For Better, for Worse - Softcover

Squire, Susan

4.13

15 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0553373161 ISBN 13: 9780553373165

Publisher: Bantam, 1994

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Describes the complications caused by parenthood, including the medical concerns of a difficult pregnancy, career and family conflicts, and heightened cultural differences

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From Kirkus Reviews:

A remarkably absorbing series of stories about real couples dealing with pregnancy and baby's first year. Squire (The Slender Balance, 1983) selected five couples who represent a cross-section of the middle class, ranging economically from low-rung civil-service workers to high-powered professionals, geographically from Cape Cod to southern Maryland, and culturally from homogeneous high-school sweethearts to a mixed Italian Catholic-Jewish marriage in which traditions clash. The author interviewed her subjects in person and by phone at least once a week, eliciting sometimes startlingly intimate tales of their joys, dreams, frustrations, and sex lives, as well as less dramatic but at times more revealing stories of self-centered frailties and petty bickering about dishes and diapers. Some of the couples seem better matched than others but all show tenacity in trying to rebalance a relationship pushed askew by nine months of pregnancy and the advent of a baby. Especially eye-opening are the concerns of some of the husbands/fathers: regret that they cannot ``grow'' a baby; envy as they watch their wives nursing; fear of sex during pregnancy and sometimes for months after the birth. Squire organizes her material chronologically, from October 1989 through September 1991, with episodes from each couple's experience related to dates along that time line. The technique is disconcerting at first but maintains narrative tension to the end. As in a good novel, these real-life characters elicit cheers and boos, sympathy and disdain--and greater understanding of the emotional minefield walked by new parents. -- Copyright �1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Publishers Weekly:

Parenthood undeniably reshapes a marriage, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. Squire ( The Slender Balance ) here documents the changes experienced by five couples as they progress from the early stages of their pregnancies through the first postpartum year. While all live in the eastern U.S., the couples, whose identities are disguised, are diverse. Michael and Sarah, from rural New England are expecting their second child; Sam and Juliet live in New York City, where he is a well-known lawyer; Alex and Rob both have careers in sales, hers the more successful; Maria and Joe are Hispanic and adhere to traditional values, although both work outside the home; Erin and Tom are middle-class suburbanites from blue-collar Catholic families. In brief, present-tense entries, Squire provides glimpses into each couple's daily life as the pending or recent birth raises issues relating to religion, sex, career advancement, finances, the possibility of divorce and, in the case of two couples, premature and traumatic delivery. Although it often seems invasive, this account is immediate and compelling.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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