What Our Mothers Didn't Tell Us: Why Happiness Eludes the Modern Woman

by Danielle Crittenden

Book Overview

Talk to women under forty today, and you will hear that in spite of the fact that they have achieved goals previous generations of women could only dream of, they nonetheless feel more confused and insecure than ever. What has gone wrong? What can be done to set it right?
These are the questions Danielle Crittenden answers in What Our Mothers Didn't Tell Us. She examines the foremost issues in women's lives -- sex, marriage, motherhood,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0684859599
• ISBN13: 9780684859590
• Release Date: March 2000
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

For some women, this book is very valuable

I understand there are people who do not like this book. However, there are also many women who would have benefitted from reading something like this a long time ago. I personally know many women who are single in their 30s and it is primarily due to the fact that they were taught at a young age that all they need is themselves and any dependency on men is weak and/or pathetic. I hear "He wants to get married, but marriage is such a bad deal for women". These women pretty much all want children and the guys they date are great. So, what's the problem? Many of us grew up with pressure to NOT become a wife/mother. Many of us had mothers who joked (negatively) about "housewives." I should also add for this review that my experience is mostly with middle-upper-middle class, college educated, liberal people. This author suggests that women think earlier about marriage/having children and some think her advice is "unrealistic." It's not. I did it, am 31, and totally done with the baby thing. My oldest is already in elem. school. For most college degrees, you can complete college by age 22. That is plenty early to have a family young and have a degree waiting for when you want/need to use it. You do need to live a relatively simple life tho. You aren't going to be able to afford the top of the line car, house and vacations if you follow her advice. There are trade offs, but it is certainly not "unrealistic" advice. As a 30 something, I also see men of my generation with very different expectations than our father's had. Our fathers grew up expecting that they would have to support familes. In my generation, men grew up expecting women would work. So, when women now have babies and decide they really want to be home after all, the men are blindsided. Some refuse to support their families. The women are surprised they want to stay home too! And maybe the women really can't because they are used to a lifestyle they can't afford on one income. I think we shock ourselves because what we always thought we wanted sometimes changes after we become parents. Sometimes those more traditional roles start looking more appealing. But, for some reason we feel we are doing something "bad" by following traditional gender roles. The bottom line is that we need to educate our daughters realistically about the choices we have to make when we are young. What type of people we want to marry/date. People have to think about what they really want out of life and look for a partner who shares those values. However, some women in the last 30 years have been told to push out feelings of family/marriage as it is "pathetic" or "old fashioned." Men have also learned this and think that this is how women think. If they hold "old fashioned" ideas of marriage/family, they are great fodder for mockery by their female peers. They walk on eggshells making sure they don't do anything "offensive" to a woman's independence. Ask questions before you get married about family/children/exp

This book is long overdue!!

I thought this book was very well written and spot on and hope many women read this book and are more aware of the issues it raises when they are young enough to do something about them. Women should not feel ashamed for wanting to become mothers but should be equally supported whether or not they choose a career and whether or not they choose marriage and children in the first place. One criticism of the book is that Ms Crittenden does viciously attack women who have chosen not to have children as having empty lives and I truly wonder if, in some instances, this is really the case?...On the other hand, if I had not been lucky enough to have met my husband when I did, how would I feel reading this book? Whilst I know many women who have "played away" their valuable 20s, many haven't and just haven't met decent men. This is the one aspect of the whole post-feminist era that Ms Crittenden fails to address and I would be a very bitter woman indeed if I fell into this category....I feel very sad for any woman who has been swept along by the post-feminist train of thought that women must behave exactly like men to be considered equal to them, without any regard for biology. We are different to men - and vive la difference!

This is a must-read book

As a woman in my late 20's, I grew up convinced by our culture that the desire to be a wife and mother, and to stay home with children was less meaningful than, inferior to, having a career. I have secretly felt like an aberration for desiring those things above the pursuit of a career, even as I completed a graduate degree and joined the work force. Similarly, many of my female friends have gotten PhD's, gone through arduous years in medical school, put in long hours at law firms, traveled like maniacs for consulting firms- all to hit their 30th birthdays with an overwhelmingly difficult dilemna and sense of disappointment: "Now I have made strives in my career and I just want to get married and have children. How in the heck do I make this all happen?! Are my years of law school all for naught? Is it wrong to want children- am I "selling out"?" Worse, many of them wonder where all the eligible single men have suddenly disappeared to. In my opinion, it is the love of a partner, children and family that sustains and inspires us more than anything else. When I look back over my life as an older woman, I would like my memories to be filled with the joy of loved ones who needed and cherished me. This is not an unworthy goal! Crittenden reaffirms this in her book and liberates women who have felt oppressed by those who would tell them that the only way to make a significant mark in this world is to throw on a suit/uniform and join the workforce. All of the striving that women have done is not in vain- it is wonderful that American women can choose to enter any field of work they could wish for themselves: that we can vote, own property, obtain a divorce, control our bodies to a much higher degree, travel freely by ourselves, sit on the Supreme Court, and remain unmarried without the public stigma of "spinster". But Crittenden identifies and articulates the deep longing women have to be mothers and wives, roles that have been repressed and diminished within the past 20+ years. Why should we be ashamed to feel something so natural? Why is being a mother no longer good enough? Perhaps that is where the feminist movement failed us- by trashing the entire system without perserving the fundamentally good and necessary aspects within it. Many of Crittenden's critics seem to be hung up on the fact that she married a wealthy man. That is irrelevent; I believe a lot more women could choose to stay home if they lowered their very high expectations for material "needs". Guess what? A family can live on one salary if they make sacrifices- a more modest home, one car, fewer vacations, fewer possessions in general. I realize that there are many, many families in which one income is simply not enough to make ends meet and that the woman is financially forced against her will to enter the workforce. (As a society we need to address this overwhelming problem) But when I hear a woman say, "We don't feel

Right on the Money...Whether We'll Admit or Not!

There's a very obvious reason this book and its author find themselves at the center of controversy: the logic of this book rings all too true. As I read it, I was at first offended, then sad, then convinced that someone had bugged my home, office and brain. Crittenden is, by any standard, an astute observer of today's woman. She illustrates the unspoken sentiments of millions of women. As a single 35-year-old woman, I would love nothing more than to deny the truth of her rather grim assessments, but in my heart, I know she's right on the money in her evaluation of virtually every single woman I know. What's more disturbing to me is that I can't say these feelings I have are the product of any pressure to be married from the outside. They are the product of a natural longing the majority of women throughout the ages have had. I have been oppressed by no one into thinking I'm lesser for being single, but I have to admit I do feel somewhat unfulfilled and incomplete. There's more to life than just earning a paycheck or having the luxury of painting your toenails at three in the morning (I always laugh when I read articles on the so-called advantages of singlehood- as if things like ordering takeout or rearranging furniture on a whim can take the place of a the satisfaction of marriage and motherhood!) While I don't believe marriage is a cure-all and singleness is a curse, I do believe that this generation has perhaps too quickly dismissed the natural patterns and longings of womanhood to our everlasting regret. Why would a job-any job- give anywhere near the same level of delight as having and raising a child? A job can be gone in an instant, but I've never heard of a mother being downsized. Unappreciated, at times, yes- but God knows we've all felt that on the job, too! And why should marriage spell the end of our identities and creativities? An awful lot of men out there can be quite wonderful and supportive. In my experience, most men have been far more forgiving of me and generous with me than I've been of myself (or other women, for that matter). To avoid half the population because of a few undesirables is about as ridiculous as avoiding breathing because of the possibility of air pollution. To those who have no interest in men, marriage and motherhood-fine, by all means, skip them. But let those of us who want those things be free to choose them without feeling like we're weak-willed wimps because of it. It's ironic that the generation of women hell-bent on "having it all" may in the end have less satisfaction than any generation prior.Crittenden has given women a lot to consider- and reconsider. I thank her for articulating so well the secret longings of single women's souls.

Realistic; visionary; possibly life-changing

"What Our Mothers Didn't Tell Us" absolutely stuns me. Aside from the author's obvious felicity with words, and the depth and breadth of her knowledge, I found myself pretty much shocked as I went from chapter to chapter. Simply put, Ms. Crittenden has done an excellent job of research and of drawing ideas to their logical conclusions. Based upon hundreds of interviews, and what were probably endless hours at the Library of Congress reading tome after tome about the conditions of women, Ms. Crittenden has written a policy book that I believe every couple should read--both the man and the woman. Single people in their twenties and thirties should read it--it will starkly clarify for you much of how the world works. But reader beware: cheesy as this may sound, the honesty of the book is not for those whose minds are caulked by ideology. You will find yourself challenged. But ultimately, Ms. Crittenden writes with what seems to be unanswerable logic, and also with great heart. I truly hope that this book sets off the national debate that it should.