There is no lacuna, no void. Conservatives, and even those liberals not in total thrall to feminist dogma, know instinctively that this cannot be right. To spare the mom is, surely, to spoil the child. So it came as no surprise when I read, last week, of the results of a long-term study of child care in the U.S., which found that children who are reared in child care are three times as likely to show behavioral problems in kindergarten as those cared for primarily by their mothers. It irritates me that so many women think they are entitled to both brilliant, unimpeded careers and medals for being the world's greatest mothers.
Women are now free to work outside the home.
What they should not be free to do is to assert that this daily absence from the home has no adverse impact on their children's character and development. A career may be good for a woman, and may reach parts of a woman's soul that nothing else can, but it is not necessarily good for the child. Many are unprepared to make that sacrifice. Let's be honest and accept that day care is the less good, or inferior, child-care option. That done, a woman who wishes to work outside the home can add that fact to the pros and cons when making lifestyle choices for herself, and for her children.