Amazon.com
If parents, educators, and youth workers were to read only one book about helping adolescence—this would be the one. Chap Clark managed to get inside the world of US teenagers and reveal the depths of angst, pressure and loneliness they feel. Hurt is a illuminates the under layers of teen culture, the places where adolescents are most honest and vulnerable, only to discover that today's youth are indeed a tribe apart—and it is the adults who have isolated them.
Most of Clark's research took place in Crescenta Valley High School in north Los Angeles County. One might wonder how a middle-aged dad could get inside the heads of so many teens from so many walks of life. He did this by doing what most adults are unwilling to do—spending time with teens and asking questions, by showing a genuine curiosity in their world and a willingness to hear their answers without judgment. The results are riveting.
Ultimately this is an indictment of our increasingly adult-centric society that is more invested in adult interests than the individual needs of our youth. By the time adolescents enter high school, most have been subjected to at least a decade of adult-driven agendas. He slams coaches who are so invested in winning at youth sports that they leave mediocre athletes on the bench or pull them off the team. He points to the once playful dance classes that somehow morph into intensive dance training and regional competitions. Or the high school junior who faces a nightly four-to-five hour marathon of homework only to rise at 7 a.m. for morning band practice before AP calculus. We reward youth for their adult-pleasing achievements, failing to consider the price of isolation, stress and fear of failing that this generates.
Clark (the author of Daughters & Dads 1576830489 and From Father to Son 1576832945) concludes the book with solid recommendations for turning this tide. Unfortunately, he often defends his research and recommendations, as if a critical academic was looking over his shoulder. The truth is this book belongs less to the world of academics and more appropriately in the hands of anyone who lives with or directly works with teenagers. --Gail Hudson
Book Description
What do teenagers really think about adults? If you think you know the answer, you may be in for a surprise. According to Chap Clark, today's adolescents have largely been abandoned by adults and left to fend for themselves in an uncertain world. As a result, teens have created their own world to serve as a shield against uncaring adults. Based on six months of participant-observer research at a California public school, this book offers a somewhat troubling but insightful snapshot of adolescent life. It will surprise and enlighten parents, youth workers, counselors, pastors, and all who want to better understand the hearts and minds of America's adolescents.
Customer Reviews:
Eye-Opening.......2007-04-13
This book was recommended to me by my youth pastor, and as a senior pastor I'm glad I've read it. If you thought you understood youth and their lifestyles, then think again. Chap Clark reveals that the youth of today are greatly different than the youth of twenty or even ten years ago. Combining hard sociological data with a Christian compassion for young people, the author enlightens anyone who comes into contact with teenagers. I strongly recommend this book to any parent, pastor, church leader, or other adult who is working with teens. We can't truly minister to younger generations until we've taken the time and effort to understand their unique needs and wants. Clark does an excellent job here of summarizing them both.
a book for every parent, or person who works with kids!.......2007-03-25
Very sobering look at the state of adolecent thinking. Well researched and informative. A must read!!
Sociology, not theology.......2006-01-11
I bought this book expecting to get a healthy dose of sociology along with some seriouse theological reflection on the sociological data. I was wrong. In my opinion this book was too heavy on sociology and too lite on theology. If Clark would've spent more time connecting the sociological conclusions to theological implications, the book would've been a gem.
If you love youth, you'll read this book........2005-10-20
Below is the book review I submitted to Group Magazine regarding this book.
This is an academic resource that differs from most in that it describes what the adolescent culture of today looks like through the eyes of those who live it.
Dr. Chap Clark has given those who care for, and work with youth another gem. This resource is for any adult (parents, counselors, teachers, professional youth workers) that has significant interaction with teenagers. Most importantly, this book offers wisdom and insight as to how to connect with teens that are abandoned and hurt. A major premise (and proof) of this book is that these abandoned and hurt teens are not just the "at-risk" youth, but a shockingly large group of students that have been left behind by well intentioned adults and their created programs. You will not find "over-talked" postmodern rhetoric in this book. You will find compelling, hard-hitting data that clearly states the crisis that teenagers are experiencing today. Hurt will be difficult for some to read because it challenges the very landscape its readers have created. Further, it is a deep book and could be challenging for some with limited reading skill level.
Every Adult Should Read!!.......2005-10-13
This is an outstanding presentation of quality research that has practical application! Youth NEED adults. They need a supportive, safe environment.
Chap Clark does a great job of opening our eyes to the reality of the life of high school students. A change needs to happen in the societal view of how to help youth become healthy, happy, successful adults...and this is a good start!
Book Description
Filipino Americans, who experience life in the United States as immigrants, colonized nationals, and racial minorities, have been little studied, though they are one of our largest immigrant groups. Based on her in-depth interviews with more than one hundred Filipinos in San Diego, California, Yen Le Espiritu investigates how Filipino women and men are transformed through the experience of migration, and how they in turn remake the social world around them. Her sensitive analysis reveals that Filipino Americans confront U.S. domestic racism and global power structures by living transnational lives that are shaped as much by literal and symbolic ties to the Philippines as they are by social, economic, and political realities in the United States.
Espiritu deftly weaves vivid first-person narratives with larger social and historical contexts as she discovers the meaning of home, community, gender, and intergenerational relations among Filipinos. Among other topics, she explores the ways that female sexuality is defined in contradistinction to American mores and shows how this process becomes a way of opposing racial subjugation in this country. She also examines how Filipinos have integrated themselves into the American workplace and looks closely at the effects of colonialism.
Customer Reviews:
A must-read Asian American Studies, Post-Colonial Studies, Immigrant Studies Text .......2006-01-19
Yen Le Espiritu, in her book, Home Bound: Filipino American Lives Across Cultures, Communities, and Countries, "contends that Filipino American racial formation is determined not only by the social, economic, and political forces in the United States but also by U.S. (neo)colonialism in the Philippines and capital investment in Asia" (1). Moreover, not content with the narrow, one-sided focus that Filipinos are transformed through the experience of colonialism and migration, Espiritu highlights how Filipinos "in turn transform and remake the social world around them" (2). Home Bound is most specifically an ethnographic study of Filipino Americans in and around San Diego, CA, that is grounded nicely by Espiritu through U.S. immigration laws, U.S. imperialism and colonialism, and intersectional analyses. Espiritu presents the experiences of Filipino Americans in order to educate us about this often overlooked population through their own voices.
Scholars in Women's Studies and Gender Studies may be especially drawn to chapter 7, where Espiritu focuses on the way gender is used by racialized immigrants to assert their superiority over the dominant (white). In this chapter Espiritu turns to second generation daughters and the way in which it is through them, specifically the enforcement of their "female morality-defined as women's dedication to their families and sexual restraint" (160), that racialized immigrants construct themselves as superior. In other words, in light of the racist oppressions they face, one method of responding that immigrants have deployed is to assert their (daughters') moral superiority over whites. Through the lens of generations (first, second, etc.) of immigration, Espiritu challenges us to think of the multiple, intersectional systems, at play, while making clear that this manner of response is not without its own complications and contradictions (namely, the perpetuation of sexist oppression and patriarchal power over daughters).
In addition, I found particularly compelling the end of Espiritu's book, chapters 8 and 9, where she delves more in depth to the ways in which Filipino Americans transform and remake the world around them. These two chapters excitingly point to the new and creative relations constructed by Filipino Americans in regards to cross-racial social relations and immigration as a technology of racialization and gendering.
Book Description
Class does make a difference in the lives and futures of American children. Drawing on in-depth observations of black and white middle-class, working-class, and poor families, Unequal Childhoods explores this fact, offering a picture of childhood today. Here are the frenetic families managing their children's hectic schedules of "leisure" activities; and here are families with plenty of time but little economic security. Lareau shows how middle-class parents, whether black or white, engage in a process of "concerted cultivation" designed to draw out children's talents and skills, while working-class and poor families rely on "the accomplishment of natural growth," in which a child's development unfolds spontaneously--as long as basic comfort, food, and shelter are provided. Each of these approaches to childrearing brings its own benefits and its own drawbacks. In identifying and analyzing differences between the two, Lareau demonstrates the power, and limits, of social class in shaping the lives of America's children.
Customer Reviews:
great service.......2007-08-04
I am a university student who purchased this textbook for a class. It came exactly as the seller said. I will use this service in the futute.
Unequal Childhoods Well Written and Well Researched .......2006-07-11
Everyone knows that socioeconomic status is related to academic success, but not many books have examined the lives of kids outside of school in detail to reveal how differences in social class are related to differences in use of language, organizing time, dealing with authorities, family disputes, and doing homework.
I'm a professor in a graduate school of education, and it was important to me that Lareau was a careful researcher as well as a clear and lively writer. She studied 12 families, each with a fourth-grade child. Half were white, half were black. Half were from low social positions, and half from relatively high social positions. Lareau found that the upper-middle class families deliberately stimlated their child's development and conveyed a sense of entitlement, whereas lower class families believed that kids matured "naturally" -- regardless of race. I found it so persuasive and well-written that I'm assigning it to my students.
"Unequal Childhoods".......2006-05-11
I read this book for a class about the achievement gap. I really liked how this book examined the achievement gap from a socioeconomic point of view. Lareau's case studies of families from varying races and social classes made her research easy to read and interesting. Her analysis of two different parenting styles-concerted cultivation and theory of natural growth-points out the implications each style has on children's performance in school, their interactions with adults, and later success in searching for jobs/careers. This was a great read for school or just for fun.
A great look at parenting differences across different economic backgrounds.......2006-04-21
I was asked to read this for a class assignment and was delightfully surprised at what a great book it was! The different case studies about different families were very insightful into different types of parenting as well as how parenting and economics may impact children's achievement both in school and in extracurricular activities. A good read for those in the education field or for a parent interested in seeing how other families deal with the busy schedules of their children and how that may impact their family life.
engrossing discussion of class-based childrearing habits.......2006-04-14
The book is worth reading for its fascinating case studies and for the very convincing discussion of the two very different types of childrearing habits: "concerted cultivation" for the middle and upper middle class and "natural growth" for working class and poor.
I am not convinced that the middle class "concerted cultivation" childrearing habits provide the benefits that the author suggests. "Concerted cultivation" is pretty new so there is no real evidence that a "concerted cultivation" childhood will benefit someone independent of socioeconomic status and genetics.
It is still a five-star book. It ties together things about modern middle class childhood that I wouldn't have thought to be related at all.
Amazon.com
Did you ever wonder about the historical accuracy of those "traditional family values" touted in the heated arguments that insist our cultural ills can be remedied by their return? Of course, myth is rooted in fact, and certain phenomena of the 1950s generated the Ozzie and Harriet icon. The decade proved profamily--the birthrate rose dramatically; social problems that nag--gangs, drugs, violence--weren't even on the horizon. Affluence had become almost a right; the middle class was growing. "In fact," writes Coontz, "the 'traditional' family of the 1950s was a qualitatively new phenomenon. At the end of the 1940s, all the trends characterizing the rest of the twentieth century suddenly reversed themselves." This clear-eyed, bracing, and exhaustively researched study of American families and the nostalgia trap proves--beyond the shadow of a doubt--that Leave It to Beaver was not a documentary.
Gender, too, is always on Coontz's mind. In the third chapter ("My Mother Was a Saint"), she offers an analysis of the contradictions and chasms inherent in the "traditional" division of labor. She reveals, next, how rarely the family exhibited economic and emotional self-reliance, suggesting that the shift from community to nuclear family was not healthy. Coontz combines a clear prose style with bold assertions, backed up by an astonishing fleet of researched, myth-skewing facts. The 88 pages of endnotes dramatize both her commitment to and deep knowledge of the subject. Brilliant, beautifully organized, iconoclastic, and (relentlessly) informative The Way We Never Were breathes fresh air into a too often suffocatingly "hot" and agenda-sullied subject. In the penultimate chapter, for example, a crisp reframing of the myth of black-family collapse leads to a reinterpretation of the "family crisis" in general, putting it in the larger context of social, economic, and political ills.
The book began in response to the urgent questions about the family crisis posed her by nonacademic audiences. Attempting neither to defend "tradition" in the era of family collapse, nor to liberate society from its constraints, Coontz instead cuts through the kind of sentimental, ahistorical thinking that has created unrealistic expectations of the ideal family. "I show how these myths distort the diverse experiences of other groups in America," Coontz writes, "and argue that they don't even describe most white, middle-class families accurately." The bold truth of history after all is that "there is no one family form that has ever protected people from poverty or social disruption, and no traditional arrangement that provides a workable model for how we might organize family relations in the modern world."
Some of America's most precious myths are not only precarious, but down right perverted, and we would be fools to ignore Stephanie Coontz's clarion call. --Hollis Giammatteo
Customer Reviews:
A bit biased.......2007-07-03
I have just finished reading this book. Throughout the entire reading, I often felt that the author was taking her point too far to the left. And I'm a liberal democrat! I believe 100% in the rights of women to work... but I also believe that same right applies to those who wish to stay at home with their children.
The author seems to downplay the importance, and the value, in staying home with children. While she is correct in the assertion that our nostalgia for bygone days clouds our vision of the truth, there is something to be said for taking responsibility.
In the author's call for more social action and responsibility, there seems an underlying hint that the problems in the American family come from without rather than within. I disagree with this completely and think that we should stop blaming the media, the schools, our neighbors, the government, and our children's social group for the ills within our own homes. While it is an honorable endeavor, helping society clean up it's act, we must first start in the home. We must first start with ourselves, and with our children, before we can have any hope of helping someone else.
Overall a good read, but this author is a product of her generation and her writing should be viewed as such.
34
Liberal
Military Spouse
Homeschooling Mom
Life was never perfect in any era.......2007-03-20
The tendency of people to look back on their past and see only the good and not the bad is all too evident in the agendas of conservatives and so-called advocates of so-called traditional families.
Those of us who lived through the perfect era when dads worked, moms vaccuumed in pearls and kids have perfect lives behind white picket fences remember it far differently.
We remember when domestic violence was considered a "private family matter" and battered women had no escape except a casket. We remember the days before Rape Crisis Centers, and when the law required the victim to first prove herself innocent at her accuser's trial. We remember women who gritted their teeth and stayed in bad marriages until their children were grown because they knew they'd have no property rights in the divorce. We remember the days before Title 9, when the boys got the gym and the girls got the cafeteria. We remember the girls who were sent away for the summer to an aunt, a euphemism for an unwed mother's home. (Check out Ms. Fessler's "The Girls Who Went Away" for more on this) and the women who could only quit their jobs while their sexual harasser was free to move on to his next victim.
There was no perfect era, there was no perfect home, there was no perfect family. Time we realized it, and stopped looking for an easy fix to real problems.
What you think you know may be wrong.......2006-08-17
This book provides exhaustively documented evidence that our cultural myths, such as the idealized nuclear family of the 50's, were not typical of American history after all, and that some of today's problems are not new. It's slow going for most readers (unless you majored in sociology). It made me look again at my own memories of earlier times of my life. The end notes would be helpful to scholars in American history, sociology or even social work.
Suberb and important work- Gets a grip on the reality of the American Family.......2006-02-25
Coonz dissects piece by piece the ideal of the "normal" family and lifestyle that neoconservatives frequently point to, as a solution to society's ills. Coonz's research is meticulous, and this book is a potent antidote to the fallacy that too often guides policy making in Washington and statehouses across the nation. i.e. that only the reestablishment of the "normal" traditional nuclear family is the path to our salvation. A+
Some interesting tidbits, but not worth the time to read fully.......2006-02-15
The first thing I did when I got this book was to look up what the author had to say about the Moynihan Report (thinking that based on the subject of the book the author would have many interesting criticisms). Alas, all that existed was a few sentence dismissal. After that I couldn't take the book very seriously and just jumped around to various things that I found interesting. Some things were interesting, others were foolish.
Amazon.com
Not since Ted Conover's Coyotes has a book revealed the underground culture of illegal immigration from Mexico as well as Crossing Over by Rubén Martínez. This up-and-coming author writes of what he calls "a Mexican Manifest Destiny" that continually pierces the southern borderline of the United States--a "line [that] is still more an idea than a reality." Martínez begins with the awful story of the three Chávez brothers, all killed when a truck carrying them and some two dozen other illegal aliens tried to outrace border patrol agents and flipped. Martínez learns of their fate and travels to their peasant hometown in southern Mexico to distil the motives of migrants. Then he follows the rest of the family north as they fan into the United States. Crossing Over is written in the first person and is highly anecdotal, but Martínez constantly makes observations that break free from these narrow confines. "Mexicans have always had an uncanny instinct for finding the soft spots of the American labor economy," he notes at one point, explaining how it is that millions of poor people who barely speak English can thrive, in their way, north of the border. Crossing Over is an outstanding book, and required reading for anyone interested in Hispanics and the new America. --John Miller
Book Description
The U.S.-Mexican border is one of the most permeable boundaries in the world, breached daily by Mexicans in search of work. Thousands die crossing the line and those who reach the other side are branded illegals, undocumented and unprotected. Crossing Over puts a human face on the phenomenon, following the exodus of the Chvez clan, an extended Mexican family who lost three sons in a tragic border accident. Martnez follows the migrants progress from their small southern Mexican town of Chern to California, Wisconsin, and Missouri where far from joining the melting pot, Martnez argues, the seven million migrants in the U.S. are creating a new culture that will alter both Mexico and the United States as the two countries come increasingly to resemble each other.
Customer Reviews:
We moved to Mexico ..........2007-08-09
We got sick to death of Bush et all and left. Moved to Mexico and are having a house built here. Will never live back in the US again. So we were wondering why people of Mexico would want to risk death getting there - it's for the money. The earlier book "Coyote" is also very good.
Brilliant.......2006-12-20
As the U.S. Congress pushes forward with their plans to create a three layered fence across the entire length of the U.S.-Mexican Border, thousands of illegal migrants cross over each day through the porous border. Ruben Martinez's work, "Crossing Over", begins with a devastating account of the last moments of life for the Chavez brothers and other hopeful migrants. As he travels to the hometown of those migrants, Cheran, Michoacan, Martinez imagines his own family's immigration to the United States. With the skill of a master composer, Martinez weaves together a picture of life in Cheran after the tragic accident by living among the people and sharing their stories. He recounts time spent with the Chavez family and the local people of Cheran. Martinez uses this personal touch to bring the reader along on his journey that leaves him in St. Louis with the reuniting of a Cheran family.
Martinez picks up the second half of the book at the border, where he spends an evening with the Border Patrol. He continues this journey through Texas to Warren, Arkansas to visit another family from Cheran, who have "hurtled into the middle class." From here his trail leads to Norwalk, Wisconsin, the site of a slaughterhouse where migrant laborers often put in 70 hours a week, day in and day out without seeing the sun. Then back to St. Louis where the stark difference between life in Mexico versus life stateside becomes as clear as day. Finally, Martinez ends up in Watsonville, California, where the Chavez brothers were traveling when tragedy struck, and the location of the two remaining Chavez brothers. Here in Watsonville the seeds of a new Chavez family are planted.
"Crossing Over" shows us the real face of immigration: not criminals illegally crossing the border to steal American's jobs, but mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters crossing over to secure a better future for themselves and their families. As America's fear of immigration grows ever larger each year, this book reminds us that America was founded on immigration; and Mexico and America's future will depend on immigration and the migrant worker's story for many years to come.
I read this book for a Latin American History class and I found it to be extremely relevant, even five years after it was published. Martinez's writing style is clear and descriptive; he makes you feel as if you are with him on his journey. After reading this book it is easy to see why, and how, many migrants risk their lives crossing the border each year. It would make an excellent source for studying the social, political, and economic aspects of migration, a certain hot topic among today's ongoing events. I would recommend this book to anyone who has sympathized with recent immigrants, but especially so for those who have not. This book should be required reading for policy makers along border states as well as for the U.S. Congress. "Crossing Over" will open your eyes and with clarity show you both sides of the battleground that is the U.S.-Mexican Border.
A must read.......2006-07-28
For anyone curious about the Mexican immigrant mentality, this is definately a book to read. I live near where the 3 brothers were killed, and have been to this spot on several occasions. For those who wonder why so many people are coming to this country to work, this book will answer many of those questions. It brings an understanding and a respect for those who risk their lives for a chance at the American dream, a dream that many of us take for granted.
Poignant but Flawed.......2006-07-12
A deeply empathetic portrayal of individual Mexican and Central American migrants chasing a livelihood in El Norte. Martinez suceeeds in his primary and most basic goal of humanizing the faceless tide of illegal immigrants to a fairly high degree and commendably does not seek to idealize them: the implusively destructive behavior of one character in particular rings true. Where he is less successful is his analysis of the larger macroeconomic and cultural consequences of this immigration (whether in this case illegal or legal). Martinez injects some Chicano pride-based politics fairly uncritically, and caricatures the 'Minuteman' groups on the border, even seeming to dismiss the concerns of property owners who are forced to contend with a de facto invasion. Much of his uncritical political perspective likely stems from Martinez's Southern California roots, where there is far more tension between the Latin American community (or better, communities) and others, than say in Texas, which is a model of peaceful cultural integration, or at least the closest thing we have to it now.
Martinez does succeed in showing especially the Mexican experience and economic relationship to the United States from the impoverished southern Mexican states, to and across the border, and to a lesser extent the conditons and context of the typically menial labor and uneasy and lacking cultural integration once in the United States. I suspect that Martinez has attempted to mute his political agenda so to focus more exclusively on the immigrant experience itself, and rightly so. But still it bleeds out, increasingly shrilly in his book's concluding chapters. Given this tendency, his credibility is compromised, transforming a book that most Americans could benefit from reading into one that will probably only find a limited audience of those who already agree with him, or those who are forced in a course to read it. I would still recommend it, with a rather large grain of salt.
Crossing Over.......2006-07-09
Fabulous account of legal and illegal Mexican immigrants to the US. Clearly written. Easy to read. Extremely insightful and very timely given the current political debate. It gave me an understanding and sympathy for what Mexicans are looking for in the US and the hardships they are willing to endure to get it.
Eve/Boise
Book Description
When their nineteen-month-old son, Miles, was diagnosed with autism, Karyn Seroussi, a writer, and her husband, a scientist, fought back with the only weapons at their disposal: love and research. Consulting medical papers, surfacing the Web, and networking with other parents, they traced the onset of their child's problems to an immune system breakdown that coincided with his vaccinations. As a result, his digestive system was unable to break down certain proteins, which in turn led to abnormal brain development. So Karyn and her husband got to work -- Karyn implementing their program at home while her husband tested his theories at the scientific lab where he worked.
Unraveling the Mystery of Autism and Pervasive Developmental Disorder is an inspiring and suspenseful chronicle of how one couple empowered themselves to challenge the medical establishment that promised no hope -- and found a cure for their child.
Here are the explanations and treatments they so carefully researched and discovered, a wealth of crucial tools and hands-on information that can help other parents reverse the effects of autism and PDD, including step-by-step instructions for the removal of dairy and gluten from the diet, special recipes, and an explanation of the roles of the key players in autism research.
Customer Reviews:
An excellent overview - reads like a suspense story.......2007-10-01
This book combines the rare qualities of being as compelling as a mystery story, well researched and thoroughly informative. Step by step, we follow the author's voyage of discovery, from despair to triumph, while we learn how to explore the same opportunities for our children.
This information was extremely valuable for my son, and a life-changing experience for the entire family.
Another book I didn't understand.......2007-09-26
This is just another book that I didn't understand. I read part of it and just gave up. Trying to unravel this book was crazy. I have a child with autism and have NEVER really done any research. I just don't think that way. I am more of a follower than a leader. I usually listen to what others are doing and try that. If I hear about something else I try that instead. I haven't found the right fit yet. But maybe someday I will.
Give it a try before you give up.......2007-09-19
I have purchased this book 4 times, giving it away to parents that has children with ADD and Autism. My 2 year old grand son was diagnosed with Autism 6 years ago. No speech, no eye contact, totally zoned out. I bought a copy after seeing the author being interviewed on TV, my daughter
decided to give this method a try. We made contact with parents with that had childern with the same problem on the internet.
This book explains how ADA and Autism has run rampt in the past 10 years. The story of a mother that wouldn't give up on her son with Autism. My grandson 8 years old is going to regular school (2nd grade)now, with a high grades. He did spend a year in special Ed, in a pre-kindergarden class and then started regular kindergarden the following year.
The down side to this method used in this book is you have to follow the No Casein, No Gluten, 100% with no slip-ups. This is a website for this diet, a list of company's and products for casein and gluten free foods.
www.gfcfdiet.com
The Truth Has Been Revealed!.......2007-05-13
The information this book provided has changed my entire outlook on ASD's. I am following Karyn's advice, and I am seeing amazing results in my children (one has PDD). This is a must have for all parents, not just those of us dealing with the special issues of our children.
This book is changing our lives.......2007-04-13
We are still in the process of moving towards some serious dieting changes based on the information from this book. Our son is an extremely high functioning 8 yr old and we wonder now if he is so high functioning because he eats so little of anything, along with the many forms of therapy he has had over the years. It was a bit surreal to read this mother's descriptions of her child's behaviors before she knew he was autistic... such identical experiences that no one has ever mentioned to me before or even asked me about (doctor's obviously don't even know them!) The comparisons to her husband were also far too familiar. Don't just sit around and wait until you can get your child in for the various therapies being sought... while you wait or do them as well, read this book and others so you feel empowered to try things on your own. Everything single extra therapy we've done (in addition to having a fabulously supportive and effective school district) has helped and we hope this might be the next big step for our son.
Amazon.com
"This book was born out of anger," begins Cathi Hanauer, which seems appropriate considering the book's title: The Bitch in the House. What could have been a collective gripe about the day-to-day routine of holding a family or relationship together is instead a witty, and sometimes bitchy, read. These postfeminist mothers, lovers, wives, and independent women candidly put forward their anger in the taffy-pull world of household responsibility. Jill Bialosky puts it most succinctly, "I had wanted to get married, but I realized now that I had never wanted to be a 'wife'." There are essays written by those who willfully, and often playfully, seek a life independent from domesticated routine, and others who have aged past the concerns of being a self-fulfilled and responsible mother. Author and poet Ellen Gilchrist, who is also a mother and a grandmother, sets this lasting tone of contentment, "Family and work. Family and work. I can let them be at war, with guilt as their nuclear weapon and mutually assured destruction as their aim, or I can let them nourish each other."
Not entirely angry, it is ultimately a satisfying read. There are no intended messages on how women can improve their relationships with their husbands, partners, and children. That is the beauty of the book. They have instead revealed modern motherhood, and solitude, as it is, and may have been all along. --Karin Rosman
Book Description
Virginia Woolf introduced us to the “Angel in the House”, now prepare to meet... The Bitch In the House.
Women today have more choices than at any time in history, yet many smart, ambitious, contemporary women are finding themselves angry, dissatisfied, stressed out. Why are they dissatisfied? And what do they really want? These questions form the premise of this passionate, provocative, funny, searingly honest collection of original essays in which twenty-six women writers—ranging in age from twenty-four to sixty-five, single and childless or married with children or four times divorced—invite readers into their lives, minds, and bedrooms to talk about the choices they've made, what's working, and what's not.
With wit and humor, in prose as poetic and powerful as it is blunt and dead-on, these intriguing women offer details of their lives that they've never publicly revealed before, candidly sounding off on:
• The difficult decisions and compromises of living with lovers, marrying, staying single and having children
• The perpetual tug of war between love and work, family and career
• The struggle to simultaneously care for ailing parents and a young family
• The myth of co-parenting
• Dealing with helpless mates and needy toddlers
• The constrictions of traditional women's roles as well as the cliches of feminism
• Anger at laid-back live-in lovers content to live off a hardworking woman's checkbook
• Anger at being criticized for one's weight
• Anger directed at their mothers, right and wrong
• And-well-more anger...
“This book was born out of anger,” begins Cathi Hanauer, but the end result is an intimate sharing of experience that will move, amuse, and enlighten. The Bitch in the House is a perfect companion for your students as they plot a course through the many voices of modern feminism. This is the sound of the collective voice of successful women today-in all their anger, grace, and glory.
From The Bitch In the House:
“I believed myself to be a feminist, and I vowed never to fall into the same trap of domestic boredom and servitude that I saw my mother as being fully entrenched in; never to settle for a life that was, as I saw it, lacking independence, authority, and respect.” -E.S. Maduro, page 5
“Here are a few things people have said about me at the office: `You're unflappable.' `Are you ever in a bad mood?' Here are things people—okay, the members of my family—have said about me at home: ``Mommy is always grumpy.' `Why are you so tense?' `You're too mean to live in this house and I want you to go back to work for the rest of your life!'” -Kristin van Ogtrop, page 161
“I didn't want to be a bad mother I wanted to be my mother-safe, protective, rational, calm-without giving up all my anger, because my anger fueled me.” - Elissa Schappell, page 195
Customer Reviews:
fun read.......2007-06-30
This book is a compelation of many stories from different women. The women write about relationships, parenting, marriage, life, etc. I thought there was a pretty good variety to the stories. Some I thought were thought provoking while others I thought were really odd...
I did enjoy this book. Although, I would recommend this for people who have either recently gotten out of a relationship or those who have been married for many years. I would also recommend this for women who are a bit older....say 35+. Most of the stories are not suited for a happy newleywed to read. You have to have "been around the block" to be able to connect with most stories.
Light read, enjoyable, recommended.
Fascinating if uneven..........2007-06-03
Virginia Woolf described compulsory perfectionism in women as "The Angel In the House" syndrome. (I'm sure the seeds of that were present when "The Stepford Wives" was written years later.) Cathi Hanauer turns this concept on its head in "The Bitch in the House," a collection of essays that address anger in the domestic sphere. Modern women, who have more opportunity than their mothers and grandmothers to be fulfilled, are paradoxically consumed with anger about their lives. Hanauer pitched this idea to women writers and the responses she got make up the essays.
There are gems along the way -- brutally honest pieces that reveal the complicated impulses behind private lives. I especially enjoyed "The Puritan Within" by Kate Christensen which depicts a marriage that initially seems doomed, and "Married at 46" in which Nancy Wartik finds a suitable mate after years without many prospects. Also appealing is "Papa Don't Preach," in which Kerry Herlihy outlines her decision to be a single mother. Many of the conclusions and decisions the authors make are very surprising. This book is a great example of the diversity of women's experience and how profoundly things can and do change.
If this collection has a weakness, it's that the theme is not quite as cohesive as the introduction suggests. Some authors don't address anger directly, and more than a few seem angry in spite of living incredibly fulfilled lives. Overall, though, I greatly enjoyed reading "The Bitch in the House."
Pitiful.......2007-03-06
Thank you, Ladies, for writing this book. You are exactly why I will never marry an American woman and why I have advised my nephews and younger brother the same.
I was exhausted halfway through the thing. While I had dealt with my divorce, this book has kindled in me something I would never have expected concerning my divorce from the woman whose very breath I loved. That something is nothing less than ecstatic joy at being free from being tied to an American woman.
Hard, driven, cold, lacking natural affection for their own children, often focused on proving they are as sexually active as a man would like to be, LOL, as if that is a good thing these women portray the American woman as totally devoid of affection or morals.
Don't worry ladies about committment, no one would want you for more than an evening's distraction anyway.
Compelling with something for everyone.......2007-02-21
You may not relate to every one of the impressive list of authors in this anthology, but if you're a woman who has any ideas about working *and* mothering, you'll relate to some of them. Frankly, this book scared me. It made me think. The writers range the gamut from kooky to funny to bitter, but they all seem intelligent and have clearly though the issues of working mothers from one end to the other.
This is one of the better books on feminism and motherhood that I have read. I recommend it to anyone who likes to meditate on working and being a mother.
The essays ran the gamut.......2007-01-12
I read this book for book club and the essays ran the gamut from being just like who I am or women I knew, to women I couldn't even understand. It was a fun and easy read and gave us a lot to talk about at book club.
Amazon.com
The old adage is especially true for Perfect Madness: don't judge this eminently readable book by its stern and academic-looking cover. Judith Warner's missive on the "Mommy Mystique" can be read in a weekend, if readers have the time. Of course--according to the book--many would-be readers will have to carve out the hours in between an endless sea of child-enriching activities, a soul-sucking swirl that leads many mothers into a well of despair. Warner's book seeks to answer the question, "Why are today's young mothers so stressed out?" Whether shuttling kids to "enriching" after-school activities or worrying about the quality of available child care, the women of Perfect Madness describe a life far out of balance. Warner spends most of the book explaining how things got to this point, and what can be done to restore some sanity to the parenting process.
Warner draws her research from a group of 20- to 40-year-old, upper-middle-class, college-educated women living in the East Coast corridor. In other words, mirror images of Warner herself. Her limited scope has caused controversy and criticism, as have some of her more sweeping statements. (For example, Warner blames second-wave feminism--rather than corporate culture--for the many limitations women still experience as they try to balance the work-family dynamic.) Other favorite targets include the mainstream media, detached fathers, and controlling, "hyperactive" mothers who create impossible standards for themselves, their children, and the community of other parents around them. Warner begins and ends the book with a compelling argument for the need for more societal support of mothers--quality-of-life government "entitlements" such as those found in France. It's these big-picture issues that will provide the solution, she says, even if most mothers don't want to discuss them because they consider the topic "tacky, strident-sounding, not the point." In these sections on governmental policy, and also when she steps back, encouraging women to be kinder to each other, the author's warmth comes across easily on the page. Pilloried by some readers and supported by others, Warner should at least be applauded for opening up the Pandora's Box of American motherhood for a new generation. And if readers are of two minds about the issues raised Perfect Madness, as Warner sometimes seems to be herself, it's a fitting reaction to a topic with few easy answers. --Jennifer Buckendorff END
Book Description
The paradigm-shattering bestseller that investigates how women have fallen into the trap of "total motherhood," and how that mind-set damages them and their relationships with their husbands and children.
Customer Reviews:
Perfectly written.......2007-10-09
I'm one of those mothers who doesn't have time for anything beyond the essentials and living with the multiple varieties of stress Warner discusses, both self-imposed, culturally imposed and politically imposed. So I don't have time to give a proper review, of course. But I wanted to say how much I enjoyed the book and how much it helped me at least understand, if not overcome, the central issues facing me as a mother in the full-time workforce in a society that does not support parents and families to achieve a healthy balance between work and parenting. Thank you for writing this book, and please continue to discuss these issues and promote alternative visions for society.
The personal is not always the political.......2007-07-15
Perfect Madness is the very apt description of a style of parenting that currently prevails among the educated and economically privileged classes of American society. Many readers will experience a chilling recognition on reading Judith Warner's descriptions of the vagaries of this sinister family ideology and the quality of desperation in the perfectionism and competitiveness that frantically drive the machine of many family lives.
Perfect Madness is an ambitious and well-intentioned book, but it is undermined by a restrictive thesis and swamped by often irrelevant research and statistics. The book is further robbed of authority by a writing style that vacillates between the vernacular and the scholarly, and by the constant jumping back and forth through the chronology of its own research.
The logistical problems of inadequate child-care and workplace family support that the author blames squarely on a self-serving government and on a cold and uncaring social infrastructure are not, as the book would imply, key factors underlying a lack of personal fulfillment in the middle-class experience of parenting. The modern claim of unmet entitlement is no less than the hallmark of a western-world existential crisis, the refrain of a culture of greed that neglects its own mind-life while continuing to abdicate personal responsibility and answerability for its own choices, relinquishing free will to the dictates of government and wallowing in the passivity of a pitiful absence of self-determinism.
The author claims that this is a "very personal" book. In this case the personal is less political than self-indulgent. The author presents a lengthy and meandering narrative of the journey of modern middle-class woman through the landscape of an inhospitable patriarchal society, the perversities of careless mothering, and into the barren and hopeless terrain of mother-as-victim. The author regrettably pays little tribute to the generations of wise and loving women along the way who created our current wealth of privilege and opportunity: women who made informed choices and brave decisions, and who created joyful lives for themselves and their children without effacing their own psyche. Thanks to these benefactors women can indeed aspire to have it all. However, only the naïve or the very greedy would expect to have it all at one sitting.
Solid Discussion.......2007-05-27
Judith Warner's "Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety" is an excellent discussion on today's motherhood. Refreshingly candid, Warner takes apart all sides of the motherhood debate using examples from the 1950s to today and presents them in no-nonsense fashion. She explains, "[w]hat I see is that working and stay-at-home moms do what they do not so much by choice--by choosing from a series of options arrayed before them like cereals on a supermarket shelf--but out of a very immediate and pressing sense of personal necessity. There are many aspects to that sense of necessity--money, status, ambition, the needs of the children and of the family as a whole--all of which play themselves out, in various way, in individual women's lives. And all of those aspects of personal necessity are part and parcel of the condition of motherhood--not external to it, not accessory to it, not a `selfish' deviation from it" (pp 145-6). This is the gist of the entire book. All of the discussion grows from and points back to this concept. And the concept? We're turning ourselves inside out and upside down trying to be the ultimate "mother"--having it all, trying to be perfect in a balancing act that has been unachievable from the start. Straightforward, unbiased, and balanced, "Perfect Madness" is very well researched from where I sit. Towards the end, it felt like Warner veered off subject a little. While some of the information she discusses can be considered interesting--economics, housing, body-image and eating disorders--especially in how they relate to our view of modern motherhood and its requirements to be "done correctly," this is background information for explaining what she terms the "Perfect Madness." Warner does eventually make it work, integrating this information back into the original subject matter and making the book come together as a whole.
Motherhood requires and deserves compensation.......2007-03-10
Ms. Warner perfectly articulates the symptoms of the "dis-ease" running rampant in American motherhood. It was reassuring to learn that other women were experiencing the same distress, exhaustion and sense of betrayal that I felt.
Ms. Warner points to the "valorizing" of motherhood as a way to deflect attention away from the underlying problem. I totally agree. This is an insidious psychological weapon used by both women and men to keep mothers pacified in the short-term. But a rose on Mothers Day and a pat on the back do not pay the bills. Women do themselves and their children a disservice by labeling their childbearing and childrearing tasks as "priceless." This work is noble, extremely valuable in monetary terms, and without it society would stop functioning altogether.
The bottom-line problem is that mothers are not compensated for their work. What male would choose a career that required 24/7 work with no paycheck, hundreds of thousands of dollars in expenses, and no benefits or retirement? Not one.
Our market economy was designed by males, and it serves males' natural talents and abilities. Female labor was placed outside the system, labeled "priceless," and given a zero monetary value. This left mothers with nothing to bargain with in the marketplace, and dependent upon male partners in order to survive.
Since mothers no longer have tribes to support them, the logical and only answer is that government must subsidize their work via corporate taxation. The corporations that benefit from new generations of customers and workers must help foot the bill to create and raise these new humans.
Sans this scenario, mothers will remain degraded and financially used by society. The anger, resentment and "dis-ease" of motherhood will continue.
Mothers, wake up. There is nothing noble about teaching your daughters that their natural talents are "above monetary value." They deserve reverence AND compensation.
Quite enjoyable.......2006-07-31
I was surprised that I liked this book. I was not expecting to as it came up paired with "The Mommy Myth" on Amazon. However, this book was much better than The Mommy Myth, which I personally thought was terrible.
This book describes the pressure that today's mothers feel with parenting. Working or staying at home, all moms feel similar pressures to be perfect and produce perfect children. If our children do anything bad, we think it must be a reflection of some bad parenting choice we made. In a sense, our children are extensions of ourselves, not their own beings.
It should be clear in the reviews that this book is aimed at middle-upper middle class-wealthy mothers. The author comes out and says that at the beginning of the book.
I think this book does a good job of summing up parenting today. However, there were a few things I did not like about the book, which is why I docked it one star:
1. The author talks about breastfeeding as if it is some nice "extra" like an extravagant birthday party or the latest, cool toy that everyone wants. I think breastfeeding clealy belongs in a different category, especially with it's many benefits proved more and more definitively by science each year. However, there is absolutely no advantage you are giving your child by spending $1,000 on a birthday party when he is 2 (and won't even remember it most likely). I thought this author had some personal vendetta against breastfeeding. Mothers get plenty of pressure to bottle feed with all the "free gifts" they hand out at the clinics and hospitals. If anything, it is pressure from both the breast and bottle camps. However, this author says nothing about mothers annoyed that doctors assume they will fail at nursing their babies and encourage them to take the free formula (just in case).
2. The author talks about how parents are doing way too much for their children. However, she does not discriminate when this behavior is appropraite and when it is not. With a baby or toddler up to age 2, the child's needs should come first and be met quickly. Doing this will leave you with an easier to care for child later. However, after about that age, parents need to make sure the kids know that the parent is in charge and children need to be expected to entertain themseves and do as much for themselves as is age appropriate.
3. Yes, parents today have many pressures but the author does not talk enough about how much of this monster parents have created themselves. We expect so much now, the houses we want, the cars we want, etc. People a few generations ago were satisfied with much less. Just because the neighbors have it, does not mean we have to want it. We can say no. We need to do that more often. Don't blame the "keeping up with the Joneses" train of thought. Kids don't need tons of extracurriculars at age 4, they don't even need elaborate swingsets in the backyard when they can walk to the park. They do not need fancy birthday parties or academic lessons before they start school. They may not even need preschool-espcecially if they have neighborhood friends or siblings. All the really need is some free time and you to go away so they can make up their own rules and play however they want, get lost in the fun of playing.
If you feel that you are caught in the whirlwind of outrageous (and silly) parenting pressures today, I'd recommend reading John Rosemond's: A Family of Value. It is great for working or stay at home parents. You will feel much better after you read it and give yourself permission to not run yourself ragged. Today's moms have got to be the generation of moms who do the most hoop jumping for their children. Today's moms listen to this and that person with a PhD telling them what a "good mother" does. They compare themselves to the "ideal mother", see they are not as good (most of the ways we are told to behave is not humanly possible 100% of the time), see they don't measure, and then feel terrible about themselves. Moms have to stop beating themselves up and thinking their children are scarred for life because they got yelled at once, or because mom told them she is busy right now and can't play with them. Mom has a life too. As for the children, I'd also recommend looking into one of the many groups starting around the country that are encouarging parents to help children reclaim free time.
All in all, a good book that talks about the pressures facing parents today.
Book Description
The Sung Dynasty (960-1279) was a paradoxical era for Chinese women. This was a time when footbinding spread, and Confucian scholars began to insist that it was better for a widow to starve than to remarry. Yet there were also improvements in women's status in marriage and property rights. In this thoroughly original work, one of the most respected scholars of premodern China brings to life what it was like to be a woman in Sung times, from having a marriage arranged, serving parents-in-law, rearing children, and coping with concubines, to deciding what to do if widowed.
Focusing on marriage, Patricia Buckley Ebrey views family life from the perspective of women. She argues that the ideas, attitudes, and practices that constituted marriage shaped women's lives, providing the context in which they could interpret the opportunities open to them, negotiate their relationships with others, and accommodate or resist those around them.
Ebrey questions whether women's situations actually deteriorated in the Sung, linking their experiences to widespread social, political, economic, and cultural changes of this period. She draws from advice books, biographies, government documents, and medical treatises to show that although the family continued to be patrilineal and patriarchal, women found ways to exert their power and authority. No other book explores the history of women in pre-twentieth-century China with such energy and depth.
Customer Reviews:
Comprehensive.......2001-12-25
This book presents a comprehensive portrait of the lives of women in Sung China (960-1279 AD). The author explores such topics as marriage, dowries, rites and celebrations, women's work, husband-wife relations, motherhood, widowhood, concubines, and match-making. Because of the need to rely on written materials for much of the information, and because literacy was restricted mainly to the educated and upper classes, the book naturally contains many more details about the lives of rich women than of the poor. Nevertheless, Ebrey was still able to distill some information about peasant women and families as well. The book will appeal to anyone interested in women's studies, Chinese history, or Asian area studies.
Book Description
In this lively and accessible book, Colin Heywood explores the changing experiences and perceptions of childhood from the early Middle Ages to the beginning of the twentieth century. Heywood examines the different ways in which people have thought about childhood as a stage of life, the relationships of children with their families and peers, and the experiences of young people at work, in school and at the hands of various welfare institutions. The aim is to place the history of children and childhood firmly in its social and cultural context, without losing sight of the many individual experiences that have come down to us in diaries, autobiographies and oral testimonies. Heywood argues that there is a cruel paradox at the heart of childhood in the past. On the one hand, material conditions for children have generally improved in the West, however belatedly and unevenly, and they are now more valued than in the past. On the other hand, the business of preparing for adulthood has become more complicated in urban and industrial societies, as the young face a bewildering array of choices and expectations. A History of Childhood will be an essential introduction to the subject for students of history, the social sciences and cultural studies.
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