Well, it seems you have found the secret to a golden career selling books by the million and luring in listeners to your radio show – be one-sided and controversial. Get your face on every TV show that will take you and tell them how you know you are right because you lived both lives – as a career woman and as a mother. Tell them how you can separate the two, but other women should not because our children need us, especially in the first three years of their life.

The thing is, Dr. Laura, I don’t disagree with you there. I think children need us for the rest of their lives and we should always be accommodating. I think the mother-child bond transcends all others. But I believe the father-child bond is just as important, and that both parents can be providers for their families as well as caregivers for their children. I want my son to grow up supporting his wife’s decision whether she wants to stay home fulltime with her children or juggle motherhood and the career she’s studied hard for. I want my son to see that mothers can become doctors and CEOs and even presidents of great countries and still be devout caregivers to their children. I want him to understand that when he becomes a parent that his role in raising a child goes beyond bringing home a paycheck and being the great disciplinarian. He, too, should be a nurturer.

You see I’m not only black or white. I’m somewhat gray. I applaud those women who choose to stay home with their children and are fulfilled doing so. I tried to do that, but I’m not programmed that way. My desire to write again overwhelmed me, and my husband and I found a way for me to split my time between staying home with our son part time and writing the other. Those “other people” with early childhood degrees who have been “raising” my child the other part of the time have helped me socialize him and educate him in ways I could never do on my own.

Do I feel fulfilled as a woman? Yes.

Do I feel like my husband’s girlfriend? Always.

Do I feel like I have touched the soul of my kids? Every day.

And what about those mothers who have no choice but to work in order to feed and clothe their children? Are they depriving their kids? You say that every woman is capable of choosing her hours of work so that she can sandwich her job during her child’s school hours, but how realistic is that for a woman flipping hamburgers making minimum wage who is thankful for whatever hours she can get? Especially in this day and age.

But no, Dr. Laura. You’re always right, aren’t you? You hold yourself to a different standard than the rest of us, and want those of us who disagree with you to feel inadequate as a mother. Well, shame on you, Dr. Laura. Shame on you.

Source: Wall Street Journal

Photo, Amazon

Post from: Blisstree

Shame on You, Dr. Laura

Are you AP? Do you practice PD? Do you know what those letters mean, and do you care? Was your child bottle-fed, breastfed until five, eating solids at three months, having her first taste of mashed bananas at 14 months? How about elimination communication, cloth diapering, organic baby food and all the right toys? Did you try to create a Baby Einstein or let your kid move along at her own pace? Did you bathe the cord, not bathe the cord, circumcise, leave intact, did you Simonize, vaccinate, irradiate and inculcate your babekins from all and sundry? Do you feel inadequate ALL THE TIME? If you’re listening to the crap the media is spewing about motherhood, you will. Feel inadequate, I mean.

Go ahead. Turn off the TV. I dare you. Put down the newspaper, don’t listen to Dr. Phil, Oprah, Martha Stewart or Rachel Ray. Don’t take the opinion of the Blogger of the Minute As Seen on National Television as anything other than another fifteen minutes of fame. None of these people matter. Nothing the media can say, sell, or sanitize is going to help you as you try to figure out how to be a good mother. What pisses me off more than ANYTHING, though, is mothers bashing mothers.

Childbirth, child raising, and personal paths as we weave our children into our lives, are hair-trigger issues, and everyone has a different opinion. I can’t thank my mother enough for the kindness, sensitivity, and respect she showed me as I made my first, tentative steps into the motherhood fray. Instead of telling me what to do, she was genuinely interested in why I was choosing one thing over another. She supported my decision to breastfeed exclusively. She didn’t have any nasty, negative, snide comments about my fussy son’s inability to sleep through the night. She certainly didn’t freak out when I nursed him past his six month date. I wish every woman could be as thoughtful as my mother is when it comes to my choices in raising my son. She does disagree with me, sometimes (mostly she thinks I’m being too strict, which I find amazing!) but she always does so in such a way as to remind me that she’s my mother, she loves me, and I’m doing a great job. Be kind to other mothers. If you feel passionate about something, support it with all you do… but don’t condemn another woman for not leading her life the way you do. Please?

*puts away the soap box and makes her child’s lunch for tomorrow*

Post from: Blisstree

LALALALALALA I’m not listening to you anymore!