A few weeks ago the company I’m contracting at brought in Lisen Stromberg to talk about and answer questions about her book, “Walk Pause Thrive – How To Pause For Parenthood Without Killing Your Career”. It’s always great to have an author his or her work to get a better understanding of it, so that and the subject matter gave me extra motivation to read and review this book.
When I heard Lisen speak it was obvious that this, who parents could take a significant amount of time from their careers to be full time parents without a career to come back to is one near and dear to her heart is it something she did once briefly and once for a longer term following the births of her children.
The passion for the topic is evident in the extensive research conducted and presented in the book. She includes historical data for several decades, information on how the corporate culture does and does not allow flexibility for parents in this country and others, stories from women and men she interviewed and some of hers and her husband’s experiences. If anything there is too much information making it have more of a textbook feel than the author may intend.
My favorite part of the book was the personal stories of the parents, mostly the mothers, and how pausing did and did not work for their careers and in some cases how they chose to leave industries entirely and or start their own businesses. I wished there were more of them especially those of the men for balance.
As I’d asked Lisen about whether she had interviewed any of the kids and learned she had not, I knew not to expect it in the book. I did then and still do think it would have been a good inclusion along with asking the respondents how their parents choices about this may or may not have influenced them in their own choices.
Though she summarized each of the interview questions she asked yet did not include the full questions and order they were asked in I was puzzled as how a question is asked and even it’s placement in an interview can make a huge diffenece to the results.
The book tackled and interesting and relevant topic, yet doesn’t use the most interesting ways of presenting her results.
Rating – two and a half baby booties out of five
~ Danielle
Over 40 First Time Mom 