Single or married working mothers are if not the norm no longer exceptional.These days women who stay at home to raise their children seem to be making aradical... » 

Single or married working mothers are if not the norm no longer exceptional.These days women who stay at home to raise their children seem to be making aradical lifestyle choice. Indeed the women at the center of The Paradox ofNatural Mothering have renounced consumerism and careerism in order to reclaimhome and family. These natural mothers favor parenting practices that set themapart from the mainstream home birth extended breast feeding home schoolingand natural health care. Regarding themselves as part of a movement naturalmothers believe they are changing society one child one family at a time.Author Chris Bobel profiles thirty natural mothers probing into their choicesand asking whether they are reforming or conforming to womens traditionalrole. Bobels subjects say that they have chosen to follow their nature ratherthan social imperatives. Embracing such lifestyle alternatives as voluntarysimplicity and attachment parenting they place family above status andpersonal achievement. Bobel illuminates the paradoxes of natural mothering theways in which these women resist the trappings of upward mobility but acquiesceto a kind of biological determinism and conventional gender scripts. «