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Reviews
Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood Before Marriage by Kathryn Edin, Maria J. Kefalas
derrickthecarrot's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.5
provaprova's review against another edition
4.0
Incredibly sobering, explains a lot about inner-city illegitimacy, and the best thing I've read about the topic and why women would do something which from far away seems like a completely terrible idea.
ben_sch's review against another edition
5.0
I read this to get an understanding for the real reasons that poor people have more children, since the commonly repeated stories seemed suspicious. The author's did a great job with their interviews in showing the causes using the actual decisions and thought processes of the people making them. It doesn't leave anything much desired. While it is slightly repetitive, and low on theory, it gets 5 stars for changing what I want out of life.
rachelb36's review against another edition
3.0
I didn't care for the format of this book. The authors interviewed/followed 162 women, and they organize the book by subjects. Then they quote multiple women on each page and have to give their background each time they're mentioned, which was repetitive and made it rather impossible to see a woman's story as a whole.
In summary, a few reasons poor, young women put motherhood before marriage:
- Children are viewed as essential to a good life, a way to give mothers respectability and purpose.
- Early pregnancy (even in young teens) does not diminish their future prospects much, if at all, as many of these girls were already headed in bad directions (dropping out of school before getting pregnant, using drugs, being very promiscuous, etc.) and didn't view college/careers as attainable, anyway.
- Their men are unreliable (in financial and fidelity issues, especially) so girls tend to "test" relationships with pregnancy. The girls want to be independent in every way, so that if (or when) a relationship goes south, they are not the ones getting screwed over.
In summary, a few reasons poor, young women put motherhood before marriage:
- Children are viewed as essential to a good life, a way to give mothers respectability and purpose.
- Early pregnancy (even in young teens) does not diminish their future prospects much, if at all, as many of these girls were already headed in bad directions (dropping out of school before getting pregnant, using drugs, being very promiscuous, etc.) and didn't view college/careers as attainable, anyway.
- Their men are unreliable (in financial and fidelity issues, especially) so girls tend to "test" relationships with pregnancy. The girls want to be independent in every way, so that if (or when) a relationship goes south, they are not the ones getting screwed over.
sumayyah_t's review against another edition
3.0
Insightful, but a bit misleading. Overall, a good read.
mariaasensio's review against another edition
informative
reflective
medium-paced
3.5
Relevant to understand why poor women choose having children over marrying. Probably wouldn't need that much detail, it reads more like an academic book, but insightful conclusions!