Originally founded upon cheap fuel and free womanpower, America's suburbs are rapidly evolving -- just as have the women who live there.
Suburban women can no longer be stereotyped. No longer can they be assumed to be married stay-at-home mothers, who spend their days chaffeuring their youngsters from one sports activity to another, gardening, shopping or volunteering for local charities.
Nor are they necessarily married. Moreover, whether single, married or divorced, more than half of suburban women are working outside the home, their young children placed in day care, tended by baby sitters or involved in after-school programs.
As a result, the old tradition of suburban coffee klatches, of women volunteering for local charities, of those who proudly sign " housewife" on their tax forms have all but disappeared, as women have remained in the workforce -- and often, in surburbia's expanding businesss communities, rather than in the nearby cities.
The New Suburban Woman, published in 1982, and based upon the lives of 400 women interviewed from New York to California when the suburbs were changing from traditional bastions of home and hearth into vibrant, multi-faceted communities, captures the shock waves felt by many residents that resulted in a " cold war" between stay-at home mothers and those who worked outside the home.
The New Suburban Woman is a jounalistic snapshot of the American dream as it has evolved from a tranquil domestic retreat on the edge of the city into our preferred location for work, play and raising youth today.
