Martha McMahon asked a sample of full-time employed mothers about their experiences of becoming and being mothers. Drawing on symbolic interaction to analyze the cultural associations between motherhood, morality, and the value of children, the author comes to insightful and politically relevant conclusions. The different circumstances by which women in her study became pregnant and came to have children, the author explains, had to do not simply with the transformation of personal identities but with the reproduction of inequality through the production of babies.

The book illuminates the paradoxical character of motherhood: as both a socially determined, potentially oppressive role and one that also provides profound personal meaning that can expand the boundaries of women's lives. The author illustrates how an informed understanding of the impact of motherhood on women's identities provides an essential framework for a critique of dominant models of human relationships.