Paying attention to caregiving

Another good review of Anne-Marie Slaughter’s Unfinished Business has just appeared, this one at Books and Culture by Andrea Palpant Dilley, who has also written on the subject at Faith & Leadership.  Check it out!  Here’s how it begins:

In season four of The Good Wife, the character Patti Nyholm strides into the court room with a toddler slung over her shoulder and before sitting down in the prosecutor’s chair, hands her off to a male caretaker. The judge clears his throat. “Welcome, ma’am,” he says. “I see you have some, uh, accoutrement with you.” Nyholm looks impish and triumphant—as if to say, I’m not supposed to bring my kid to work, but I just did. ….Fantasy aside, the question underlying these scenes is a complex, painful one that dogs many of us who live and work in the developed world. How do we integrate family and career in an age when the office—separated from the home—is still the main space for economic productivity?  [Read more.]