The Double Burden: Three Generations of Working Mothers

Through a series of portraits that reach across different class, ethnic and generational experiences, this film speaks eloquently to the diversity of pains and pleasures of working motherhood.

The Double Burden will certainly stimulate lively classroom discussion. It is a perfect length and terrific for courses on the family, on women, and on racial and ethnic diversity.

Working mothers are the subject of filmmaker Marlene Booth's interesting multi-generational look at women who found ways to balance their need (and often desire) to work with the responsibilities of being a mother. As a working mother, herself, filmmaker Booth recalls reading horrendous comments in child-raising books about young children separated from their mothers who would turn to "delinquency, deviant behavior, and crime." Rubbish, to be sure, but disturbing to a young mother in a society that somewhat encourages guilt over sending children to day care. A loving look at working women, The Double Burden: Three Generations of Working Mothers is highly recommended.