A unique window on the future of the family, this book offers a gold mine of insight and reassurance for any woman contemplating having children outside of marriage.
A remarkable number of women today are taking the daunting step of having children outside of marriage. In Single By Chance, Mothers By Choice, Rosanna Hertz
offers the first full-scale account of this fast-growing phenomenon, revealing why these middle-class women took this unorthodox path and how they have managed to make single parenthood work for them. Hertz interviewed 65 women—ranging from physicians and financial analysts to social workers, teachers, and secretaries—women who speak candidly about how they manage their lives and families as single mothers. What Hertz discovers are not ideologues but reluctant revolutionaries, women who—whether straight or gay—struggle to conform to the conventional definitions of mother, child, and family. Having tossed out the rulebook in order to become mothers, they nonetheless adhere to time-honored rules about child-rearing. As they tell their stories, they shed light on their paths to motherhood. A unique window on the future of the family, this book offers a gold mine of insight and reassurance for any woman contemplating this rewarding if unconventional step.
is Professor of Sociology and Women's Studies at Wellesley College and author of “More Equal Than Others ”(California, 1990). Nancy L. Marshall is Senior Research Scientist at the Wellesley College Center for Research on Women.