight on life in your 40's and it certainly applies to those of us still in our 30's. Each chapter is well-written by a different author, about their life experiences. This is a must read!

I am 43 year old.... mother of four. I found this book a waste of time and money as most of the stories were not relatable to me. Over half the stories are written from professional women who put their career in front of family. Several of the stories are about raising families in your 40's and having babies.... which I did in my 20 and 30's.

This is a great anthology of stories about women. While the essays were written about being 40, I found that the essays resonated with me (late 30's) and would for any women regardless of your age. The stories are funny, painful, and realistic.

This is good book for those seeking some solace knowing that you're not alone, to give to a female friend or even for men seeking to understand what women are all about. I highly recommend it.

There are several great essays in this book. I loved "If It Were Only Brain Surgery," "Getting My Mother Sober," "Just a Blip" and "A Community To Call My Own."

Some other essays were weaker. I find particularly grating the ones by the women with advanced education, like a couple of the lawyers, who have dropped out of careers, and then talk about issues with the objectification of women, invisibility of women as they age, conflict in their marriages and with their children - or the grandiose mother one who decided she needed to tell other people how to mother. I found this particularly annoying since it is so difficult to be the child of a stay-at-home mother/breadwinner father, especially for girls. I got the sense these women wanted "mommy power" and thus did not set up their families in a more egalitarian, shared earning, shared parenting fashion; they seem to be oblivious to how they have created the very problems they are complaining about - and how they hurt their children, especially their daughters. This is frustrating to listen to for those of us who have worked harder on these issues, learned how to compete in the marketplace and made more careful mate selection (or even gave up having children altogether if no good dad was available), developed economic and political autonomy and learned better quality parenting skills (including learning how to share parenting and earning with a good quality dad). Instead these women's priorities seem to have been money-grubbing mate selection and family set-up combined with a narcissistic need to be in control of their children - and even other's people's children through their excessive mommyblog culture. And that they have education and had every opportunity to be something more adult and responsible than this makes this prioritization and behavior all the more annoying.

The need for the family and marketplace reform that has been impeded by these families that do the sole breadwinner thing (particularly the male sole breadwinner thing) is very obvious to those of us who remember how difficult it was to grow up in a family set up with the male sole breadwinner, female primary parent. No wonder these histrionic women need to work so hard on parenting with the mommyblogging; they are, by definition, inadequate because of the childrearing set-up they are complicit in, in which they never reach adulthood themselves.) That these women remain so narcissistic, oblivious and wallowing in objectified, marginalized misery in this day and age is tragic, but also very annoying. Women who can't help themselves, particularly with all the opportunities and chances these well-educated women were given, are by definition incompetent as parents, I believe. I couldn't care less that they feel objectified and marginalized; they (especially those Gen-X and younger) had every chance to change the course of that ship and they didn't.

These women and their husbands are currently being subsidized by taxpayers, and the economy and general, under Social Security and Medicare (they receive 150% of the man's paid-in benefit, where the extra 50% is paid for by those who work for a living - this is the "Ponzi Scheme" that Rick Perry identified in the GoP debate; he is Ponzi). This will change in the next few years I suspect, possibly to a shared earning model, in a best-case outcome for these women, or, if the libertarians win out, so that each individual gets only the benefit associated with his/her earnings, so if you have no or little earnings record, you get no Social Security benefit. I guess they will learn then their "choice" they trumpet to be disrespectful to their children and not to develop an economically autonomous adult self and healthy marriage and family has consequences.

Their husbands are also conspirators in this dysfunctional set-up, of course, but since this book is essays by women, I leave that subject for another day.

Aside from these whining baby-women, though, the essays by women who were really using their agency were great and very inspiring.