New York – Fox News Channel anchor Megyn Kelly said Friday that she’s offended by a male colleague’s suggestion that children of working mothers don’t fare as well as children with stay-at-home moms.
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A Pew Research Center study released this week showing that women are now the primary breadwinners in 40 percent of households with children ignited a sharp debate on Fox with two of the network’s most prominent women taking on male colleagues. It culminated in an electric on-air exchange Friday among Kelly, Fox contributor Erick Erickson and anchor Lou Dobbs.
The debate also included with the unusual – for Fox – use of President Barack Obama as a symbol of success.
“What makes you dominant and me submissive and who died and made you scientist-in-chief?” Kelly said to Erickson.
Dobbs had convened a panel with three other men who bemoaned the study’s findings Wednesday on the Fox Business Network. Juan Williams said the study showed that “something’s gone terribly wrong in American society and it’s hurting our children.” Pollster Doug Schoen suggested that the social order is being undermined.
Erickson said that in nature, the male is typically dominant. He later wrote that children in a two-parent traditional household will more often than not be more successful than children of single or gay parents.
“We should not kid ourselves or scream so loudly in politically correct outrage to drown the truth,” Erickson wrote on his redstate.com blog. “Kids most likely will do best in households where they have a mom at home nurturing them while dad is out bringing home the bacon.”
Fox prime-time host Greta Van Susteren blogged in response: “Have these men lost their minds?” She wrote that the next thing they’ll have “is a segment to discuss eliminating women’s right to vote.”
Erickson told Kelly on Friday that it isn’t healthy for society when the roles of men and women in the family are interchangeable.
Kelly said plenty of data suggest that children in homes with homosexual parents or working mothers are as healthy and able to thrive in society as children with stay-at-home moms. Kelly, a mother of two, dismissed Erickson’s contention that he wasn’t judging others.
“I don’t like what you wrote one bit,” she said. “I think you are judging people. You sound like somebody who is judging but wants to come out and say `I’m not, I’m not, I’m not but let me judge, judge, judge. And, by the way, it’s science and facts, facts, facts.’ But this is a list of studies saying your science is wrong and your facts are wrong.”
Erickson criticized “politically motivated” studies.
Dobbs, for his part, was interrupted by Kelly when he decried damage done to society by the breakup of marriages and the rise of single-person households.
“Why are you attributing that to women in the workforce?” Kelly said.
Dobbs said, “Let me just finish what I’m saying, if I may, oh dominant one.”
“Excuse me?” Kelly replied, her eyebrows rising.
Kelly told the men that 50 and 60 years ago there was a wide belief in society that the children of interracial marriages were inferior.
“They said it was science, and it was fact,” she said. “If you were the child of a black father and a white mother or vice versa, you were inferior and you were not set up for success. Tell that to Barack Obama.”
kol hakovod to Geveret Kelly for speaking emes to the mindless white suits at Fox News. These guys spout this mindless nareshkeit to one another and several of the blonde (Fox News standard female anchor)bimbos who smile and shake their heads in agreement. Even in the heimeshe community, the most traditional men send their wives out to work to earn a parnasshah so they can stay home and learn. Hundreds of thousands of yiddeshe women have achieved success in their professional lives and their kids are just as normal and responsible as those brought up in homes with “stay-at-home” moms. Indeed, the girls in such families have a role model that says you can be successful at whatever career you choose if thats what you want instead of marrying before you graduate high school and immediately start pushing out babies.
According to research, it does not matter WHICH parent is available to the children. All that matters is that there is a caring and suitable caregiver that is present for the children. Yes, both parents should be involved with raising the children. But only one needs to be home when the kids arrive and help them with homework.
There are many fathers who are better suited for this than their wives. Gender is not the real issue- it is figuring out for each family what is best for them. What is good for the Goldbergs may not be good for the Weiss’s.
This discussion will only be resolved when Moshiach comes. Working pretty much full-time with a large family ka”h, here’s my take…
For society at large, I believe Mr. Erickson is right. A traditional marriage, where the father works and the mother is available for her children, whether stay-at-home or part time, is definitely ideal. Look at the degeneration of society, “it’s sick out there, and getting sicker”. As much as we’d like to insulate ourselves, we are affected by the outside world. Healthy homes encourage traditional values.
For the frum family, it’s not always possible for the mother to be home full time. It’s beyond the scope to talk about the chashivus of kollel. Basically it boils down to finances. A frum lifestyle is beautiful, but expensive. We make the equivalent of “Thankgiving dinners” every Shabbos, we buy kids Y”T outfits 2x a year, we have double the dinnerware etc. We have 5x the children, we have tuitions, simchos, dental BH. There’s no way one salary can cover it today, unless one lives very simply or has outside help.
So Yiddish mamas (& fathers) stretch themselves and work on both fronts. And daven they’re raising erlich doros.
My wife is the so called “breadwinner” in our home and not only does it not bother me, but I am thankful for it, because it is through her that I am able to focus full time on learning, which is really the higher purpose.
My kids see me as an example as what a ben Torah should be and that puts them in a better position that anyone whose wife stays home while the husband does menial work. I know many peeple who have the so called “traditional” arrangement whose kids have nebach gone off the derech.
There is nothing wrong with a wife being the breadwinner if the ultimate purpose is for her husband – and by extension the whole family – to excel in Torah.
#5 , we have quadruple the dinnerware- Pesach.
#6 , there is nothing wrong with the wife taking the husband’s role if the husband takes hers. How many nights do women stay up burning the midnight oil, whether it’s with a sick child or preparing for a Yom Tov, but a man will stay up one night a year , Leil Shavuos, and we hear about it for months to come? A stay-at-home mother coupled with a husband who does menial work is not a foregone conclusion for kids going off the derech,rachmana litzlan. And ‘menial work’ pertains to servile or lowly work, i.e., household work. So according to you, it’s ok for the women to do that as long as the husband is focusing on full-time learning, the ‘higher purpose’. I posit that the ‘higher purpose’ is raising mentchen. I am happy that you said you are thankful that your wife makes it possible for you to focus full-time on your learning. Shteig away.Shelcha, shelah hee.
There are many formats that work in today’s world. We have many young idealistic families and each one makes their own arrangement. Having said that – in response to Number 1 – no one should “send their wife to work”. This is insulting, demeaning and shows lack of respect. And, since everyone is always so interested in doing what past generations did: dress, food, language, be aware that truthfully, in past generations, the Jewish mom was at home.
What we have here is the infrequent, yet somewhat entertaining, alignment of the feminist perspective with that of the kollel community. Yet, while both groups would be happy to see women excel in the workforce, their underlying motives are far from similar. The feminists are happy to see women deciding their own work/life balance. The kollel communities’ agenda is simply to free-up the men – often at the cost of their wives work/life balance.
Well, it used to be that men had their קללה of בזעת אפיך תאכל לחם, and women had theirs of בעצב תלדי בנים. Now, the poor women have both!
To #6 how do you have time for going on “vos iz neias” והגיתי יומם ולילה
Rabosai:
Here’s the real deal. Yes, it is ingrained in societal norms that the man works and the wife is the stay at home mom. The wife/mother working is not new to society, but it does require adjustment. The issue is much less about who the breadwinner is. It is also not about which of the two earns a higher income. It is about how they manage it. You could get the same dysfunctional results from the father-earner with the stay at home mom if they manage the partnership of the marriage and conduct of the home poorly. It is just that there are many norms for that setup to guide an average couple. These days, we have developed a new arrangement that has its areas of effectiveness, but many lack the skills to cope with the differences. There are fewer role models for it, and we enter marriage with expectations that are unrealistic. It is all about coping. Interesting research.
I’m not into the paranoia believing that there will be new research to take away women voting.
To #6 I hate to burst your bubble. What would happen if your wife could not work? Who would be the breadwinner? What are you qualified to do?
Funny enough,
Hashem said to Adam “Bzayis Apecha Tochal Lechem”. By Chava it says “Betzev Taldei Bonim”.
I wonder what message Hashem is giving us……
I guess it’s better to have Polish women raising your kids and taking them to Church and feeding them treif.
What a shame that we even have this debate? What about kov Kvidu bas melech pnimu? The only way its justified for a woman to work is of course if the husbend is unable to, or if its “torusoy imnusoy” , and who could reallt say that that’s the case if you don’t learn 12-15 hours a day.
The system in lakewood is flewed, there are few people who really are career learners, the rest are sitting in kollel coz that’s the norm there, I have no idea how a mother can do both, raising children is a full time job, those few hours the children are not home, is time to prepare for when they will be home.
Its a real abuse and oppesite of how a jewish marriage is suppose to be.
Read your kesubah.
Study mesechta Kesubos.
Then have a discussion with your wife about how to run your family. Only if she agrees, may you run your family one way or another.
It’s a machlokes in mitziut. Just go and measure!
some working women can raise their children just as successfully as if they were stay at home moms.it’s foolish and self deluding however to think that the average women who works full time can come home after a hard day of work and have the same patience,understanding etc. we’re limited human beings and although some may not like to hear it,that’s just the way it is.
Hey! Everyone take it down a notch.
Live and let live, if your particular arrangement works, great.
Different things may work for different people. There is no absolute way that works for everyone all the time.
I work for the sole purpose of allowing my husband to do what he loves most: learning.
Not from 9-5. That would mean giving birth to babies so that others should raise them.
I can foresee your next question. How can you support a family with a part time job? Ahhh good question. My husband doesn’t just learn and leave everything on my head.
Firstly, his fartugs chavrisa pays him. Secondly, he brings home a kollel check. Thirdly, he utilizes his nights for tutoring.
Last and most important: Our lifestyle reflects our status. We get by with the barest necessities.
I thank Hashem that I have the zechiya to live a Torah life.
Why doesn’t anyone ask their kids what they prefer?