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Successful Female Author Says Working Mothers Short-Change Children

By Gudrun Schultz,

Los Angeles, California, April 26, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Author Caitlin Flanagan has shaken up the world of feminism by saying working mothers deprive their children of the ideal home situation—a stay-at-home mom.

The suggestion has raised an outcry of feminist voices, but Flanagan stands by her statement.

“I said the truth, and you always get in trouble when you say the truth,” she told Samantha Grice of the National Post last week.

“I said one true thing about a little piece of American life and that is: If you love your work and you love your child and you decide to give your child less of you to go to work, you missed something big and important and so did your child.”

In her new book To Hell With All That: Loving and Loathing Our Inner Housewife, Flanagan tears down the feminist banner that says children are better served by having fulfilled mothers in the work place, over available mothers in the home.

“If I was sitting here with a feminist, she would say, ‘your kids will love this because you are so happy now! And one day they’ll know their mom was someone important in the world!’” Flanagan told the Post.

“My kids don’t give a s***,” she said.  “They are eight years old. They want their mom around and I don’t blame them.”

Flanagan challenges women to admit their secret attraction to the job of housewife, saying men who don’t care about housework as much as women are not the real problem to work-load conflicts.

“The only solution is…to say, “I’m a woman and I really care about these things and the reason I’m so angry at him is traditional homemaking might be something that I want to do.’ And if that’s true, they should unleash their inner housewife.”

Flanagan said the traditional family working arrangement, with a stay-at-home mother and a working father, has a lasting appeal for her, although she isn’t longing for a return to the 50’s.

“That idea of when you return home every day mom is there and she is happy to see you and dad comes home and everyone sits down to the table and everything is orderly. We are really attracted to that, and why wouldn’t we be?”

Read the full National Post article:
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/artslife/story.html?id=ea4011ce-1281-4b7...

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