There's No Place Like Work: How Business, Government, and Our Obsession with Work Have Driven Parents from Home

by Brian C. Robertson

Confronting the abundant evidence that children suffer when their mothers leave them for the workplace, Mr. Robertson asks why it has nevertheless become the norm for mothers to work. The rise of feminism seems the obvious answer, but until the 1960s, the women's movement zealously fought against mothers' being forced to abandon their homes for wages. The important change, Mr. Robertson discovers, has been in society's view of work, which we once saw as a means of supporting family life but now pursue as an avenue of self-fulfillment. Accompanying this cultural sea-change were coercive new policies in business and government that deliberately stacked the deck against one-income families. The response of both political parties to the needs of families, Mr. Robertson shows, has been laughable. Democrats embrace the new feminist mania for working mothers, and Republicans will not threaten the corporate grip on parental priorities. He concludes with an outline of sane family policy and an account of how some intrepid men and women have prevailed against the anti-family current. Mr. Robertson takes a dim view of the scientific pretensions of much of the literature on work and family. Ideological prejudices have proved easy to hide in a forest of statistics and data. Studies and polls are useful only if the interpreter is grounded in the truth of the human person and the indispensable role of the family.

Genres: Nonfiction, Economics

224 pages, Hardcover

First published January 15, 2000

Reviews

[Kevin Heldt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent. A great survey of the societal shifts and changes of the last century or so regarding home life and the fallout.

[Go2therock · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a difficult subject this is to tackle in this day and age. I grew up knowing that the path of Motherhood was the one for me. I suppose I had PollyAnna glasses on, as I found that many of my own contemporaries had not had as clear a view for Motherhood as I'd developed, even back then in the 60's - 80's. When we bought our first house in the early 90's, finally moving out of apartments, I looked forward to getting to know the other mothers in my neighborhood. It was a shock to find only two others home with their children as well.

As I homeschooled my own three sons, the message we gave was clear, "You must prepare to be a provider, should the Lord bless you with a family." When I looked around at my friends who were raising daughters, it seemed to me that a similar message was being given. I couldn't help but wonder, "What are they telling them? How are things different in the parenting of girls? Are they?"

When we adopted our two daughters, and I found myself in the fray of this struggle. I wish I'd read this book even sooner, so as to better understand the cultural pressures at work on our kids. Being more of a 'stand against the flow' sort of person, I would have maintained our foundational beliefs in the traditional family, but I could have better addressed the challenges, as well as the goals and what is now their contrasting benefits.

I believe the core impetus for our culture's and our country's problems lies in the breakdown of the family, so on that basis, I advocate reading this book.