Dr Laura: “Problems with Two-Income Marriages”

http://www.drlaura.com/blog/problems-with-two-income-marriages/37717

Dr. Laura is a pro-family writer and personality who has built up her empire to include a radio show and an extensive website, and much of her work primarily focuses on relationship and family advice, to which she adds her extremely conservative bent. She also increases her credibility by going by the name of “Dr Laura” when in fact she has no doctorate of any kind.

In the above article entitled “Problems with Two-Income Marriages”, Dr. Laura begins by stating that many, (and if not all, she seems to say), families or couples living on two incomes are choosing to do so instead of doing so out of necessity, which immediately begins this article with judgment and a feeling of guilt put onto those involved in families that live off of two (or more) incomes. She goes on to argue that having both parents work (she assumes an atmosphere that either includes kids or will in the future) is damaging to the home environment and to the children involved.

She goes on to show a very simple example of a couple transitioning from two incomes to one, and then proposes very simple measures which are supposed to be enough to make up for a person’s entire income, making it seem like living off of two incomes is a choice for excess at the expense of your family. And importantly, her example is a heterosexual couple that wants to have children; again showing her bias towards what she thinks is ‘normal’ or ‘acceptable’- heterosexual partnerships that produce children.

And most importantly of all, I think, is how she ends the article. Dr. Laura states, “I really do believe that marriages and families do better with a division of labor, unification of purpose, priority on attitude and atmosphere, and a joint effort to make ‘money in/money out’ be more sensible and marriage/family-friendly”. I think that this statement makes clear Dr. Laura’s bent towards a strict family structure in which the wife is supposed to stay at home and be the welcoming and caring wife and mother, while the father can work and make the money for the family to get by on, and I think it also makes clear that she views that sort of strict family structure and patriarchy as what is most healthy for raising children as well. I think that despite her lack of extremely explicitly saying this, it is clear through her use of examples where the father/husband keeps working and the wife/mother stops, or is supposed to.

I think that not only is this article of offense and judgment to those many families who absolutely need two or more incomes in order to survive, but I think that Dr. Laura is ignoring all forms of family and relationships that do not fit into her heterosexual ordering of the family- she has no consideration for single-parent homes, homosexual partnerships, homosexual parents, children with divorced parents, etc., but I have little doubt that she would view all of these environments as unnatural and especially damaging to any children involved, despite extensive scientific evidence to the contrary (studies that show actually lower levels of abuse in children with homosexual parents, etc.).