Moms Pay High Cost for Caring In a new book, The Price of Motherhood: Why the Most Important Job in the World is Still the Least Valued, author and former. The Price of Motherhood: Why the Most Important Job in the World is Still the Least Valued. Ann Crittenden, Author Metropolitan Books $25 (p) ISBN. Drawing on hundreds of interviews and research in economics, history, child development, and law, Ann Crittenden proves definitively that although women.

Even as late as”married working mothers in the United States with childrenearnedhalf of what their husbands earned. Excerpts are provided for display critetnden only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

With passion and clarity, Crittenden demonstrates that proper rewards for mothers’ essential contributions would only enhance the general welfare.

Women who stay home with their kids are at a disadvantage financially and in terms of power. We seem to think very different things need to change. I very highly recommend it as a good, enjoyable and thought provoking read.

Maybe it is because my husband and I have a very good relationship, financially, that I feel they way I do. The Price of Motherhood was an alarming book, and an important one for anyone crittendn is thinking of becoming a parent or who already is. She constantly points to Sweden, France, and several other more socialized countries as the model for how the U. When your only tool is a hammer, every problem is a nail.

When I was in my early 20s, many of my neighborhood friends from grade school were married and had their first children shortly afterward.

The Price of Motherhood: Why the Most Important Job in the World is Still the Least Valued

I credit this book with a massive paradigm shift in myself. Studies conducted in the Prjce States and Germany had similar findings. New measures of GDP are needed.

Top Reviews Most recent Top Reviews. I have certainly been convinced that I was wrong and short-sighted, and that there is another thee step toward true equality, and other countries already have successful models of it in place countries whose economies Americans envy - this is not a coincidence.

Follow the Author

Her basic argument is that caring work produces human capital and in a society like ours, where human capital is almost always more valuable than any other kind, that work should be recognized monetarily and legally. Is it motherhokd role to provide birth to age 5 care for children? Read more Read less. Well-written and logically structured, I can’t imagine how this book could have been better egotistically I suppose I could say that it would have been better if it most closely aligned to crittejden own thinking, hahaha.

Because man hah — sorrydo our patriarchal heteronormative gender roles ever screw us over. After spending the great majority of the book writing about all the unfairness in society, a very short chapter at the end 18 pages of a pricee length of outlines some suggested solutions. What I had wondered was why so many women and children in this country are poor. The main idea this book presents is that mogherhood society still fails to incentivize mothers proportionally for what they contribute to the economy by raising children i.

The price of motherhood : why the most important job in the world is still the least valued

Americans extol motherhood as “the most important job in the world,” crittnden when couples divorce, mothers’ and their children’s standards of living usually decline precipitously, while fathers’ rise.

And I hoped for affirmation of my life’s hardest and most important work: Even I, with a advanced degrees in lucrative fields, know that if my husband died today, I wouldn’t be able to get a job anything like what I could have right out of college. The author has done serious research on the tye, and also presents wide-ranging information on related topics in marriage and women’s employment outside the home.

Their powerful excursions — into business, politics, family and community — have opened doors for women and men alike. What it all comes down to, though, is that caring needs to be conceptualized as work if it is ever to be properly valued socially, legally or economically.

In order to cleanse my palate from this book, I’m going to need to read some literature, meditations and folktales — and I’m going play with, hug and kiss my kids.

Excerpts Most mothers are formally “dependents” in marriage, not economic equals. Here are her main arguments and my evaluation of them: A wom Ann Crittenden is an award-winning journalist, author, and lecturer.

Ann Crittenden | About the Books

Bold and galvanizing, full of innovative solutions, Labor of Love offers a much-needed accounting of the price mothers pay to carry out society’s most important job. On My Own Two Feet: Men are trash” in future versions of the class. Amazon Rapids Fun stories for prkce on the go. On the other crittenren, it’s really depressing to really think about how poorly mothers are treated.

Women need more leverage in marriage because of point 9, and therefore, an independent income. To view it, click here. Would you like to tell us about a lower price? My mother loved working outside the home. It seemed that to have two full-time jobs, and to try to do them both well — was not crittenddn option for me.