By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.
Conservative mouthpiece Dr. Laura Schlessinger has a new book out called In Praise of Stay-At-Home Moms.
She wrote about it in the Wall Street Journal online this week, glorifying her own ability to pursue a successful career and raise her child simultaneously, apparently never resorting to outside daycare. She also didn't miss the opportunity to slam what she calls überfeminists:
During 2007 a spate of überfeminist authors laid guilt on women who didn't abandon their children to "other care," lest they do the universe and their children actual harm (no, I'm not kidding nor exaggerating) by staying home with them. All the morning television talk shows glorified, in a largely one-sided manner, of course, that necessary course of action to avoid a woman wasting herself in the mire of her children's needs and her husband's desires.
I'd like to point out two things about Dr. Schlessinger's situation that makes her come off as more than somewhat of an elitist, and a hypocrite. First, she was not a stay-at-home mom. She apparently took care of her child part-time, very part-time. Second, she says women can do it all if they make sacrifices. Easy for her to say making a six- if not seven-figure salary (I don't know what she earns nor do I care, but she's clearly very well paid for her efforts.) She should tell that to a shift worker in a factory or a cashier at Wal-Mart—the women don't have any control over their schedules, nor do they have the resources Dr. Laura had and has.
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