Voices

“There needs to be more support for the family as it is today, which is

usually with two working parents. That’s family values.”

--Dr. Amanda Story, radiation oncologist and mother of 2-year-old Jacqueline in Sioux Falls, S.D.

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“The world doesn’t end when you explain to people that [family] is a priority. People are very respectful of it. I think public attitudes are changing. When somebody says, ‘I have to take a few hours off because my child is in a play,’ there may have been a time 20 years ago when people said, ‘Well, that person isn’t pulling his share of the load.’ But now I think it’s much more common for people to say, ‘Good for you, that’s exactly the right set of priorities.’ And [such employees] will make it up later and do an even better job because they’ve been renewed and had their batteries recharged.”

--Vice President Al Gore, speaking at a Mother’s Day event

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“If more women stayed home, it would be an improvement for the children and for society. If you look at all the social problems we have, you have higher rates of all these problems [since mothers entered the work force in large numbers]. It kind of stands to reason, if Mother’s not there, she’s not looking after them. . . . It’s a supervision issue. It’s a lot of other issues too, including the emotional security of a child who knows that his mother is there.”

--Phyllis Schlafly, president, Eagle Forum

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“I don’t think having a stay-at-home mom or dad is part of my definition of family values. To me, it’s enjoying each other, encouraging children spiritually, giving them an appreciation for nature, for church. It’s spending time together, trying to be a good example, correcting behavior you think is wrong.”

--Andrea Radke, institutional marketer, Voyageur Asset Management, and pregnant mother of 2-year-old Erin in Sioux Falls, S.D.

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“The corporate culture is still stuck somewhere back in the 1950s. Too many bosses still believe the typical worker is a man with a wife at home. So they call meetings at 8 a.m., they think they have to give the raise to the guy who comes in every Saturday. People are saying not that we want to go back to the 1950s, but that we need to have some arrangement where the fact that we all have family lives is built into the way we manage.”

--Caryl Rivers, Boston University professor and author of “She Works, He Works: How the Two-Income Family Is Happier, Healthier and Better Off”