Motherhood - How Should We Care For Our Children?

(Moving beyond the motherwars and changing the way we see and act)

reviewer: Anne-Marie Taplin

month entered: 03/2007

author: Anne Manne

year of publication: 2005

review:

At its heart, this engaging and meticulously researched book by an Australian social commentator and writer searches for solutions to the divisive and controversial issues around caring for children: the choices we as parents make about work, lifestyle and reproduction. Anne Manne’s rigorous and unstinting questioning of early institutionalised child care, and of our society’s responsibility to care for its children, needs to be heard. Elegantly written without the dehumanising language of academia, Motherhood never preaches or lectures, but quietly and persistently insists that there is a better way to support parents in raising children, our society’s greatest asset. At a time when most western countries are facing a crisis of declining birth rates and many parents are forced to work longer hours than ever before, this is a vitally important book for all carers of children to read. Undoubtedly one of the most confronting, profound and inspiring books I have ever read.

Exerpt:

 “We need not only to make work more flexible, releasing women from juggling full-time work with babies and toddlers, but also to redistribute working time across the life cycle. Reconceptualising a working life over a longer time frame, rather than cramming everything into the peak reproductive years, will have profound – and beneficial – implications for women.”

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