A mother's place

by Susan Chira

A leading New York Times journalist documents and debunks society's backlash against working mothers and presents a new vision of motherhood. A Mother's Place, which evolved from a series of frontpage articles that Susan Chira wrote for the New York Times, exposes the distortions that have wrongly convinced many women that "good mothers stay at home." Chira demonstrates how women can challenge the conventional wisdom and strike the balance that best suits them and their children. Reviewing the latest scientific research, Chira shows that, contrary to popular belief, children of working mothers turn out just as well as those raised by mothers who stay home, and she explains how the media, the courts, and politicians distort this data to suit their own agendas. The reality that most experts have chosen to ignore, Chira argues, is that a mother's happiness and satisfaction have a much more profound effect on her children than whether or not she works.