First published 2007
American mothers face an impossible choice between staying home with children or pursuing careers. This decision splits women into opposing camps and creates internal conflict for individual mothers. Leslie Morgan Steiner, a Washington Post executive and mother of three, experienced all sides of these battles. She asked twenty-six accomplished mothers to write essays about their lives and choices. The contributors range from age twenty-five to seventy-two and live across America from New Hampshire to California. They represent every lifestyle option: stay-at-home mothers from day one, women juggling full-time office work with part-time home duties, and executives working seventy-hour weeks. Pulitzer Prize winner Jane Smiley explains how her generation entered the workplace only to retreat when it rejected them. Lizzie McGuire creator Terri Minsky recalls her children screaming they hoped she never returned when she left for Los Angeles to launch her career-making show. The essays reveal the intimate reality of modern American motherhood through honest, funny, and sometimes painful personal accounts.
Genres: family-life, american, feminism, non-fiction, 21st-century, parenting
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: personal-journey, social-commentary
Setting: California, New Hampshire, Washington
Period: 21st-Century
346 pages · Paperback · Random House Trade Paperbacks