Dr. Laura,
In our area, a local newscaster had a baby girl about eight weeks ago. She is now back at work. What gets me, is she has been posting on Facebook how hard it is for her to leave her little girl. Out of the hundreds of comments, there was only one that I have seen which even touched on how important she is to her baby and how she should be the one raising her child. Almost every comment from the women who wrote to her said things like this:
"She will be fine and not even know you are gone."
Yes, she will be fine, but yes, she will miss you and all you have to give her. Babies miss their mothers but learn not to. Is that what women want?
"I feel sorry for you when people keep asking you on camera if you're ok.... When I returned I told no one to bring it up, otherwise I would cry. Lol"
LOL? Are you kidding me? It's not funny and if you are crying that is telling you something. You are not where you should be.
"Totally understand. I worked literally until the day my kids were born and back to work when they were 6 weeks old! She will be wonderful!"
Now this is something to be proud of-leaving your babies at six weeks? Is work more important than your babies? Yes, her baby might be wonderful as all babies are, but she needs her mommy too, more than women want to admit when they go back to work.
"It is hard, Mama. I will not lie. But it will get easier in time. I promise. She will get used to you being gone and you will find you are glad to be away and not being brain dead at home."
Yes, it is hard. I am glad that mom told the truth there. And I guess it does get easier, but boy do you really want her to get used to not having her mother there for her? Do you really want to be glad you are not home? And I think there are millions of women who would be insulted about the brain dead comment. Mothers are raising little people and that takes lots of brain cells.
"Stay at home with your baby. Nothing is more important to her than you and nothing should be more important to you than her. You can work part time when she is older but take this time to be a mommy or why else did you have her?"
This was the only comment out of hundreds other than mine that said anything about her being home with her baby.
And these were just a few of the comments.
I guess this was an example of concrete proof of how women are "trained" to ignore their feelings and to put work before baby. I can only imagine the choices women would make if they were exposed to more of you, Dr. Laura, and less of a society that puts so little value on them being home with the miracle they created.
Thanks for letting me vent!
Beverly
