c. 2000 Religion News Service
(Dale Hanson Bourke is publisher of RNS and the mother of two sons.)
WASHINGTON _ Laura Schlessinger is a compact bundle of competing contradictions wrapped up today in telegenic blue. After a week of nonstop interviews for her latest book, “Parenthood by Proxy,” (HarperCollins) she shows no sign of tempering her views or slowing her pace.
Neither does she seem daunted by her critics or troubled by their inability to comprehend her complexity. “Dr. Laura,” as she is known to the listeners of her daily radio show, is quick to define others but not so easily defined herself.
She starts this day, for example, on “The 700 Club,” sounding more evangelical than Pat Robertson himself, preaching the conservative gospel of God and family. The darling of the conservative Christian world, she received an award from the National Religious Broadcasters and has been defended by them for her statements about homosexuality.
But Dr. Laura will end this same day before the sun sets, having left a light on in her hotel room and hoping to find someone to operate the electronic key pad on her door. An Orthodox Jew, Schlessinger diligently observes the Sabbath and its restrictions, blowing a gaping hole in her frenzied promotional blitz.
Schlessinger’s current book has put her on the road for the week, taking her away from her own home and family, something she says she hates, although she clearly loves the spotlight that follows her. “Don’t Have Them If You Won’t Raise Them” is the in-your-face subtitle of her parenting book, and Dr. Laura realizes she has some explaining to do about her own lifestyle.
“I always fit my career around parenting, not the other way around,” she points out. “I do my radio show while my son is at school. For all he knows I’ve been home eating bonbons all day.”
Bonbon eating is not part of Dr. Laura’s prescription, and clearly her trim little hips have seen few bonbons in their day. But she does believe parents need to wake up and spend more time at home with their kids, even if it means sacrificing their own careers and agendas.
Schlessinger calls the current state of the average American home “socially sanctioned abuse” because children are being neglected by selfish adults whose desire for personal satisfaction overshadows their responsibility as parents.
The result, she points out, is children with record levels of depression, anger and anti-social behavior.
Much of what the talk-show host says has been acknowledged by everyone from Dr. Spock to the experts at the recent White House conference on teenagers. So why do people get so worked up when Schlessinger says it?
Part of it is her take-no-prisoners approach that seems to say “my way or the highway” to both the hapless callers who phone in each day and any interviewers who seem to be less than enthusiastic about her message.
But she also tends to go where no one else has gone before in a national forum, taking off at warp speed into areas like single parenthood and untraditional families. When she appeared recently on “Larry King Live” along with child psychiatrist Stanley Greenspan _ someone she quotes in her book and says she admires _ he seemed unwilling to align himself too closely with her views.
Tiptoeing through the minefields of untraditional and single-parent families, he insisted that every family is unique and parenting has many styles, none necessarily better, just different.
Smiling fearlessly, Dr. Laura took him on, all the while affirming that she loved and admired him but thought he was mixing “apples and oranges.” Schlessinger finds no charm in political correctness and on this issue advocates a retro view of family as “one mommy, one daddy and the kids” even if she knows it seems quaint and simplistic to some.
Schlessinger does believe we can go home again and says “it makes my day” whenever a listener sees the light and calls in to say she has decided to stay home with her kids or cut back on work. As for gay couples and single women who decide to raise a child, she suggests, “Get a dog instead.”
Gay rights advocates have attacked Schlessinger for opposing gay marriage and calling homosexuality “abnormal.” A recent campaign was aimed at television stations lining up to carry Dr. Laura’s new television show this fall.
The campaign against her has become so vicious at times that a burly guard sits outside her hotel room daring anyone to cause trouble. But most people who have spent more than 10 minutes with Dr. Laura would rather take their chances with the guard than the petite woman he is supposed to be protecting.
Schlessinger finds the attack by homosexuals frustrating because it overemphasizes what she considers a minor point of her message. “Besides,” she says, matter-of-factly, “my best friend is a gay man.” Seeing nothing to be surprised about in this statement, Dr. Laura insists her friend has tried to make a case for her to gay groups and media outlets without success.
“No one wants to believe that my best friend is gay because that would ruin the image they have built of me,” she says, shrugging her shoulders as if it’s not her problem.
For all her feistiness, Schlessinger also has a soft side that comes out whenever she talks about her teenage son, Derek, or her relationship with God.
Schlessinger is a convert to both motherhood and faith, a later-in-life believer who seems to understand the importance of both because she lived for a time without either.
When asked if she views herself as a prophet, she acknowledges the Old Testament parallels to her modern life but stops short of accepting the mantle.
“Prophets have a direct line to God. I don’t have that. But I wish I did.”
For Dr. Laura it is an uncharacteristically reflective moment that passes quickly. “Time to go,” she announces, hopping up and taking off for another round of preaching her gospel to the converted and unconverted alike.
DEA END BOURKE
