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Many mothers have long suspected that they're getting the short end of the deal--and finally, a highly respected economics journalist proves they're not just griping. Despite all the lip service given to the importance of motherhood, American mothers are not only not paid for all the work they do, but also penalized for it. "The gift of care can be both selfless and exploited," writes Ann Crittenden in this intrepid and groundbreaking work. Motherhood is dangerously undervalued--it's now the single biggest risk factor for poverty in old age. Mothers lose out in forgone income if they stay at home, an inflexible job market makes part-time work scarce or inadequately paid, and in the case of divorce, they're refused family assets by divorce laws that don't count their unpaid work.
Crittenden is fond of pointing out the hypocrisies plaguing America, and one is the belief in a welfare state enabling single mothers. The true welfare state, she says, protects paid workers from unforeseen risks through social security, unemployment insurance, and workman's compensation. Mothers who work part-time or not at all have no such safety net and typically take a nosedive into poverty, along with their children, after divorce or the death of their spouse. Married working moms are also punished--they pay the highest taxes on earned income in America. Crittenden's impassioned argument is based on research in a variety of fields, from economics to child development to demography. She shows how mothers were demoted from an economic asset to dependents, why welfare for only a certain group of mothers bred bitterness among the rest, and why there is currently an exodus of highly trained women from the work force.
Crittenden also travels far and wide for solutions. She finds them not only in such European nations as Sweden--which has abolished child poverty by giving mothers a year's paid leave, cash subsidies, and flexible work schedules--but in the U.S. military, which runs the best subsidized child-care program in the country and knows the value of providing special benefits to those who selflessly serve their country. Ultimately, Crittenden insists, the equality women have been fighting for will only be achieved when mothers are recognized as productive citizens creating a much-needed public good--human capital, or in layman's terms, well-raised children who grow into productive, law abiding citizens (and who pay into social security). This is an admirable--and charged--defense of motherhood, reminding us that unpaid female labor is "the priceless, invisible heart of the economy," and those who engage in this labor deserve the same rights, and the same respect, as other workers. --Lesley Reed
From Publishers Weekly
Americans extol motherhood as "the most important job in the world," yet when couples divorce, mothers' and their children's standards of living usually decline precipitously, while fathers' rise. Crittenden, a former economics reporter for the New York Times, lays out the going rate for a woman's time: "$150 an hour or more as a professional, $50 an hour or more in some businesses, $15 an hour or so as a teacher, $5 to $8 an hour as a day-care worker and zero as a mother." Mothers (whose labor is not calculated in any official economic index) have no unemployment insurance to tide them over after divorce, no workers' compensation if they're injured and no Social Security benefits for the work they do, although a housekeeper or nanny paid for the same work would earn such benefits. In a breezy, journalistic style, Crittenden chronicles how the Industrial Revolution created the idea of the "unproductive housewife," how this concept penalizes women after divorce and how tax policies encourage mothers to quit work. Crittenden proposes several remedies, some available in most industrialized countries (paid maternity leave, flexible work hours for parents, universal preschool, free health coverage for children) and others seemingly utopian (Social Security credits for mothering, remedying the tax bias against married working mothers). This thoroughly documented and incisive book is must reading for women contemplating parenthood or divorce, and could prove an organizing tool for women's organizations. Agent, Katinka Matson. (Feb. 15) Forecast: Bolstered by a seven-city tour to top markets, this is a great choice for women's reading groups, offering facts and figures that supplement recent investigations of the emotional terrain of motherhood, such as Susan Maushart's The Mask of Motherhood and Peggy Orenstein's Flux: Women on Sex, Work, Kids, Love, and Life in a Half-Changed World. Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Crittenden (Killing the Sacred Cows: Bold Ideas for a New Economy) draws upon hundreds of interviews to illustrate the irony of American society's praise of the "profession" of maternal love/care while undervaluing and exploiting mothers. Even as late as 1995, "married working mothers in the United States with children earned half of what their husbands earned." These economic dependents have been paying the dreaded "mommy tax": lost income (more than $1 million) owing to the "wages foregone by the primary parent." Obviously, well-educated, high-income individuals are the most severely penalized. This exemplary book covers the economic myths of motherhood through the stark testimonies of childcare hardships and financial inequality in marriage: "The pay $580 a month was barely enough to cover the bills for a family of four, but not enough for decent day care .Her ex-husband never paid a nickel in child support." A wonderful resource for students of economics, women's studies, politics, and for parents-to-be, this book should be a wake-up call to America. Kay Meredith Dusheck, Univ. of Iowa, Iowa City Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Former New York Times journalist Crittenden closely examines American attitudes about motherhood and the reasons Americans devalue "women's work." Heavily supported with studies, her clearly stated, intelligently developed arguments include historical background and anecdotal evidence that conduces to making the thought-provoking book easy to read. Crittenden explores motherhood in the U.S. from shortly after the country was founded to the present. She demonstrates that, in white-collar as well as blue-collar jobs, the earning gap between childless women and working mothers is significantly greater than the one between childless women and men, and she describes the types of discrimination working mothers typically encounter in the workplace and society at large. She maintains that feminists, afraid of being stereotyped by their detractors, have abandoned working mothers, focusing instead on women who have chosen career over family--in other words, who have chosen to take on the traditional male role. Crittenden's critique of our treatment of mothers, working or otherwise, may prove vital to continued efforts to improve the status of all women in the U.S. Bonnie Johnston
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