gracef's Full Review: Dr. Laura Schlessinger - Como Cuidar y Tener Conte...
I'm a lucky girl. After nearly 14 years of marriage, I can still say my husband is a keeper. He frequently does things simply because he knows they will please me. He brings me flowers at least once a month, sometimes more. He supports me when I need it and helps out around the house daily. He even asks about things on Epinions, not because it means anything to him but because he knows it interests me. He's not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but he is a good man. I feel lucky that he still loves me after all this time.
According to Dr. Laura Schlessinger's book The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands, I should feel REALLY lucky. In her opinion, my marriage shouldn't work at all. We're doomed for divorce. If my husband doesn't hightail it out of here with some young thang soon, it will be a miracle, and if it does happen, it will be all my fault.
Dr. Laura Schlessinger (or Dr. Laura, as her listeners call her) is a well-known radio talk show host. She bills herself as a psychologist, though her Ph.D. is in Physiology rather than Psychology. She is best known for her blunt opinions and for her anti-gay, anti-feminist rants. She has been described as rude, arrogant, hypocritical, and dishonest. In the few times that I've listened to her show, I've found her provocative but not always in a bad way. I even agreed with her rants at callers regarding live-in relationships ("If you want marriage, why are you living with him? Why would he buy the cow when he gets the milk for free?") and other odd situations ("Why on earth should your wife forgive you for screwing her sister? You want her to thank you?"). I really can't stand her homophobic rhetoric, though. So the few times that I listened to her was more than enough for me.
I didn't read The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands because I felt that I needed a book on marriage advice. I read it because I wanted to satisfy my curiosity. I had read a news article last fall that said that Dr. Laura would make the brash claim that a woman should give her husband sex whenever he wanted it, regardless of whether the woman was in the mood. I couldn't believe it! Would anyone really say that? It would be like saying that a woman has no right to say "No." At the time, I talked about this with some of my guy friends and my husband. While a few of them (husband included) wiggled their eyebrows and said, "Great idea!" all of them (husband included) seriously felt that this would be kind of icky. Sex for them wouldn't mean anything if they felt like they had forced their significant other to do the deed. So I wanted to see for myself. Sure, Dr. Laura is known for saying stupid things about gays, but was Dr. Laura really that stupid?
The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands is a short, easy read. Using excerpts from listener letters and calls, Dr. Laura explains what a woman needs to do to keep a happy husband. At its most basic level, the advice that Dr. Laura gives in the book isn't terribly bad. Some of it is exactly what I've found makes my marriage work. Men are really pretty simple creatures. A wife needs to show her husband that he is needed and that what he wants matters. A wife needs to respect her husband and not concentrate on his every fault. She must choose her battles and realize that she can't win them all. She must make sure that the husband isn't always the lowest priority and is often the highest priority.
However, Dr. Laura's problem has always been the extremes to which she carries her ideas. The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands is no different. In Dr. Laura's opinion, women are the cause of most failed marriages. All that is required for a happy marriage is to understand what a man needs. A wife must make her husband feel like a hero and the king of the household. A wife doesn't need to feed the husband as much as she needs to feed his ego. Once he feels like he can conquer the world, he will do anything and everything that his wife wants.
That's not all bad. However, the extremes to which she carries this are ludicrous. Here are a few examples:
1) When a husband comes home from work, a wife must be perfectly coiffed and have a hot dinner on the table. This will make the husband feel important.
2) When the husband comes home from work, all activity should stop so that the husband will feel noticed.
3) A wife should not complain to her husband about her day (he doesn't want to hear it because he's so tired from working and earning money all day) nor should she complain about her husband (that's disrespectful).
4) A wife should not complain when her husband wants "guy time", but the wife should not ask for or expect time away from her husband. He needs to feel appreciated.
5) If a husband wants sex, a woman should give it.
That's right. The answer to my earlier question about the book was, "Yep. She is that stupid!" In chapter six, Dr. Laura talks about sex in marriage. She points out that men often equate sexual desire with love. If the man doesn't feel sexually desired, then the man won't feel loved. That's likely not too far off. However, my agreement ends with Dr. Laura's discussion with a caller:
She hit me with a challenge. "Should I be expected to have sex when I don't want to just because he wants to?" I took a deep breath and answered, "Most of the time, yes." She was horrified and likened my response to a call for some form of sexual slavery. I reminded her that she expected him to go to work and earn money to support the family even on days when he didn't feel like it."
This is really pretty much Dr. Laura's stance throughout the book. The husband earns money to support the family, so a woman should do everything in the world she can to make the man happy. How very 1950's!
One thing that I noticed quickly is that The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands advocates a double standard. Women should make constant accommodations for men and their basic temperament and preferences, but men should not have to do the same for women. Women need to understand that men need time away and sex, but men don't have to do the same for women. A wife should understand that a husband is tired and needs some time to relax at the end of the day, but a wife shouldn't expect the same. Women need to understand that men communicate differently and feel love in different ways, but men don't have to make the same allowances. The wife must make all of the effort, while the husband just sits back and feels the love. If Dr. Laura was planning on a Proper Care and Feeding of Wives book, I wouldn't have much of a problem with it, but Dr. Laura states that she won't be doing one. What misogynistic pap!
I also felt that Dr. Laura has a low opinion of men as well as feminists. I wasn't too surprised about the anti-feminist remarks. She's fairly well known for them. In The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands, Dr. Laura goes off on quite a few anti-feminist rants, blaming feminists for the downfall of marriages. However, I was rather surprised about her insulting attitude to men. According to Dr. Laura, men are mindless egotists who are "too stupid to think and drive at the same time." It's no wonder that Dr. Laura wants to bring women back to the caveman days. She still thinks men are cavemen!
The biggest problem with The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands is that Dr. Laura doesn't attempt to see anything from any perspective but her own. Letters and calls are selected to prove her point. Never once did Dr. Laura include one that might hint that what she advocates doesn't work. She frequently mentions callers who are defensive about her responses to them. Dr. Laura takes this as proof that she was right. In more than one case, however, I think the caller has a right to be defensive. Dr. Laura started bullying the caller and blaming her for all that was wrong in the marriage before the caller even had a chance to explain the issues fully.
I know of two ladies who are prime examples of why The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands shouldn't be followed exactly. I heard their stories a year apart, but they were eerily similar. Both ladies did everything in the world that their husbands asked. They stayed at home to raise their kids. They let their husbands do what they wanted, never complaining about what all they needed to do. From the outside, it appeared that they had perfect marriages. Then one day, the ladies couldn't take it anymore. One had a nervous breakdown from what she described as "living a lie." The other one nearly did as well, I think.
Of course, Dr. Laura caveats her entire book with the explanation that what she says will work unless the man is mentally ill or otherwise not worth having. However, she fails to explain how a woman knows when to stop putting herself last.
So why do I feel lucky?
According to The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands, I should not have a successful marriage. My parents were married for 21 horrible years in which they hated each other and resented the kids for making them stick with it. According to Dr. Laura, I haven't had an example of what a good marriage should be. So what do I know?
Again, Dr. Laura can't see things from a different perspective. I think I know better than most what makes a good marriage. I was there to witness my parents' marriage. I saw what my mother did and didn't do. I saw what my father did and didn't do. I'm smart enough to process all of that and come up with some pretty good guidelines for marriage.
The truth is that marriage is a two-way street, full of compromises and sacrifices. It involves work and experimentation. Over the years of our marriage, my husband and I have worked to find a good balance. We're still working on it, and I suspect that, as we continue to change and grow, we will be working on it for years to come. That effort doesn't require either of us to change who we really are. Nor does it require me to continually prop up my husband's ego. If I followed Dr. Laura's rules, my husband would wonder where the Stepford wife came from. For us, I've little doubt it would be a recipe for divorce!
In her most provocative book yet, Dr. Schlessinger--still America s top radio talk show host--takes a look at husbands and wives after the wedding bli...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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