Opting In

"The Mommy Wars, it seems, will never be over. Working moms and stay-at moms each have valid reasons for the choices they make, yet they never seem to tire of arguing about them. Out of this continuing contretemps have come many interesting books, and a recent is Opting In . . . It was written to respond to the so-called 'Opt-Out Revolution' of 2004 that claimed highly educated women were foregoing careers for motherhood."—Carole Goldberg, The Hartford Courant 

"Opting In succeeds as a reader's digest of current feminist dilemmas and solutions: career, the biological clock, birthing, division of labor between fathers and mothers, the impact of motherhood on friendships, the impact of our mothers' mothering on our own. And by including more than glancing references to women who are neither white nor wealthy, the book avoids the booby trap that has distanced the women's movement from its intended beneficiaries . . . Opting In will find a place in the libraries of women—and men—who are perplexed by the paradoxes of modern motherhood but find the classic works of feminist pioneers too long, too theoretical or just plain too old. The book darts hither and yon like a flashy hummingbird, spreading the seed of post-feminist feminism in a style well suited, sadly, to our pop-up, wiki-fied, attention-deficit world."—Meredith Maran, San Francisco Chronicle

"Amy Richards' book draws its title from a much-discussed and much-dissed 2003 New York Times Magazine story about highly educated women 'opting out' of the workforce to raise their kids. But Opting In goes beyond rebutting that flawed article. Instead, it seeks to bridge the perceived divide between feminism and motherhood. Employing an engaging mix of cultural analysis, personal anecdotes, and interviews, Richards tackles hot-button topics including fertility, childbirth, men's role in parenting, and women's relationships with their mothers. Richards, the coauthor of the third-wave-feminist call-to-arms Manifesta and the parent of two kids, describes her struggles with common conundrums like reconciling professional ambition and family obligations, and picking the ‘right’ way to give birth. She opts for self-employment, which allows her to work flexible hours at home and share child-care shifts with her partner, and chooses to have an unmedicated birth in a hospital. She's refreshingly honest about her choices without oversharing—no small feat in the tell-all era. She's also candid about the missteps and inconsistencies that color perceptions of feminism, such as how efforts to liberate women from biological inequalities have led to the unwitting marginalization of mothers . . . A convincing case for the necessity of living our politics if we want to see change. That means going beyond lamenting the unequal division of household work, or lobbying for better maternity- and paternity-leave benefits: We need to renegotiate our domestic relationships and unapologetically use every last minute of that parental leave."—Rachel Fudge, Mother Jones

"A single, female friend once complained about antiwar protestors who began political declarations with, 'As a mother, I . . .' Why she demanded, should motherhood, frame everything you do or think? It shouldn't, says Amy Richards in Opting Out: Having a Child Without Losing Yourself. But Richards also warns mothers against downplaying that part of their identity, since this can reinforce society's chronic undervaluation of a mother's role. Her book is a temperate rebuttal to Lisa Belkin's 2003 New York Times Magazine article 'The Opt-Out Revolution,' which claimed the country's most educated women were increasingly ditching careers for motherhood. Using case studies culled from popular media and a slew of interviews, Richards draws out complexities such trend stories gloss over. The resourceful women she quotes represent limitless possible ways of balancing work and family. Many speak frankly of compromises and frustration—this woman works part-time to pay a full-time nanny; that one resents that her single sister won't babysit—but the book's message is buoyant overall. Most compellingly, Richards argues that motherhood should only increase a woman's passion about the fate of the world outside her family. 'Feminism is a sense of fairness,' she writes in her introduction, exhorting women to make every fight for justice their own."—Bust 

"With Opting In, Amy Richards does an impressive job of showing just how many ways there are for modern women to make motherhood work for them. Richards powerfully reminds us that although these are seemingly isolated 'domestic' negotiations, women open up the work-life balance not only for other women, but for men and for generations of young people to come."—Veronica Chambers, author of Having It All? Black Women and Success