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Women who opt not to be mothers are frequently warned that they will regret their decision later in life, yet we rarely talk about the possibility that the opposite might also be true—that women who have children might regret it. Drawing on years of research interviewing women from a variety of socioeconomic, educational, and professional backgrounds, sociologist Orna Donath treats regret as a feminist issue: as regret marks the road not taken, we need to consider whether alternative paths for women currently are blocked off. She asks that we pay attention to what is forbidden by rules governing motherhood, time, and emotion, including the cultural assumption that motherhood is a “natural” role for women—for the sake of all women, not just those who regret becoming mothers.
If we are disturbed by the idea that a woman might regret becoming a mother, Donath says, our response should not be to silence and shame these women; rather, we need to ask honest and difficult questions about how society pushes women into motherhood and why those who reconsider it are still seen as a danger to the status quo. Groundbreaking, thoughtful, and provocative, this is an especially needed book in our current political climate, as women's reproductive rights continue to be at the forefront of national debates.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
November 16, 2021 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9781623177515
- File size: 183631 KB
- Duration: 06:22:33
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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April 10, 2017
Israeli sociologist and anthropologist Donath (Making a Choice: Being Childfree in Israel) breaks open what she describes as an “unspoken taboo,” bringing the notion that women regret becoming mothers into the public discourse with her latest research. Working from interviews with 23 Israeli-Jewish mothers ranging in age from 26 to 73 and from a variety of socioeconomic, educational, and professional backgrounds, Donath draws no broad, quantitative conclusions about how many mothers experience regret or why, but rather presents a number of subjective voices reflecting on their own experiences. The most valuable elements of the book are the different perspectives provided by the interviews, which reflect a striking amount of self-awareness (and, often, suffering) from women who have otherwise largely kept silent. Also significant are the author’s findings that regret may be influenced by external factors—whether a mother has a supportive spouse or abandoned a career to raise children, for example—but it also cuts across these lines, heralding something more intrinsic to the mothers she sampled. Her work is perhaps too academic and narrow in scope for a general readership, but Donath successfully opens the topic for further exploration.
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