“If You Can’t Raise Your Kids, Don’t Have Them” (Part 2)

By now you may have read about our decision to never rely on any alternative form of daycare that doesn’t involve ME.

If you haven’t, make sure to check that post from last week because this following post helps explain that decision more to those of you who may be feeling ab it judgmental or who may be curious about perhaps making that leap.

That post simply explained where I came from, and shared a bit about my history to hopefully show you that I used to think very differently compared to where I stand today. (Well, sort of: I was actually NEVER going to put my kids in daycare. Instead, I was going to rely on family while I advanced my career.)

On several occasions during the time that my then-fiancé and I decided to have me be our future kids’ “daycare,” I had started listening again to Dr. Laura Schlesinger, and her frequent statements against daycares and moms/parents who’ve come to rely on them.

Each and every time she’d explain her point of view, I’d go, “Well, yeah! That makes sense!” Or “She’s right: I shouldn’t have to leave my kids with anyone else!”

And my favorite line of hers: “If you Won’t Raise Them, Don’t Have Them!”

"If You Can’t Raise Them, Don’t Have Them"

Recently, she elaborated even more into her position in one of her opening monologues.

But I wanted to share that particular monologue with you on this post to:

a) Show you more about how I arrived to that decision

b) Explain how feminism (the modern kind) has really hurt women

c) Keep it for future reference. I like to transcribe some of her monologues for my personal journal and/or future posts

c) Hopefully inspire one or more of you who think that daycares and other alternatives to YOU raising your children is the right choice… to reconsider, which would also…

d) …save some kids.

Without going into other personal decisions we’ve made since we were courting, while we were engaged, and during our young marriage so far, I’ll conclude my intro with this: I can’t wait to serve my husband in ways that I’ve only been able to dream about for now, in the near future. And I can’t wait to raise amazing human beings who’ll go on to lead the best lives imaginable.

Without further ado, here’s Dr. Laura’s recent monologue on Daycares:

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When you’re busy with work, you stick your kids in daycare, nannies, babysitters, because you believe the bullsh*t that you can be a great mother when you’re not there mothering at all!

I’m really tired of the mommy wars, the “everybody can choose their own way.” Of course everybody can choose their own way! But if “the way” is NOT to sensibly, and lovingly, and caringly nurture your children, then you’re a sucky mother, and I don’t really care what your excuse is.

Work at night. Be tired, But don’t make your kids pay the price. You know why? Because they grow up into adults who can’t love and receive love, who can’t feel stable without being perfectionists, who have no idea what they want to do in life ’cause they’re so confused since they were never bonded to you because you were too busy being “a working woman” doing all the things YOU think YOU need for YOURSELF.

All I can say is, if you don’t want to raise your kids, don’t make babies!

I would make daycare criminal, if I could: To intentionally disengage from your kids all day and stick them in a situation where they’re NOT receiving love, the attention, the nurturing they need, to have to compete with other kids who are total strangers for every tidbit of a toy and attention, to me is sadistic. You’re being negligent and abandoning your kids.

I’d rather they were raised by wolves–wolves pay a lot of attention to their cubs.

So you can sit there and be angry, but understand you’re WRONG: Somehow you know that’s true by the magnitude of your anger.

If you were right and I was wrong, you’d just dismiss me as an idiot and that’d be the end of it. But you’re choosing to be really infuriated and argue with me because you know you’re wrong, so you’re being defensive.

[She then brings up an experience from 25-30 years ago where she was speaking to a room of a few thousand women and she told them that if they weren’t going to raise them, to not have kids. Naturally, this resulted in a lot of commotion. So she did a little experiment with them:]

“Let’s try this: In five minutes you’re all going to be dead. Don’t worry: You’re going to come back tomorrow. As a newborn. You get to choose: A nanny, a daycare center, a babysitter, or a loving mother.

“I’d like you now to stand up if you’d pick anything besides a loving mother. Stand up.

Nobody stood up! So how come for themselves, they all knew what they wanted, but they can’t be bothered doing it for their kids “because I have a career and it’s 2018 and it’s sexist.”

It’s not sexist! If you could choose for yourself, you’d want everything. But for your kids? Neglect and abandonment–that’s what putting them in daycare is.

“Well my mother’s raising them!” Or “My aunt’s raising them!” Or “My sister’s raising them!” Well, why don’t they just adopt them and keep you out of the mix? The kid has to come back and for a short period of time call YOU “Mother”?

“Oh, well, we have to have two salaries!” Really? Then you never should’ve had kids, you married the wrong person, you don’t budget right, or you don’t know whether that is even true.

[Here she tells listeners of a time where she told a couple to save the wife’s salary for a year in a separate savings account, and to not touch it for any reason during that year. They were to live on one salary. Despite their belief to the contrary, turns out they were both able to live well, with a few sacrifices, that year.]

[Another time a single mom told her she had to work because she didn’t have a man and blah blah blah. But she also lived near a sector with many tall office buildings. So she started to make and sell muffins to those people, out of a cart in which she could her kid, who would also be near her while she baked. She did it and made more than enough money to do fine.]

So instead of giving me sh!t, which does not help your kid at all, don’t waste your time: You’re not helping your kid.

Figure it out!

Now if you don’t do what I’m telling you to do, here are some of the things that are going to happen to your kids:

They tend to have a fear of attachment; they fear love. They sabotage their own relationships or become distant the minute attachment seems reasonable.

Or they hook up with somebody who’s a loser, and that’s the explanation for why they can’t be attached.

They don’t have much direction in life: They don’t know where to go or what to do because you didn’t influence them and didn’t help them develop their stuff because you weren’t around! You were too busy on yourself.

They have difficulties accepting change because they don’t know how to handle emotions appropriately. They weren’t taught that by you.

And because their emotional needs weren’t met, they always thought they weren’t good enough. They never learned how to communicate their emotions so they have a lot of misunderstandings and don’t learn how to identify their feelings.

[They are also] very sensitive to rejection because since they weren’t bonded to their parents, there’s this desperation to grab onto whatever, and if doesn’t “hold them above water,” they’re pretty upset.

Adults whose parents were emotionally unavailable find themselves needing everything they do to be perfect–hobbies, relationships, workplace, everything has to be perfect immediately–because it comes out of a deep need to be affirmed, to be accepted. And they try to get it out with perfection.

You don’t bond or be emotionally available for your kids ’cause too busy on your damn careers, or 16 different marriages, or your shack-ups, the crap you’re doing out there all the time, and saying it’s OK? [Your kids] end up seeking romantic partners who can be a parent. Usually doesn’t work.

You know the adult behaviors of an emotionally absent parent: Stop creating that in your kids.

– – –

I found some of Dr. Laura’s posts on daycares, in case you want to do a little more reading in your spare time:

Tell me what you think in the comments! If you don’t support the research, or the many people who think like Dr. Laura, please be kind. You know where I stand–both from last week’s post and this one–but what about you? Are you a “Reformed” (i.e., former) Daycare Mom?

Annie's the founder of Imperfectly Grateful, where she shares honest blog posts, helpful resources, neat printables, and beautiful phone backgrounds. She's a happy and blessed Catholic wife, SAHM, and homeschooler.

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