Like an old-fashioned mother, U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania knows best -- and he has written a book to show the rest of us in the American family the error of our ways. Of course, there's nothing wrong with him becoming an author, and it's helpful to be reminded of what he believes. To some extent, the problem with his book is less what the senator says and more how he chooses to say it.

In fact, what he says about society is not all that surprising and some of his critique isn't completely wrong, although that point may not be conceded by those trolling through the 430 pages for future political advantage.

But even though what he writes has a commonsensical ring to it, he can't help getting carried away. For example, public schools have their problems, but they don't deserve the hostility Sen. Santorum displays toward them in the pages of "It Takes a Family: Conservatism and the Common Good."

Similarly, the senator is right to be dismayed by America's divorce culture, which is particularly destructive to children's lives, although his hopes to discourage divorce could cause more misery by keeping unhappy couples together. And, taken in isolation, he's right that stay-at-home parenting can be good for children.

Yet this last point -- widely accepted as reasonable by all sorts of parents -- has raised the biggest hackles. That's because Sen. Santorum has a talent for talking down to people in a judgmental tone. To him, life is a hockey game wherein those dreaded liberals must be checked into the boards at every turn. Even the name of his book is a dig at Sen. Hillary Clinton's foray into this field, "It Takes a Village."

His aggressive piety has always been an irritant, and here it is again writ large. Sen. Santorum's wife Karen is a homemaker who home-schools their six children. The proper response to this is -- good for them if they can afford it and their circumstances allow it. Not every parent can do this.

Sen. Santorum is particularly disturbed by career women who are also mothers. As he tells it, women who find it "more socially affirming to work outside the home than to give up their careers to take care of their children" are under the influence of "radical feminism."

This myopic and patronizing view ignores several realities, including the importance of America remaining competitive by harnessing the brainpower of men and women both. It has the breath of the 19th century about it, when a woman's place was decidedly in the home.

Yet while Sen. Santorum seems to suggest turning back the clock to the 1950s and making the country into one large episode of "Leave It to Beaver," the senator's own staffing arrangements are family-friendly. Out of 64 staffers in the senator's various offices, eight are working moms with kids under age 18, including three who are welfare-to-work single moms.

In short, he practices in his offices what he does not preach in this book -- and good for him. Perhaps he could learn from such practical experience that in 2005 there are different families with different needs -- and no one prescription for raising children other than love, protection and care.

If Sen. Santorum wants to convert people to his brand of compassionate conservatism, he needs to deliver his preachments with less attitude.