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Melissa Ludtke
On Our Own
Unmarried Motherhood in America
$26.95, £15.95 paperback
978-0-520-21830-7
Available Now
483 pages, 6 x 9 inches, 1 graph
March 1999, Available worldwide
Categories: Sociology; Women's Studies; Social Problems; Psychology; Public Policy
March 1999, Available worldwide
Categories: Sociology; Women's Studies; Social Problems; Psychology; Public Policy
"Of all the changes that have marked the second half of this century, the most profound has probably been the erosion of the traditional family. . . . [Ludtke] is at her writerly best describing the agonizing decision to become a single parent, the emotional discussions with her own parents and the sadness she felt imagining a fatherless child. She is at her journalistic best sifting through the research on single motherhood."—Tamar Lewin, New York Times Book Review
"Ludtke . . . conducts an illuminating tour of the profound social and moral changes that have occurred over the past generation, as played out in the lives of more than thirty women, including herself. . . . Ludtke's book is a lesson that . . . intensely personal storytelling coupled with solid research can illuminate a topic in ways that more traditional journalism may not."—Dale Mezzacappa, Boston Globe
"Ludtke . . . conducts an illuminating tour of the profound social and moral changes that have occurred over the past generation, as played out in the lives of more than thirty women, including herself. . . . Ludtke's book is a lesson that . . . intensely personal storytelling coupled with solid research can illuminate a topic in ways that more traditional journalism may not."—Dale Mezzacappa, Boston Globe
"Ludtke brings the voices of women having children on their own into a public debate from which these voices have been conspicuously absent. Interweaving their voices with her own savvy and intuitive commentary, she has written a vitally important book."—Carol Gilligan, author of In a Different Voice
The U.S. has experienced a dramatic increase in births to unmarried women in recent decades—from 4% of births in 1950, with most of the babies then adopted, to more than 30% today. Melissa Ludtke's book is the only in-depth analysis of this radical change in family formation to compare and contrast the lives of these mothers of varying ages and economic circumstances.