Popular radio host Dr. Laura has released a new book strongly urging all mothers to stay at home.
Titled In Praise of Stay-at-Home-Moms, the book explains why mothers who work – either by choice or because they feel it’s necessary – are shortchanging their children, and themselves.
“My heart hurts for what these women miss and what their children miss from them,” Dr. Laura tells the Wall Street Journal. “No argument, no criticism. My heart just hurts — because when you get those pudgy arms around your neck, and being told you’re someone’s lullaby — the fact that a woman would miss that is so, so sad.”
She says that while women may find it financially difficult to stay at home – particularly in these tough economic times – it’s just a matter of setting priorities and making it happen.
“One thing I’ve been happy as peach pie about — because I’m all about the children and the happiness of a woman because that makes the happiness of the home — is that nannies, day cares and babysitters are all collapsing, which is forcing moms and dads to raise their children at home…. A home should be more than just a place to park yourself after a frenzied day of too much work. So even though there’s less cash, people seem to be happier,” she says.
Though she says that preferably women should “never” return to work after becoming mothers, Dr. Laura says that if the family prefers, the father can stay at home instead – after the children are of a certain age.
“I recommend that during the first three years, the mom should be at home because all of the research shows that the person whose body you come out of and whose breast you suck at, at that stage, really needs to be the mom — unless she’s incompetent, irrelevant and immaterial. After that, flip a coin.”
As for what she’d like to tell women who are reluctant to leave the workforce, Dr. Laura says:
“I tell these women to look in their children’s eyes. When your husband comes home, wrap your body around him at the door and look at his eyes. What people need to learn is that it’s not about the drudgery of housework — it’s about being at home for all of those incredible moments that make your life more valuable than the person who replaced you at work. No one can replace mom. Kids who don’t have moms suffer a lifetime.”
Herself a mom of one, Dr. Laura says that while she did return to work after her son entered school, she arranged her schedule so that she could always be home with her child.
What do you think of Dr. Laura’s insistence that moms shouldn’t work?
Via Babyrazzi
