The Mother Mirror

How A Generation of Women Is Changing Motherhood in America

Available in hardcover.

A journalistic portrait of motherhood, its joys, challenges and obligations as told to Nancy Rubin by 400 women from Long Island to San Francisco that illustrates one of the era’s most challenging dilemmas.

How can a young mother balance her work life with that of raising children?

Should she remain at home while they are young, work part-time or return to the workplace soon after giving birth? Do stay-at-home mothers or those who work part-time raise better children? Or is it wiser to avoid the “mommy track” in lieu of a fast-track career and let day care, household workers and after-school programs raise those youngsters?

Should she postpone pregnancy until her late 30s or early 40’s — accepting the liklihood that fertility drugs, in vitro pregnancy or even surrogate motherhood may be the only way she will become a mother?

The answers to these dilemmas are as complex today as when The Mother Mirror was published in 1984.

Praise from the Experts

“Rubin argues that the new maternal style “the mother manager” is a role whose time has come and …the sacrificial madonna figure of the past is outmoded… In a superb closing chapter, the author offers plenty of wise advice on how to achieve this balance. The Mother Mirror is a watershed work on one of the most significant cultural developments of the ’80s.”

Cultural Information Service

“Rubin does an excellent job of describing the data that define the reality –including some surprises, such as the benefits of being raised by a single mother.”

Library Journal

“A look back to the old ways precedes probing of the new; single mothers, late-life motherhood, surrogate mothers, etc. Rubin is skilled at illuminating women’s dilemmas, at identifying the conflicts inherent in today’s mothering.”

Publishers Weekly