Forget "Having It All"
How America Messed Up Motherhood - and How to Fix It
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Narrated by:
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Amy Westervelt
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By:
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Amy Westervelt
About this listen
A clear-eyed look at the history of American ideas about motherhood, how those ideas have impacted all women (whether they have kids or not), and how to fix the inequality that exists as a result.
After filing a story only two hours after giving birth, and then getting straight back to full-time work the next morning, journalist Amy Westervelt had a revelation: America might claim to revere motherhood, but it treats women who have children like crap. From inadequate maternity leave to gender-based double standards, emotional labor to the "motherhood penalty" wage gap, racist devaluing of some mothers and overvaluing of others, and our tendency to consider women's value only in terms of their reproductive capacity, Westervelt became determined to understand how we got here and how the promise of "having it all" ever even became a thing when it was so far from reality for American women.
In Forget "Having It All", Westervelt traces the roots of our modern expectations of mothers and motherhood back to extremist ideas held by the first Puritans who attempted to colonize America and examines how those ideals shifted - or didn't - through every generation since. Using this historical backdrop, Westervelt draws out what we should replicate from our past (bringing back home economics, for example, this time with an emphasis on gender-balanced labor in the home), and what we must begin anew as we overhaul American motherhood (including taking a more intersectional view of motherhood, thinking deeply about the ways in which capitalism influences our views on reproduction, and incorporating working fathers into discussions about work-life balance).
In looking for inspiration elsewhere in the world, Westervelt turned not to Scandinavia, where every work-life balance story inevitably ends up, but to Japan where politicians, in an increasingly desperate effort to increase the country's birth rates (sound familiar?), tried to apply Scandinavian-style policies atop a capitalist democracy not unlike America's, only to find that policy can't do much in the absence of cultural shift. Ultimately, Westervelt presents a measured, historically rooted and research-backed call for workplace policies, cultural norms, and personal attitudes about motherhood that will radically improve the lives of not just working moms but all Americans.
©2018 Amy Westervelt (P)2018 Hachette AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Men on Strike
- Why Men Are Boycotting Marriage, Fatherhood, and the American Dream - and Why It Matters
- By: Helen Smith PhD
- Narrated by: Susan Boyce
- Length: 5 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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American society has become anti-male. Men are sensing the backlash and are responding. They're dropping out of college, leaving the workforce, and avoiding marriage and fatherhood at alarming rates. The trend is so pronounced that a number of books have been written about this man-child phenomenon, concluding that men have taken a vacation from responsibility. But why should men participate in a system that seems to be increasingly stacked against them?
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Finally, someone said it!
- By Stephen Reid Kidd on 11-07-17
By: Helen Smith PhD
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Generation Me
- Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled - and More Miserable Than Ever Before
- By: Jean M. Twenge PhD
- Narrated by: Randye Kaye
- Length: 12 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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In this provocative new book, psychologist and social commentator Dr. Jean Twenge documents the self-focus of what she calls "Generation Me" - people born in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. Dr. Twenge explores why her generation is tolerant, confident, open-minded, and ambitious but also cynical, depressed, lonely, and anxious. Dr. Twenge reveals how profoundly different today's young adults are - and makes controversial predictions about what the future holds for them and society as a whole.
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I mostly agree
- By David Hill on 05-25-20
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The Nordic Theory of Everything
- In Search of a Better Life
- By: Anu Partanen
- Narrated by: Abby Craden
- Length: 10 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Moving to America in 2008, Finnish journalist Anu Partanen quickly went from confident, successful professional to wary, self-doubting mess. She found that navigating the basics of everyday life - from buying a cell phone and filing taxes to education and childcare - was much more complicated and stressful than anything she encountered in her homeland. At first she attributed her crippling anxiety to the difficulty of adapting to a freewheeling new culture. But as she got to know Americans better, she discovered they shared her deep apprehension.
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A non-radical perspective on two societies
- By kwdayboise (Kim Day) on 06-20-17
By: Anu Partanen
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The Wife Drought
- By: Annabel Crabb
- Narrated by: Annabel Crabb
- Length: 7 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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'I need a wife'. It's a common joke among women juggling work and family, but it's no joke. Having a spouse who takes care of things at home is a godsend on the domestic front and an asset on the work front and is an advantage enjoyed by vastly more men than women. Full of candid and funny stories from politics and the media, The Wife Drought shares intriguing research about the attitudes pulsing beneath the surface of egalitarian Australia.
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A read for everyone
- By RubyH on 02-01-24
By: Annabel Crabb
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The Invincible Family
- Why the Global Campaign to Crush Motherhood and Fatherhood Can't Win
- By: Kimberly Ells
- Narrated by: Becky White
- Length: 7 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Socialists and feminists have long targeted the family as an enemy, even the enemy. For socialists, the family is an obstacle to the full power of the progressive state. For feminists, the family denies female independence and equality. Today, however, the battle has grown even fiercer, as socialists and feminists have found a global ally in the United Nations, which is using its extraordinary power to undercut the authority and the sanctity of the family around the world - even in the United States.
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Must read for all mothers.
- By Andrea G on 07-07-23
By: Kimberly Ells
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Unnatural Selection
- Choosing Boys Over Girls and the Consequences of a World Full of Men
- By: Mara Hvistendahl
- Narrated by: Tamara Marston
- Length: 11 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Lianyungang, a booming port city, has China's most extreme gender ratio for children under four: 163 boys for every 100 girls. These numbers don't seem terribly grim, but in 10 years, the skewed sex ratio will pose a colossal challenge. By the time those children reach adulthood, their generation will have 24 million more men than women. The prognosis for China's neighbors is no less bleak: Asia now has 163 million females "missing" from its population. And gender imbalance reaches far beyond Asia....
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Interesting idea but...
- By Seth P Dow on 07-30-15
By: Mara Hvistendahl
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The Feminine Mistake
- By: Leslie Bennetts
- Narrated by: Leslie Bennetts
- Length: 6 hrs and 29 mins
- Abridged
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Women are constantly being told that it's simply too difficult to balance work and family, so if they don't really "have to" work, it's better for their families if they stay home. Not only is this untrue, Leslie Bennetts says, but the arguments in favor of stay-at-home motherhood fail to consider the surprising benefits of work and the unexpected toll of giving it up. It's time, she says, to get the message across: combining work and family really is the best choice for most women.
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couldn't get into it.
- By diana prince on 09-21-15
By: Leslie Bennetts
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The End of Men
- And the Rise of Women
- By: Hanna Rosin
- Narrated by: Laural Merlington
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Men have been the dominant sex since - well, the dawn of mankind. And yet, as journalist Hanna Rosin discovered, that long-held truth is no longer true. At this unprecedented moment, women are no longer merely gaining on men; they have pulled decisively ahead by almost every measure. Already "the end of men" - the phrase Rosin coined - has entered the lexicon as indelibly as Simone de Beauvoir’s "second sex", Betty Friedan’s "feminine mystique", Susan Faludi’s "backlash", and Naomi Wolf’s "beauty myth" have.
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Great book, don't care for the reader's style
- By Darren on 12-05-12
By: Hanna Rosin
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Ghetto
- The Invention of a Place, the History of an Idea
- By: Mitchell Duneier
- Narrated by: Prentice Onayemi
- Length: 10 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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On March 29, 1516, the city council of Venice issued a decree forcing Jews to live in il geto - a closed quarter named for the copper foundry that once occupied the area. The term stuck. In this sweeping and original interpretation, Mitchell Duneier traces the idea of the ghetto from its beginnings in the 16th century and its revival by the Nazis to the present. As Duneier shows, we cannot understand the entanglements of race, poverty, and place in America today without recalling the history of the ghetto in Europe, as well as later efforts to understand the problems of the American city.
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Impressive
- By Jean on 12-10-16
By: Mitchell Duneier
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White Feminism
- From the Suffragettes to Influencers and Who They Leave Behind
- By: Koa Beck
- Narrated by: Koa Beck
- Length: 11 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Addressing today’s conversation about race, empowerment, and inclusion in America, Koa Beck, writer and former editor-in-chief of Jezebel, boldly examines the history of feminism, from the true mission of the suffragists to the rise of corporate feminism with clear-eyed scrutiny and meticulous detail. She also examines overlooked communities - including Native American, Muslim, transgender, and more - and their ongoing struggles for social change.
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Visionary!
- By J. F. Beck on 01-06-21
By: Koa Beck
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This Noble Land
- My Vision For America
- By: James A. Michener
- Narrated by: Arthur Addison
- Length: 7 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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This Noble Land is Michener's most personal statement about America, an examination of the issues that threaten to fragment and undermine the nation - racial conflict, the widening gulf between rich and poor, the decline of education, the inadequacies of our health care system - as well as a thought-provoking prescription for sustaining our "outstanding success". First published shortly before Michener's death, This Noble Land stands as a wake-up call for a troubled era, infused with the wisdom and passion of a lifetime.
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A startling realization
- By Amazon Customer on 08-15-15
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Disintegration
- The Splintering of Black America
- By: Eugene Robinson
- Narrated by: Alan Bomar Jones
- Length: 7 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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The African American population in the United States has always been seen as a single entity: a "Black America" with unified interests and needs. In his groundbreaking book Disintegration, longtime Washington Post journalist Eugene Robinson argues that, through decades of desegregation, affirmative action, and immigration, the concept of Black America has shattered.
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Written for Popular Consumption
- By Catherine S. Read on 06-03-11
By: Eugene Robinson
What listeners say about Forget "Having It All"
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Megs
- 12-27-18
Changing Stations in Male Restrooms
We can’t expect men to take on a more active role in our families when we set up situations where they can’t. Amy’s book is well-written and researched. One of my biggest pet peeves and something that can be so easily remedied, as she discusses in her book, is to put changing stations in men’s restrooms. This is just one of the hundreds of examples that we (both men and women) don’t do ourselves any favors. We have a long way to go, but some of these things are low-hanging fruit that we can start implementing today and would have ripple effects for years to come.
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- Sharif T Mitchell
- 05-12-21
Required reading for all parents
Although it’s a few years old it’s especially poignant now given the mass numbers of mothers currently leaving the workplace
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- Merle B
- 04-10-19
A Thorough and Well-Researched Book on The "Mom Predicament"
A Thorough and Well-Researched Book on The "Mom (and Dad) Predicament"
A few years back, I was simultaneously trying to hold on to my career, and be the primary caretaker for my 3y/o daughter.
I quickly found that while a single income couldn't sustain our household, the childcare costs needed for us both to work ended eating up most of my income. I was basically working to pay to not see my child.
So, I stayed home.
And if that wasn't enough, for the times when I *was* working, I was finding myself doing most of the physical and mental labor of raising a child *on top of* my paid job (this being the proverbial "second shift").
It was totally draining, and frankly, confusing. Women were supposed to be able to "have it all", right?
Then I had a pivotal moment. I read (author) Amy Westervelt's 2016 HuffPo article "Having It All Kinda Sucks", and suddenly it clicked. "Having it all" really meant "trying to have it all within the boundaries of a patriarchal society" - one that had no mandatory parental leave policy and no childcare assistance to allow for women to rejoin the workforce. It also dictated that women work while still taking on the brunt of the childcare duties.
As Amy says, "We still ask mothers to parent as though they don't work, and work as though they don't parent."
Which brings me to this book.
Amy has painstakingly laid out how historically, US policy has been working against the working mom, and how it continues to do so today. She explores our unrealistic expectations of mothers throughout to the decades, and how those expectations have jettisoned into the realm of "crazy" today. She talks about how "having it all" today means fitting within a framework where competition and individual success are wrongfully valued above caring and cooperation.
Most importantly though, in this book, Amy offers practical suggestions and viable solutions for fixing our current system.
Also notably, as a white women, she explores both the history and solutions through an intersectional lens, to the degree that a white women can.
This is by far one of my favorite books, and I highly recommend it to anyone; not just those who want an accurate assessment of why working moms are so stressed today, but those who want to find out how to make this country a better, stronger, more balanced place for everyone.
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- Captain Golomb
- 12-28-20
The Herstory I Never Learned in School
Information packed, this book took me a while to finish, but I'm glad I did. We may not all agree on what motherhood and fatherhood should look like, but many can agree what we are doing today isn't working well for most. This book helped me understand how we got to the present and why our assumptions about work and home and so many other life experiences need not be the only way. If enough people, not just women, but men too, read this book, we can work together to understand one another and innovate a world where both work life and home life are better for all.
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- SAN
- 10-07-23
Not what I was looking for
This book includes very little about motherhood. It is instead focused on women’s rights and government policies.
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