Evolving from a series of front-page articles Susan Chira wrote for the New York Times , A Mother's Place leads all mothers to safe ground. Drawing on her own experience as a mother and worker, and on interviews with dozens of mothers across the country, Chira writes with passion and compassion about motherhood in the nineties. A Mother's Place is at once a devestating expose of the distortions that have wrongfully convinced many women that good mothers stay at home, and an engaging personal account of how women can rewrite the rules of motherhood and defy the experts by striking the balance that best suits them and their children. Controversial, hard-hitting yet written in a warm and accessible style, A Mother's Place speaks to mothers across the country. Whenever working mothers pick up a newspaper or magazine, they hear how their neglect is producing a society of emotionally damaged, even criminal, youth. Chira reviews the latest scientific research to show that children of working mothers turn out just as well as those raised by mothers at home. She shows how the media, the courts and politicans have distorted this data to suit their own agendas. The reality that most experts have chosen to ignore is how much a mother's happiness, satisfaction and emotional state affect her child. Chira argues that society is trapped in the wrong debate, because whether or not a woman works is not a principal factor in determing how good a mother she is. She presents a new vision of motherhood, one that offers reassurance while insisting that all of us -- mothers, fathers and society -- fulfill our obligations to our children.
Book Description
Mothers all across America are caught in a maelstrom of guilt and anxiety, torn between their devotion to their children and their fears about economic security. A Mother's Place , written by a leading New York Times journalist and mother of two, is the book they have been waiting to read -- one that exposes the backlash against working mothers in our culture yet acknowledges their own ambivalence about the new lives they are leading.
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Who makes the best kind of mother--a stay-at-home mom or a working mom? Susan Chira, deputy foreign editor for the New York Times, has joined the debate with the excellent, insightful, and forward-thinking A Mother's Place. Chira cites "the cultural and political forces pounding away at mothers" as the source of her inspiration, and indeed, the last decade has seen a spate of books, studies, and talk-show spectacles claiming that working mothers are the root of many societal ills.
What stay-at-home-mom zealots have neglected to consider is the personhood of the mothers themselves. Chira points out that a mother's intellectual and emotional satisfaction will undeniably affect her children. So if Mom feels forced into staying at home with the kids, her resentment is not likely to result in star-quality mothering. Chira does not mean to say that all stay-at-home mothers are bitter and bored; instead, she makes a plea that a mother's choice in this matter be accepted and celebrated, regardless of her decision.
A Mother's Place is extremely well-researched, using both the latest empirical studies and interviews with over 40 mothers and a dozen fathers, augmented by her own personal experiences. The result is an intimate, accessible study that while firmly rooted in science successfully avoids a dry academic tone. The good news is that Chira offers a thorough, well-crafted, and compelling argument that "working mother" does not equal "evil mother." The bad news is that in our supposedly enlightened times there are still people in need of convincing. --Brangien Davis
From Publishers Weekly
Chira, deputy foreign editor for the New York Times, here confronts the cultural image of the Good Mother, the archetypical American homemaker of the 1950s and 1960s who, in the 1990s, when more than half of all mothers with children under the age of one work outside the home, is hard to find. Chira, the mother of two school-age children, notes that she works outside the home by choice, and she attacks the "mother blaming" for children's maladjustments that can be found in contemporary writings about child-rearing. Penelope Leach, T. Berry Brazelton, family court judges and the religious right receive the back of Chira's hand for ignoring evidence that working outside the home has little effect on children if mothers are sensitive to their offspring's needs, provide proper care and supervision and, importantly, are themselves content. Some research suggests that children in quality daycare score higher academically, socially and behaviorally than those who spend their early years at home, stresses the author. Among her proposals to aid working mothers are better training for daycare teachers (France, for example, requires five years), more participation by fathers in child rearing, a year's parental leave at a lower salary after childbirth or adoption and job options such as flextime and part-time hours. Chira's forcefully argued, well-documented book provides an important perspective to the debate. First serial to Glamour.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Anticipated the author's life to be more real life,
By A Customer
This review is from: A Mother's Place : Taking the Debate About Working Mothers Beyond Guilt and Blame (Hardcover)
Searching to better understand and resolve my own inner struggle to determine whether I can succeed at parenting and working I bought Susan's book. When I was finished reading the book I found I had no new insights and much frustration with the unrealistic world the author lives in. I find that most of us working moms struggle to balance our work and home lives. Susan readily admits in the author's note that her husband is more than a 50% parent - something most women would love to have (just read any of the other books on balancing work and family as a woman). But because her life is so far flung from most of ours - (taking time off to write a book, having a husband work at home),the book lacked the practical elements that I was looking for. It is nonetheless a good sociological study. It just lacks the dose of realilty that the rest of us are struggling to deal with. Don't expect to find any answers if you're struggling like I am to figure out how you can manage.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Extensive research, but do the facts support her hypothesis?,
By A Customer
This review is from: A Mother's Place : Taking the Debate About Working Mothers Beyond Guilt and Blame (Hardcover)
As a SAHM struggling with the decision of whether to resume employment, I read Chira's book eagerly. I was somewhat disappointed to find that many of the statistics she fairly presented still seemed to favor the traditional at-home parent model. Particularly worrisome to me was her assertion that many child care providers disapprove of working mothers. I also found that Chira defended all 'degrees' of working, including days where a bedtime kiss was the sole contact with the child. Many working mothers are not necessarily away for ten to twelve hours daily, and I'd be interested to see those lesser situations addressed. Her models also seem geared almost entirely to upper middle-class women, although she mentions those who must work for financial reasons. I thought Chira fairly affirmed a mother's choice to remain home, although some of her comments regarding these mothers' rationale may be offensive. Overall, I found the book interesting, but was disappointed that it didn't necessarily persuade me that working was a wholly desirable option.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A great book -- if people would read it!!,
By A Customer
This review is from: A Mother's Place : Taking the Debate About Working Mothers Beyond Guilt and Blame (Hardcover)
The book itself is very well done: thoroughly researched, and careful to consider all sides of the issue. But obviously it's a Rorschach test for most readers: the reviewers so far have seen it as a mirror of their own biases rather than trying to read it objectively (or read it at all -- witness Cody, Wyoming, who provides a refreshing counter-argument to the "homeschooling is best" books on the market today).What all these people miss is the author's main point: instead of arguing endlessly about whether it's "better" to have a stay-at-home vs. a working mother, let's accept the facts -- a majority of women with children work -- and apply all that energy to ensuring that this situation isn't harmful to children. (I had a mother who gave up a job she enjoyed in order to have children -- and made managing her children her "career." I wish to goodness that she'd kept her old job!!)
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