Working and Caring

The central conflict in women's lives today, the author notes, is between working and caring. Pragmatic and efficient in the workplace, a woman must be flexible in providing the time and care necessary in raising a child. Professor at Harvard Medical School and chief of the Child Development Unit at Boston Children's Hospital, Brazelton has much experience of the working/caring conflict and here examines ways to resolve it, offering commonsense guidelines along with a pediatrician's expertise. There are critical stages of mothering, and returning to a job must be very carefully timed, he explains. A ""more involved and more motivated'' father is crucial to a child's development and to anchoring today's ``families without a culture'' in stability. Advice on choosing day care, handling crises, dealing with pressure, illness, and the ever-present lack of time is interspersed with compelling narratives of three families who confront the working/caring problem. This is a valuable book, made so by its realistic, intelligent approach. Author tour. October 28