Family
Schlafly acknowledges that motherhood and family life are difficult, but contends that the family is still the place of greatest growth and satisfaction for women. Schlafly rejects what she claims is the feminist view that the family is an “anachronism” that binds women down. Instead, she says, “Faith, commitment, hard work, family, and children, and grandchildren still offer the most fulfillment, as well as our reach into the future. Feminism is no substitute for traditional marriage…Careers are no substitute for children and grandchildren”. The family doesn’t destroy women’s rights; rather, according to Schlafly, the institution of the family as “the basic unit of society…is the greatest single achievement in the entire history of women’s rights”.
Schlafly believes that the family supports society as its meets women’s needs: “The strength and stability of families determines the vitality and moral life of society; thus, as the family goes, so goes the nation”. The family, as well as standing “at the center of this world” and “representing the building block of society,” also teaches children “moral values” that will benefit them and society as they grow to become moral citizens. Schlafly states unequivocally that “the future of our nation depends on children who grow up to be good citizens, and the best way of achieving that goal is to have emotionally stable, intact families”.
Schlafly rejects the 70s and 80s-era feminist “rejection of the family” as an outdated establishment, which she believes “flies in the face of all human experience”; instead, she believes that “the family is the proven best way for men and women to live together on this earth. A family provides people who care about us, a nest and shelter from which we can face life’s challenges”.
Read more about this topic: Phyllis Schlafly's Social Policies
Famous quotes containing the word family:
“It’s a family joke that when I was a tiny child I turned from the window out of which I was watching a snowstorm, and hopefully asked, ‘Momma, do we believe in winter?’”
—Philip Roth (20th century)
“The touchstone for family life is still the legendary “and so they were married and lived happily ever after.” It is no wonder that any family falls short of this ideal.”
—Salvador Minuchin (20th century)
“In the capsule biography by which most of the people knew one another, I was understood to be an Air Force pilot whose family was wealthy and lived in the East, and I even added the detail that I had a broken marriage and drank to get over it.... I sometimes believed what I said and tried to take the cure in the very real sun of Desert D’Or with its cactus, its mountain, and the bright green foliage of its love and its money.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)