Prayer is not just a matter of heart but of law

The following is quoted from CR Wagschal's You Can Make the Difference (Feldheim 2005) p. 145: Clearly she starts off with an assumption that women can skip the prescribed prayers so long as they feel a prayer they express in their thoughts. Her rav emphatically disagrees as you see in the quote below:

The Role of Tefilla in a Woman's Life
In a telephone conversation with my mentor, Rav Shlomo Brevda shlita, I mentioned that I would like to speak o the topic of tefila, with the focus on silent tefila, since [sic. (should be as)] so many young mothers find they have no time to daven the prescribed daily prayers.
The Rav immediately stated categotically that all women must daven, even if they do so quickly, without kavana. It is essential that children see thir mothers davening!
Rav Brevda specified that every woman should daven Birkas HaShachar together with Shema, right through to the end of Shemoneh Esrei. This is the case even if she does so quickly, without concentration. We have no idea of the multitudes of kavanos that were invested into these words. Thus anything we may say informally cannot affect the upper worlds as effectively as this authorized text.

While you would think that she should then acknowledge that she had been mistaken and will now spread the word that the antinomian approach to prayer is not halachically valid, she adds in a statement to validate her original view: "However, this does not preclude our silent prayers, which are in our minds while doing our daily household tasks." Fine, but by that token, men could also think prayers throughout the day. Yet, they still have to take a break from their activity for mincha.

The reason I posted this is that many women simply assume they have an exemption from formal prayer because how could they possibly concentrate with the kids? The answer is that it is irrelevant. I would add that a man could not just skip the morning service because he is not able to concentrate at that time. But I believe that the school schedules for girls are partially to blame. As most girls' schools run on the assumption that the girls will breakfast at home before they daven and only stipulate that they say brachos. I discussed this with my daughter's teacher last year, as we had to have her daven enough to cover the halachic requirement at home before her breakfast. The teacher really believed that the brachos only before breakfast was perfectly acceptable and admitted that she relies on it herself. Happily, though, she did not make a fuss about my daughter's deviation from this. But the implication that comes across from the expectation that girls will breakfast before they daven is that davening is not as critical for a female as for a male. Consequently, many women do not daven at all, though they still manage to find time to do exercise, watch TV, or have their nails done. Even if they don't find the time for leisure activities, though, as the rabbi quoted above and Rabbi Sacks said the same in Passaic in a women's shiur, davening is a requirement that a woman cannot skip.