From National Book Award finalist Megan K. Stack, a stunning memoir of raising her children abroad with the help of Chinese and Indian women who are also working mothers
When Megan Stack was living in Beijing, she left her prestigious job as a foreign correspondent to have her first child and work from home writing a book. She quickly realized that caring for a baby and keeping up with the housework while her husband went to the office each day was consuming the time she needed to write. This dilemma was resolved in the manner of many upper-class families and large corporations: she availed herself of cheap Chinese labor. The housekeeper Stack hired was a migrant from the countryside, a mother who had left her daughter in a precarious situation to earn desperately needed cash in the capital. As Stack’s family grew and her husband’s job took them to Dehli, a series of Chinese and Indian women cooked, cleaned, and babysat in her home. Stack grew increasingly aware of the brutal realities of their lives: domestic abuse, alcoholism, unplanned pregnancies. Hiring poor women had given her the ability to work while raising her children, but what ethical compromise had she made?
“As someone who lived and raised a family overseas for over a decade, the topic of this book immediately caught my attention. I grappled with my own choices about working in a challenging full-time career and being home to raise my children; as women around the world do everyday. Like Ms. Stack, I had the opportunity to take advantage of plentiful inexpensive domestic help thanks to my geographic location. I could personally relate to so much that Megan so bravely shares with her readers and I found myself whole heartedly agreeing with the trials she went through as a mom raising kids so far from your family.
What I was more surprised about is how these stories set half way around the world, would resonate with mothers in the US. Even if it is not as common to have full time domestic help, American mothers also struggle with so many difficult choices that fathers never have to make. This book covers such a deeply personal yet universal situation that you do not even need to have children of your own to understand how society has to take a much deeper look at the importance of providing new parents a better way to balance work and home life. This looks at this question and so much more, in a highly personal and enjoyable way.” – Amazon review
Condition: Great lightly used condition
Paperback
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