And What Do You Do?: When Women Choose to Stay Home (Paperback)

~ (Author), Mary Quigley (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

While an at-home mother's response to the question, "And what do you do?" may not make for lively cocktail party conversation, And What Do You Do? shows that the experience of staying home is often far from mundane. Reflecting on their own experiences as wives and mothers, authors Loretta Kaufman and Mary Quigley decided to collaborate on a tribute to all of the unsung women who make the "politically incorrect" decision to leave the workforce, either temporarily or indefinitely, for the sake of their husbands or families.

Kaufman and Quigley challenge one by one the myths surrounding the choice to stay home ("You can't afford to stay home," "Your mind turns to mush," "Your marriage will suffer," etc.) and debunk the stereotypes of the at-home wife or mother. The women they interviewed for the book are everything but tennis-playing "ladies who lunch." They are intelligent, multitasking, technology-savvy women who have combined mothering with individual pursuits to create dynamic and interesting alternative careers for themselves. These women have used their education and prior corporate experience to volunteer, develop at-home businesses, consult, manage family finances, freelance, and develop Web sites, and they offer compelling testimony to support Kaufman and Quigley's argument that staying home affords tremendous opportunities for personal growth.

While the experiences of the women profiled in the book may be representative of an emerging postfeminist trend, their lifestyles are hardly typical. These women's husbands include TV actors, a professional basketball player, a famous novelist (Norman Mailer), CEOs (Kaufman's husband was the CEO of Columbia Pictures Entertainment) and the transportation secretary in President Clinton's cabinet! Even so, women in the middle-income-and-above bracket who are planning or considering such a shift will appreciate the book as a source of inspiration and encouragement. --Margaret Stude Michael

Review

"The voices of dozens of innovative mothers heard in Kaufman and Quigley's book still the cultural cacophony surrounding mothers in recent decades. These women's stories bring to life a savvy counterculture unabashedly investing their skills, education, and imagination to yield a balance they crave in family life. They are confident that the self-knowledge and refinement mined in interdependent living will be the catalyst for an abundant life with adequate time 'for every season.'" -- Margie Johnson, Chairman of the Board, Mothers at Home

"The wives and mothers profiled in the pages of 'And What Do You Do?' have a great answer to that question--they are doing nothing less than blazing new trails in the work/family/life balance. These intelligent, talented women are making the revolutionary choice of putting their families first by taking time out from the paid workplace. In doing so they are also redefining the notion of success to encompass involvement. Kaufman and Quigley do an excellent job of putting names and faces to this importnat emerging trend of 'sequencing'--moving in and out of the paid workplace as family responsibilities ebb and flow. This book is a must read for women struggling with work/family decisions." -- Joanne Brundage, Founder and Executive Director, Mothers &

If you're thinking about joining the 7.7 million American women who stay at home with their kids, read "And What Do You Do?"

Loretta Kaufman and Mary Quigley, NYU-trained journalists, say that putting one's career on hold does not mean forgoing work altogether--it just means waiting. (Kaufman and Quigley practice what they preach--both stayed at home with their kids, and both are now successful journalists.) Nor should potential stay-at-homes believe any of the other myths--that full-time parenting is nothing more than drudgery and moms have no time to themselves, that your brain will turn to oatmeal and your marriage will suffer.

In fact, many stay-at-home moms have more free-time than women juggling work and parenthood. Many moms volunteer, take yoga classes, or become more actively involved in church. And when you and your hubby aren't both stressed to the max, you may find yourselves taking picnics and enjoying candlelit dinners that were unthinkable when you were both trying to make partner at a posh law firm. (Beliefnet, May 2000) -- From Beliefnet

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Product Details

• Paperback: 209 pages
• Publisher: Wildcat Canyon Press; 1 edition (April 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1885171404
• ISBN-13: 978-1885171405
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,195,308 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

55 of 57 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Still Struggling Fast Tracker, June 28, 2000

By	Lisa (Boston, Massachusetts) - See all my reviews

Although I believe it is important for women and men to be reminded that more women are choosing to stay home to raise their kids, I don't feel this book added much value to the discussion.

While this is a critical issue for our society today, the authors really stay at very superficial level of discussion. They choose to provide an endless set of examples of women who have chosen to stay at home but do not delve into any real discussion of identity, self worth, finances or career impact that women face. I liken this book to the level of a Cosmo article. It assumes the attitude that "if you make the right choice" (i.e. to stay home) all will work out magically in the end. Not only will the time out the workforce not impact you negatively but it will most likely enhance your career by allowing you to uncover hidden talents that you didn't know you had. Much of the examples ended with women becoming authors, starting a business or becomming vitally important volunteers of some type - not just stay at home moms.

I found most of the examples pretty irrelevant to my situation in that they presented scenarios of women who's husbands were not only the primary wage earners but also superstars in their fields such as sports figures, well known authors, leading surgeons, well known political figures. Not to minimize the choices that these women made, but they represent a single class of scenario where the decision was not financially based and the husband clearly had the stellar job.

Along those lines, I do not fit this profile. I am very successful at the age of 38. I make (at least)twice as much as my husband. Therefore the choice for me does have a very real financial component. I firmly believe that my choice would be different if my husband were in fact CEO of a Fortune 500 enterprise. While it is my personal conviction that staying at home to raise children is one of the most important roles a women can take on, I am still very much struggling with the impact to my life - from an identity, self esteem and perhaps social perspective. This book provided no new insights, no new information per say that would help one transition to part time work, job sharing, launching a business, etc.

I would only recommend this book as a "feel good" read for women who have made the decision and want more validation that they made the right choice. I would not recommend it to women looking for a serious dialogue about how to make the transition and handle the impact to their career, self esteem and finances.

27 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not why I chose to stay home, November 4, 2001

By	emfdvm "emfdvm" (Oakton, VA) - See all my reviews

I purchased this book after seeing the authors at a book store lecture and book-signing event sponsored by my local Mothers and More chapter. Even then, it left some lingering doubts, but reading the book increased my doubts and brought up many more criticisms.

I don't disagree for a second that it is a worthwhile endeavor to be a full-time parent and raise your child(ren). I am a veterinarian and worked half-time after the birth of my first child and left paid employment altogether for 18 months after the birth of my second. What disturbed me about this book were the generalizations the authors made about women who do the same thing or the opposite and why women can and should make this decision.

I really doubt that most women stay home after they have children in order to support their husband's career, but the authors seem convinced that this is a primary motivator. They also discuss the myriad of activities these women are engaging in to the point of not being at home. I must be missing something, because with a preschooler and a toddler, my volunteering opportunities are pretty limited. This corresponds quite well to other reviewers' comments that the women selected are not particularly representative of working women as a whole. In fact, many of the women interviewed are in highly selective fields such as runway modeling or the wives of very public or well-off men, such as professional athletes and coaches, Cabinet members, or world-renowed surgeons.

I also felt that the authors failed to address an important societal/political/economic issue - that being why only women are expected to be and allowed to be full-time parents. While they mention that it just doesn't seem acceptable for men to take advantage of parental leave options, they don't even suggest that this may be something requiring change. Nor do they address the fact that only women seem to face significant economic costs imposed by child-bearing and -rearing.

They also do not address very well the difficulty in staying home for those in highly technical and rapidly evolving fields. Anyone in medicine or other scientific areas knows that keeping up with new developments is very challenging and it is almost a given that you will have to bring your technical skills back up to speed after time away.

Finally, after I finished the book and was comparing my thoughts to those of others who wrote reviews here, I was surprised to see at least 2 of the reviews written by women who were surveyed and interviewed for the book, and yet that fact was not mentioned in their rave reviews.

Overall, while I am glad that the authors have highlighted and praised the option women have to leave paid employment and raise their children, I found their other conclusions less edifying.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars If you need an inferiority complex, read this book!, February 27, 2003

By	Emma B. (Berkeley, CA USA) - See all my reviews

All of the stay at home moms in this book are very affluent, and either had very successful careers high on the corporate ladder or in acting or modeling, or their husbands are very wealthy (ceos, doctors, sports stars, actors). While it would be interesting to read a few stories of women who formerly had great careers and decided to interrupt them to stay home with their children, most stay at home moms are not like that. This book made me feel like I have never done anything with my life. Just not very useful to the normal mom, although if you are a millionaire CEO you might get something out of it.