Posted on 08/20/2010 7:46:53 AM PDT by Brittany Pounders
I’m a long time fan of Dr. Laura. A decade ago, as a new wife and mother, I would often listen to her show and keep it on while I went about my day taking care of a newborn and getting used to being a wife and mother. As the years went by, I would pick her up on a satellite network and listen while sitting in the carpool waiting to pick up my son after school. I often agreed and other times disagreed with the responses she gave to her callers. But I enjoyed listening to the request for advice and tried to anticipate her answers before she gave them.
I always admired the way with which she just unapologetically “told it like it is.“ She didn’t hesitate to tell you that life is too short to stick your kids in daycare from cradle to the school years while you go pursue your career, especially if you could at all avoid living without that second income. I remember agreeing wholeheartedly while listening to Dr. Laura tell one lady that if she was going to have a child, she needed not to treat it as just another possession- spitting it out of her body and sticking it in daycare from 7am to 8pm, but still giving birth to it just so you could say you had one– that if she was going to make the choice to have a baby, then to run with it the whole 9 yards and make the choice to actually raise it. And even while agreeing, I had to cringe a little because I knew the howls that would follow.
Some of the calls stood out to me and 6 or 7 years later I remember one lady who was a longtime fan of Dr. Laura’s calling in and with tears in her voice thanking Dr. Laura for being willing to make the politically incorrect statements. She said her stance on motherhood changed after listening to Dr. Laura for a few years and when she had her own daughter she decided to stay at home while making the financial adjustments and sacrifices necessary in order to do so. Her voice got more and more shaky until she told Dr. Laura that her little girl had recently just died in a pedestrian/car accident. Yet, she was still able to thank Dr. Laura for that advice because she knew that she had been able to spend every single moment possible with that little girl. She didn’t live with regrets knowing that she had not put her child in daycare, like most of her friends, and not seeing her but briefly in the morning and a couple of hours in the evening before bed. Her daughter had quality of life, if not quantity, and she would be able to live the rest of her life thankful for the decision that she made.
Obviously, this isn’t a decision that every woman can make. Many women have no choice and agonize over that every day, wishing that they could stay home with their children. But, I think it is clear that Dr. Laura has always been a strong children’s advocate and always fell on the side of what would be the most ideal situation for any child and gave her advice and opinion accordingly.
She didn’t hesitate to tell wives that if they would be the kind of women that their husbands craved to come home to after work, most of them wouldn’t have to wonder if their spouse was being faithful. Oh, that was a biggie! The Feminazi groups hated that and you could hear the shrill screams for miles! And of course it wouldn’t be a cure all for every marriage, because let’s face it- some people (men and women alike) are just dogs! But, it definitely made an impact on me and I started trying to make it a habit to make sure that I didn’t look like I just crawled out of the bed everyday. She wasn’t saying that you had to go the 100 yards but we all know that a little putty and a little paint sure makes a woman what she ain’t. And as a result, I imagine that thousands upon thousands of husbands all over the country began to look forward to the drive home because “their women” took Dr. Laura’s advice to heart.
The liberal feminists have always hated her and that was a case enough to draw me in and listen to her more frequently because, as we all know, you can tell somebody by their enemies. And if the women I detested, detested Dr. Laura, I knew I was in good company.
She is a Jew who dared to say she doesn’t mind Christmas. And as the mother of a soldier, she is a huge supporter of our military and armed forces and dared to call soldiers what they are… Warriors. And for those soldier wives who would call into her show distressed, discouraged and defeated– she spoke in her no-nonsense way with encouragement and a reminder that they CHOSE to marry a Warrior and it was time to buck up and step up to the plate. And I know for a fact that her attitude and outspokenness made a difference in many soldier’s personal lives at home.
In the last few years, I lost track of Dr. Laura. She was no longer on radio stations that I could reach. So, it was with great sadness that I read the news this week that she was resigning from her radio show due to some of the comments she made that many people found offensive. I read article after article and article and became increasingly alarmed with the words I read that she used. And then I found the actual transcripts from the show, listened to it and read them through and, while I would say that it isn’t something I would have done or a word that I would agree with should ever be said, it wasn’t said in the same manner with which I had originally thought. Context is key. She didn’t use the n-word in a degrading manner towards the woman she was speaking, but quoted it as an example as what we hear on HBO or from blacks to other blacks. She wasn’t calling anyone a name.
Nevertheless, when you speak out in a politically incorrect manner and in such a provocative way as Dr. Laura has for many, many years, you have to keep above such things and stay a step or two ahead of the game. Because liberals are hypocrites. They will ignore, at all cost, the Harry Reid’s, the Robert Byrd’s, the Jesse Jackson’s, the Al Sharpton’s, the Sherrod’s, and many other notable liberal democrats. Don’t believe me? See here.
CNN reports:
While Schlessinger told King on Tuesday that she was still “regretful” over the incident, she said she feels her freedom of speech rights “have been usurped by angry, hateful groups who don’t want to debate — they want to eliminate.”
“I decided it was time to move on to other venues where I could say my piece and not have to live in fear anymore,” she said.
Schlessinger plans to expand her internet presence with her website.
“I’m not retiring. I’m not quitting,” she said. “I feel energized actually, stronger and freer to say the things that I believe need to be said for people in this country.” (Watch Video)
She added: “The reason is, I want to regain my First Amendment rights. I want to be able to say what’s on my mind and in my heart and what I think is helpful and useful without somebody getting angry, some special-interest group deciding this is the time to silence a voice of dissent and attack affiliates, attack sponsors. I’m sort of done with that.”
The point is, Dr. Laura knew that the blowout would be fierce, context would matter little, and she ended up doing the right thing. She took herself off the air because she didn’t want her sponsors and their families to suffer for something she did. It’s called self-responsibility and accountability and a lesson that liberals should apply to themselves occasionally. It would certainly be refreshing.
*For sources and hyperlinks please visit us at www.LibertyJuice.com*
Oh- and by the way, who determines the limit? you? me? them? who?
Why do most of your headlines end with an exclamation point?
I’d hit it.
No one said there was a time limit on redemption, Brittany. But there’s certainly time limit on being holier than thou and self-righteous after redemption. One would think post-redemption would be a time in which one would exercise humility about human fallibility, given that one would have had first-hand experience about how fallible one was.
Again, if you read my posts, I modified the first post - it’s not a time limit on redemption, it’s a time limit on being how mouthy about the splinter in someone else’s eye when there’s been a beam for a damn long time in your own.
Well, thanks for the comments, Cassie. I guess we’ll just have to disagree on this one! ; )
ummm, cammie. Sorry!
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