Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Review: In Praise of Stay-at-Home Moms, Dr. Laura Schlessinger. HarperCollins, 2009.

In Praise of Stay-at-Home MomsI'm not sure why I picked this book up at the library. I've heard Dr. Laura a couple times on the radio, and found her extremely annoying: bossy, self-righteous, full of herself, and sometimes downright mean to her callers. Though I have to admit, her advice did often sound spot-on. Maybe it was the enticing title, In Praise of Stay-at-Home Moms, because I've been a stay-at-home mom for 9 years now, and let's face it we don't always have a lot of praise coming in our direction. Unless you count your 3-year-old screaming at you that he doesn't want a turkey sandwich for lunch, he wants peanut butter and jelly instead, praise.

So as off-putting as the front cover is (see giant picture of overly made-up author so as to appear plasicky), I went ahead and read the book. And while I definitely found some ego stroking in the book, as the cover implies, overall I felt uplifted by the book's praise of my hard work, and interested in some of her advice. Though apparently not interested enough to mark any particularly passages I wanted to share with you here. The book is an easy read, maybe a bit too easy for my taste, and not very well organized. It reads more like a conversation, which isn't unpleasant. And I enjoyed the multitude of quotes from radio listeners who have emailed Dr. Laura or sent letters to her.

So go ahead, if you're a stay-at-home mom and you're having a bad day and need some encouragement, this is the book for  you. You can read it in bits, quickly, when you have a few moments. But don't expect to find anything particularly new or earth shattering.

1 comment:

  1. I have to admit, I've listend to Dr. Laura's radio show a few times in the car. It's one of those "love-to-hate" situations, but it sure is entertaining, listening to her beat up the bumbling and confused people that her screeners choose for her to thrash. I'm not a stay-at-home mom, but if I were, I'd read this book.

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