What Our Mothers Didn't Tell Us, by Canadian author Danielle Crittenden, is now into its fourth printing in the U.S.
The book, deemed a "perceptive critique" by the widely respected Wall Street Journal, is kicking up a ruckus with feminists on both sides of the border. As someone who's followed Dani's admirable career from the sidelines, hip, hip horray!
Luckily for me, Dani was the first reporter I met at the Toronto Sun, when editor Sean McCann assigned me the desk beside hers on my first day at work.
Dani was a young journalist who took reporting seriously. Even back then she stood out as someone not afraid to speak her mind.
The most indelible memories taken away by myself from those long ago Sun days originate from a young, irrepressible Dani. Back then, when we indulged ourselves in the dubious habit of stopping to pull grotesque faces at the windows of the executive offices en route to the cafeteria, we were only a little mortified to discover that the one-way windows afforded the brass a full view of our face- pulling routines.
When she left for Bermuda, Dani's friend crime reporter Lee Lamothe and myself actually wiped each other’s tears away at her Natasha's going away party. We were soon in laughing mode again, when reporting for a Bermuda paper Dani was called "that meddlesome bitch" by Bermuda's PM of the day, all for trying to crack an exclusive old-boy men’s club.
Now feminists are incensed all because Dani wrote a book based on the thesis that women who disregard their feminine nature that craves "children, family, companionship and love" will lead lives that are less happy than those who accept this natural function.
As Dani's stepfather Peter Worthington mused, "what's so radical about suggesting kids are better off if they're raised by their mothers instead of daycare centres?"
Dani, who provides ongoing mental stimulation by editing the thought-provoking Women's Quarterly, is the mother of a small son and daughter. The first day I met little Miranda, she was barely walking, but she still insisted on pushing her own stroller, while warning her mother and me about the necessity of exercising care while crossing the busy corner at Bay Street.
A genious with metaphor, Dani amused all in a letter she wrote home from a quiet waterside spot in Bermuda, where she said the blow fish swimming below were "faintly reminiscent of (Sun publisher) Doug Creighton".
A working writer since the tender age of 14, Dani has conducted CBC broadcasts from South Afrida, reported from China, had articles from Cuba published in the Globe and Mail, and has had op-ed pieces published in the New York Times, Daily Telegraph, Wall Street Journal, Saturday Night and Washington Post, to name a few.
Over the years, we've kind of lost touch, but I follow Dani's career with pride.
A couple of years ago, reporter Moira Macdonald asked me to fill in for another journalist as a speaker for the Centre for Investigative Journalism, where Dani and Barbara Amiel had gone long before me.
Off I went, armed with what I thought was an upbeat speech full of hope and inspiration, detailing how if an Our Toronto could make it in a city as competitive as Toronto, the sky is the limit for upcoming journalists.
The address was to be followed by questions from the floor. The very first question went something like this:..."Judi McLeod, where were you when I was being harrassed in the early 1980s on the newroom floor of Company X?" Within a heartbeat, I responded: "In my diapers..."
The young up and coming journalists in the front row, burst into laughter. Old guard members like Judy Rebick and Michelle Landsberg were not so highly amused.
Event organizers were so cheesed that a conservative reporter had been asked to fill in as a speaker that it was made known that my assistant Brian Thompson and myself would be less than warmly welcome at the dinner to follow. Thompson, one of only two males in the room during my address, and myself were much happier to head off on our own to the hotel bar.
Dani, who put on a much braver front when she made her address to the same group, would have approved.
Journalist, book editor Mom Yvonne Crittenden is not the only one proud of the author of What Our Mothers Didn't Tell Us.
As far as outstanding contemporary Canadian authors go, Dani is at the top.
Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com
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