Whose Uterus Is it?

February 18, 2008 on 6:15 am | In Children, Single Moms Email This Post Email This Post

An essay by Sara Schaefer Munoz in the “Home and Family” section of The Wall Street Journal (February 12, 2008) caught my eye.  The essay, entitled “For Single Moms, Access to Better-Paying Jobs is Key,” talks about how difficult it is for single mothers to balance work/life issues. 

First of all, it never distinguishes between widowed, divorced, and never-bothered-to-be-married moms.  The issues are quite different:  insurance, spousal and child support, his extended family’s continual involvement, and so forth.  Contrast that to a woman who simply got pregnant by some guy.  The latter situation is far different and each of them requires its own newspaper column.  They are generally lumped together because of “political correctness” (no judgment and no hurt feelings), and not because the three situations vary widely due to the financial situation and the well-being of the children.

The essay did the usual by suggesting available careers and child-care possibilities.  It was the “Readers Say” portion that requires a response from me. One reader wrote: “Maybe if more men took accountability for proper birth control, there would be fewer single mothers working two jobs to make ends meet.”  I just can’t let this one go.  Oh my, are we unfairly picking on the woman?

Here’s how I see it:  it is in the woman’s body that the miracle of conception, gestation, and ultimate birth of a new human being takes place.  It is legally the woman’s prerogative to kill it or bring it to term.  No man has any legal say in the life or death of his child’s first nine months of existence.  These two facts give the woman the overwhelming preponderance of responsibility.

There are too many never-married mothers, because women have become more casual about sex (abortion is just another form of birth-control), and more casual about children (they don’t really need a daddy). The children pay the price:  no dad in the home, and they’re in day-care (which I call “day orphanages”), so momma can hopefully find a job.

So, to get back to the title of the essay, “better-paying jobs” is not the key.  Marriage is.

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Happiness is NOT the Highest Value

January 17, 2008 on 12:00 am | In Children, Commitment, Marriage, Relationships, Shacking-Up Email This Post Email This Post

Earlier this week, I got a call from a 36 year old woman who has been “shacking up” with her boyfriend for four years.  She wants to have children, but senses his ambivalence.  The answer I gave her applies to all the otherwise intelligent women who do this.

You should move out and say “I’ve decided I’ve made a horrible mistake and the next time I’m living under the same roof as a man, I’m going to be his wife!”
You don’t demand anything.  You don’t threaten anything. You act like a dignified woman, instead of an unpaid whore.  It’s as simple as that.  A man who loves and respects a woman wouldn’t treat you like that.

When I asked this caller “What would you tell your son?” at first, she didn’t understand that I was raising a hypothetical question about how she would explain this behavior to her “future” child.  She started to say, “Well, if you’re both happy, and you’re both-” and I immediately cut in and said she should not make babies.  If you’re going to do that to your kid, don’t have any.  If you’re going to tell your daughter “…as long as you’re happy and you’re screwing your brains out every night with a guy who doesn’t want to commit his life to you, it’s all okay!” - we don’t need any more parents like that. Continue reading Happiness is NOT the Highest Value…

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Give Your Children The Best Gift of All – YOU

December 22, 2007 on 9:55 am | In Children, Gifts, Toys Email This Post Email This Post

We live in a time where millions of children spend all day away from their families in facilities that have big screen TVs to amuse them, and they have caregivers for whom English is not required.  This is also the time when parents buy ever-increasing numbers of electronic gizmos to occupy their children’s time - sometimes to “make them smarter,” or to “make them buzz off,” so that busy, busy parents can have some “well-earned down time.”

Whether its TV, computer games, or hand-held devices, more and more parents are inundating even babies with all of this mass-produced “input.”  A recent study reported that about 40% of families with babies and young children keep the television on at all times.  “Always on” TV damages the children’s ability to play imaginatively and to develop language skills.  Obviously, it reduces the number of nurturing interactions between parents and children, too. Continue reading Give Your Children The Best Gift of All – YOU…

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Child Abuse More Likely in Shack-Up Relationships

December 6, 2007 on 7:00 am | In Child Abuse, Children, Relationships, Shacking-Up Email This Post Email This Post

When a woman wishes to diminish her own value (as well as that of the covenant of marriage) by cohabitating with a man who is not willing to make the vow of committing his life to her, it’s a shame.  When a woman with children does so, it too often becomes a crime.

Thirty years ago, nearly 80% of America’s children lived with both their Mommy and Daddy, who were married.  Now, only two-thirds of them do.  Of all families with children, nearly 30% are now one-parent families, up from 17% in 1977.  The net result is instability, neglect, and the likelihood that children will be in homes with adults who have no biological tie to them. Continue reading Child Abuse More Likely in Shack-Up Relationships…

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The Good Guys

November 30, 2007 on 12:50 pm | In Children, Military, Uncategorized, War Email This Post Email This Post

I read the following email from Tina on the air the other day, but it’s such a good story, particularly during this week following Thanksgiving, that I wanted to share it in this forum as well:

Dr. Laura:

I have to tell you about a recent shopping experience I had at the local Wal-Mart.  My family and I live in northern New York, just 15 minutes from Fort Drum.  This area is extremely “pro-military,” and we like it, even though I can do away with the miserable winters. 

Driving to the store, I always pass through the base, and I saw all the “Welcome Home” banners hanging on the fence, meaning that a bunch of soldiers had just come home from Iraq.  When we got in the store, I couldn’t help but notice soldiers who were shopping - the look on their faces was priceless!  These guys were happy to be shopping, happy to be alive, and happy to be home to family, friends, and community who are aware of their sacrifice and heroism.

My six year old son was sort of oblivious to all of those dressed in fatigues until we reached the Lego aisle, and he saw a couple of soldiers in his favorite section.  He said, “Look, Mommy - some good guys!!”  “Yes, I see,” I told him.  Then he asked the soldiers:  “Did you get the bad guys?”  “Yes, young man, we sure did,” they assured him. 

My son was especially excited that the good guys liked Legos, too!

Thanks.

Tina

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Don’t Buy Your Kids Toys from China This Season

November 21, 2007 on 12:00 am | In Children, China, Gifts, Toys Email This Post Email This Post

As we head into Thanksgiving, and the beginning of the biggest shopping season of the year, it’s time to take a stand regarding the kind of toys we buy our kids.  Case in point:

1. Mattell, Inc. recalled 675,000 Barbie® Accessory toys because the paint on the surface of the accessories contained excessive levels of lead.  Lead can cause learning and behavior problems and even death.

2. The Consumer Product Safety Commission recalled roughly 4 million arts and crafts toys called Aqua Dots because several children in the United States and Australia were hospitalized after swallowing some of the toy’s beads.  The beads had a chemical coating that evidently was related to GHB, the “date rape” drug.

3. An additional 175,000 Curious George plush dolls made by Marvel Toys were recalled because of lead on the toys’ plastic faces.

This past summer, the toy industry recalled more than 22 million toys because of serious danger issues.  The common denominator seems to be that all these toys are made in China.  China is the world’s number one producer of toys, due to cheap labor and manufacturing costs.  While the world’s governments lazily deal with tougher controls to intercept dangerous toys before they hurt our children, how about we parents taking control and only purchasing toys made in the U.S.A. this holiday season?  We should be supporting our own economy anyway.

If you don’t know how to find toys made in the USA, here’s a start - a parent single-handedly took up the charge and created a website that links to USA-made toys.  toysmadeinamerica.com/.

If you want detailed information on toys that have been recalled by the US Consumer Product Safety Commission, you can find a list of all the latest recalls at http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/category/toy.html.

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Helping Children During and After the Fires

October 26, 2007 on 1:03 pm | In California, Children, Fires Email This Post Email This Post

      Like most people in this country, I have been glued to the television coverage of the fires raging through San Diego, Orange County, Los Angeles, etc.  Unlike many of you, I just need to look out my kitchen window to see and smell the eerie smoky brown sky that hangs over my neighborhood.  From this vantage point I can understand the fear and shock that is consuming the millions who are experiencing up close and very personally the ravages of Mother Nature.  
      Much of the California coastline is burning.  Almost one million people have been evacuated and over one thousand homes and some communities have been burned to the ground.  An unknown number of people have died and scores have been injured; mostly firefighters. Continue reading Helping Children During and After the Fires…

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