How Dr. Laura’s book changed my life
I was home for spring break in college in 1994, two months before my graduation from UC San Diego. I had a lot on my mind at that time, from where I would live, whether I would get a teaching job in San Diego, if my boyfriend and I would stay together after graduation, all the usual twenty-something stressors that occupied my thoughts. When I was channel surfing one afternoon I became intrigued by a guest on “The Phil Donahue Show,” Dr. Laura Schlesinger, who would soon become much more controversial for the views she expressed in her first book Ten Stupid Things Women Do to Mess up Their Lives, which she was on the show to promote. I could tell by the body language of the women in the audience that Dr. Laura was not in a “friendly’ room. She had touched a nerve with this audience and I was intrigued. Some of her views on relationships seemed a little rigid at first, especially after my four years at a huge public university, but I was surprised at the level of hostility directed toward her points of view, especially when it came to where small children spend each day, whether they are at home with a loving parent or in childcare. The audience was filled with women who generally defended the position that the importance of their work superceded the importance of where the kids spent the day. Dr. Laura’s book was not about moms specifically, but the audience that day was not at all receptive to her point of view that the care of a loving parent was the best place for a growing child.
I still remember the interaction:
Dr. L aura: “Okay, okay, I have a question for the audience. All right, all of you are going to die right now and you’re going to be recycled right now, and you can choose whether or not you want to come home or back to life with a babysitter, a nanny, or a day care center, or a loving mother. Stand up if you would choose one of the first three.”
As I recall, nobody got up.
That interaction stuck with me. When I became a mom twelve years later, I remembered that Dr. Laura’s comments when I considered work and family-which is a post for another time.
After the show, I bought the book, mostly because I thought that if she pissed off so many modern women, she is either entirely antiwoman or she must be on to something. The “stupid things” Dr. Laura referred to in her book were stupid attachment, stupid courtship, stupid devotion, stupid passion, stupid cohabitation, stupid expectations, stupid child conception, stupid subjugation, stupid helplessness, and stupid forgiving.
Stupid cohabitation was a chapter I would read intently, and I am glad I did.
Several friends of mine were living with their boyfriends. They seemed happy and I really had no opinion (nor was I asked for one) about their cohabitation. However, I knew that arrangement probably would not have worked for me for a few reasons:
● I didn’t see it as a plus for me if I wasn’t married or even engaged. I didn’t want to deal with his post-shaving hairs in the sink or a toilet seat left up if I did not have a ring on my finger. Although I hated the question “Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?” -me being the cow-I did not want my “milk” to be given away, even to the man I loved.
● I wasn’t ready to get married yet, so living together even as an engaged couple wouldn’t make sense for me.
● My mom’s cousin lived with his girlfriend for at least three years, and then they tied the knot. Living together was not a practice for marriage for them (and I do not think for anyone, actually) and they divorced after two years. Other factors played a role in their split, but the daughter they created from their brief marriage certainly deserved better. I was a kid when they lived together, and I remember it seemed so adult-but now it seems like an immature step at least for the woman if she’s hoping that living together will lead to marriage. Marriage has a permanence that living together does not have.
Greg and I never seriously discussed living together after graduation, but I wouldn’t have anyway. The chapter in Dr. Laura’s book cemented my belief that, for me, cohabitation without a ring and a wedding date really was a “stupid” thing that would mess up my life.
I still listen to Dr. Laura when her show is on and I am driving. I don’t agree with Dr. Laura about everything, but seeing how her views were attacked on that talk show made me realize that there are a lot of women that think differently about life, love, and raising children than I did-and that’s alright.
