About those "selfish" college women who are planning to stay home

Yesterday there was a thread on DU with an article about Ivy League coeds (at Yale), 60% of whom were planning not to work with their college degrees but to stay home and raise their children.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=5282783&mesg_id=5282783

The article overtly stated that these young women were selfish, taking slots at major Ivy League universities when many people, female and male, were being denied admission, and that these people were intending to use their degrees.

I understand why the writer of this article was so angry. Back in the 50s, college women were understood to be in college to look for a husband to support them (the MRS. "degree"), and serious female students had a hard time being taken seriously. Coeds were directed towards majors in Home Ec or the liberal arts. A woman who wanted to be in the sciences or business faced hurdles. And even when she got out of school, she was often not hired because it was assumed she would be leaving her job once she got married. It took until the 1980s before this was no longer an automatic assumption that could be acted upon by employers.

Feminists fought hard for the right to a better education and the right to be taken seriously as intellectual equals. This new crop of girls, post feminist (and some fundamentalist) in orientation, seem to be throwing this newly won seriousness away. That is why the article was so bitter.

But there is another old feminist idea that might need brushing off here, and that is pay for motherhood and housework. In the 70s, when many women were still stay-at-home mothers/housekeepers, the argument was made that women did a tremendous amount of unpaid labor at home, and that until it became paid work, it would not be respected.

If motherhood were paid, a college degree in liberal arts or accounting etc. might make more sense to people. Just a thought.


Even without pay, and even if girls are planning to stay home, it is still better for society and for their children that they are educated and have college degrees. Considering that 50% of all new marriages end in divorce, there is a good chance that these girls will end up having to work anyway, and it is better for their children if these girls have a higher level of education to sell on the job market.

Even if they do not end up divorced, these girls may still end up working for economic reasons. Or, they may end up wanting to home school their children, start a business from home, or teach in the public schools once their children go to school themselves. There are a lot of reasons why women who stay home with young children may need a college degree.

This is an issue that feminists in particular have to be very careful with. It is extremely easy to get caught up in the anger against young girls who appear to be throwing away everything that feminism has worked so hard for.

But, the world of work is changing, too. It is not the same as it was in the 50s, when there was a good chance that once you were hired by a company you'd stay until you got the gold watch. Most people change jobs 5 or 6 times in their lives. Many people start home businesses. The world of work is not monolithic.

We have to be very careful to convey to universities and employers that women who stay home to raise their children are not "a waste" of an education. That they pass on their education to their children and to their communities in many ways that are very beneficial to society. That they will most likely return to the job market after their children are old enough or grown. And that ultimately, educated mothers, regardless of whether they work in or out of the home, are always better for society.

And it would be only fair if society realized the work that housewives/stay at home mothers do and paid them for it.

Now my wife and I are going to stay home and have children. When can I expect your checks to start arriving?

Another effect...

In Europe many couples (not married ones!! bad bad!!) both work and work on their career and do not have time for children until the age of 35+.

So many couples that we do in fact have too few children (except immigrant families) and it is more and more being discussed about PAYING for families with children because they're actually working for society by creating new tax payers and insuring the older people's retirement funds. (me, 30 )

much education and learn as many skills as they can. My mother always used to tell me no matter how happy or successful I was in a relationship, always have a "plan B." I have known too many stories of women who marry forever and then get divorced or widowed and face hard economic times because they are not well prepared for the workforce. I can understand people being frustrated at people taking up space so to speak, in colleges when other people can't get in. But you never know what the future can be. Everyone should be educated and should have skills that can earn them a living if they have to work outside the home. Besides, education is good for the mind and soul.

that the life that a person sees for themselves when they are leaving high school and entering college often bears no resemblance to the life they actually lead when all is said and done. Circumstances change and your life has to change to adapt to them. Besides, would it not be discriminatory to say that if you plan to stay home and raise your children that you don't need as good an education as someone who plans a lifelong career?

Besides, would it not be discriminatory to say that if you plan to stay home and raise your children that you don't need as good an education as someone who plans a lifelong career?

It's no more discriminatory than saying "since you got consistent "d's" in high school and your SAT's indicate that you have a mediocre capacity for learning that the education we offer would be wasted".

The correct suggestion in both cases is; go talk to the community college. If you can subsequently demonstrate that our diploma won't be wasted, we'll talk again.

I have to disagree with you here.

I am a stay-at-home dad. In my family, if I posessed a Yale degree, scrubbing the tub would be an inefficient use of that family asset.

Community college is more than adquate for that purpose. :)

Her children will be raised with the great stores of knowledge that she has. She will talk to her children, interpret things more deeply. Her very presence in their lives will make them more school-ready, more intellectual, more mentally stimulated. If she raises 3 such children, she has more than "efficiently used" her Yale degree; she has bettered society.

And that's more than a lot of folks ever do.

Your assumption that she is "scrubbing floors" is interesting. Clearly you've not heard of mops, or Swiffers, or wet vacs. :)

But seriously, to assume that a high level degree or a high level of intellectual functioning is unimportant for a "housewife" means that you don't understand what she does.

I think you're the one who needs the education.

And don't knock the commmunity colleges. Even people with the highest SAT scores and advanced degrees have something to learn from the dedicated teacher-intellectuals who work there.

But seriously, to assume that a high level degree or a high level of intellectual functioning is unimportant for a "housewife" means that you don't understand what she does.

I think you're the one who needs the education.

The response to your assumption is contained in the first seven words of the post to which you are responding.

I could very well use more college education than I have. But not to be a stay-at-home dad.

But then again, even a lumberjack will try to read what someone writes before calling that person ignorant. :P

I wasn't referring to an academic degree or level of college education. What I was saying is that you don't understand the job of being a stay-at-home parent. Otherwise, you would understand the importance to the future intellects of children to have a well educated mother or father at home. If you were more educated about what a stay-at-home parent does, you'd understand that a Yale degree would not go to waste.

(The only Yale degree I can think of that has actually gone to waste is George W. Bush's, but that's beside the point. :))


And, I didn't say you were intellectually ignorant. Nor would I imply that. If I really thought you were ignorant, I wouldn't bother to argue with you. It would be a waste of my time. It is because I think you actually are thinking that I spend time debating you.

But what we're disagreeing about is the nature of what I understand. I am in a better position to know.

Would you tell a stay-at-home mom that she doesn't understand the job of being a stay-at-home parent or is this a judgement you reserve for stay-at-home dads like me?

At work, I became used to having to be twice as good as my college educated peers despite the general irrelevance of their college major to their job. However, I must say that I am unused to people discounting my expertise as a parent because of the lack of a degree.

A Yale diploma would not improve my aptitude for parenting commensurate to the investment, if at all. The only general exception to that is that I would then have the connections to get my kids into Yale when their time came.

If I had a Yale diploma my highest and best use to the family would be in the workforce and that has nothing to do with my gender.

1. Hi. My name is Nikki.

2. I don't care what your education level is. I am in academics and some of the dumbest people I have EVER met have PhDs. I'm dealing with one right now who thinks she is hot shit on toast, but she's just plain mean and not all that bright. I wish for a truck to run over her daily.

3. If you don't have a college background, then you might not see how certain coursework might actually help you as a stay-at-home parent. Certain fields of study, like psychology, sociology, and education (and similar disciplines) have direct application to parenting. Majors like linguistics, math, English, any science, etc. are extremely helpful to children when they are in school. My mother, for example, was a math major, and I could go home from school and get much better explanations of Calculus, vectors, trigonometry, etc. than I could ever get from most of the teachers. I learned functions and analytical geometry at my mother's knee. Had my mother not had this education and had she not been available at home, I would have been left at the mercy of some of the most inarticulate (and sexist) math teachers. Recently took the GRE (Grad level SAT); scored 790 out of 800 on the math. Thanks, mom.


4. There must be things you know about that you learned on the job that you can pass on to your children. Your presence in the home probably gives them a lot that they wouldn't get. If you know how to fix an air conditioner and have taught your kids to do that because you are home with them, you've done more than my dad ever did. Never did learn how to fix anything. (sigh)

The point is that when you are home, your children learn from you. NOTHING is wasted when it is spent on children. Even a Yale degree. (Unless you're George W. Bush, but then we've been through that. :))


5. I have no clue as to whether or not you are a good stay-at-home dad or whether you beat your kids black and blue. I usually assume the best about people until I hear about them on the news or see them on an episode of COPS. So I assume you are a good guy, that your kids are crazy about you, and that you are a good Democrat like myself.


6. I come in peace, but on the net, it is sometimes hard to explain yourself well. I apologize for any and all communications SNAFUs. I could be irreponsible and blame it on the hideously awful professor (see #2) I have right now, and all the stress she is putting me under. But that would be a cop out, even though I'd love to lay my miscommunications, the Republican agenda, and world poverty at her feet.

7. Rush Limbaugh is a big fat idiot.

Ciao.

Nikki

If pressed, my older kids can, indeed, fix a great many things. Sadly, I am the default Mr fixit. It's easier to ask for help. :)

My hope is that when the need arises they will be able to draw upon the lessons they've been shown (but haven't yet needed to put into practice)

BTW, the ribbon on my sig is the Autism Society of America logo. My youngest is a wonderful child but the nature of his condition requires more patience than many parents can muster. So, I may be a little more defensive about the topic than is necessary. Mea culpa.

It is a truism that a parents life experience is the knowledge that they pass on to their children. Having worked in the engineering field for 20 years does help as a parent, and I'm sure if that experience were gained in finance, business, Yale.... or in a library, some of those lessons would help parents rear their children.

My point is that unless a person lives in a cave, an intelligent person will pick up knowledge to be a better parent. It's been said before in this thread, but it bears repeating. Education should not be confused with an Ivy league diploma.

Education provides skills. A diploma provides economic opportunity.

What really pisses me off when I hear this is the idea that certain jobs don't deserve an Ivy league education(I include mothering at home as a job). I knew a pre-school teacher who went to a very exclusive Ivy league school. She loves what she does, but is given such looks when people find out she's "wasting" her education. Unbelievable, she actually majored in education...you'd think Ivy league schools should only offer business majors.
She has been able to have children, work while they're in school, and get tuition remission for her children's education. Yet people take an attitude. Staying at home and choosing to raise your own children on an Ivy league education is a personal choice, and one I'm sure the children will appreciate far longer than any expensive gift that exclusive high paying job could acquire.

Let's also be frank...you can offer just as much to the world without the credentialed IVY league diploma. Some young adults do mature academically much later.

I can post almost a dozen examples from my own family in which the degree earned has little to do with the field of choice dealing with both women and men.

"Besides, would it not be discriminatory to say that if you plan to stay home and raise your children that you don't need as good an education as someone who plans a lifelong career?

It's no more discriminatory than saying "since you got consistent "d's" in high school and your SAT's indicate that you have a mediocre capacity for learning that the education we offer would be wasted"."

Except one has to do with a qualified candidate vs. an unqualified candidate. The difference is the choice the qualified candidate may or may not make.

Do you propose asking women if they plan to have children on their college applications and that should be a mark against them similar to not having many extracurricular activites or a lower GPA? You're kidding right?

This conversation has become academic, thanks for posting the explanation of the flawed study methodology downthread.

That said, in both examples, the university is prejudging whom will use the education being offered to good advantage. But one kind of question is considered appropriate (did you go to a good high school?)while the other is off-limits (are you here looking for Mr/Mrs Right?).

There's only one reason that colleges have qualifications: To assure that the effort is not wasted.

Further downthread is a specific suggestion (tuition reimbursement) that is a better solution than yet another recruitment criteria.

Without putting too fine a point on it, I dislike the logical extension of the argument that many are making here: "Jeff, don't be such a poor sport. True, you were denied higher education that would have enabled you to better support your family during your career, but you should take comfort in the fact that the english literature degree I got in your stead enabled me to 1) find a good mate and 2) make better conversation to my kids when they get home from school. And besides, why should I give any credence to the whining of the uneducated?"

Much as I am intrigued at the argument that my status as a stay-at-home dad makes me ignorant to the plight of stay-at-home moms, the fact remains; College degrees are a finite resource that society provides and they should be "used to good advantage".

..perhaps Ivy league school degrees are.

"But one kind of question is considered appropriate (did you go to a good high school?)while the other is off-limits (are you here looking for Mr/Mrs Right?)."

The difference is one deal with a measurement of the student's scholastic achievement. A 3.0 at a great school is better than a 3.25 at a crappy one. The other is only asking is the applicants plan to marry. We(in this thread) have taken it further here because marriage itself isn't a "barrier" (and I hate using that word here but I can't think of a more neutral term) to fully using one's degree while having children and perhaps spending time at home with them possibly is.

In regards to your plan for tutition reimbursement, the time is way too long. Who could have imagined the burgeoning information based job market we have now 15 years ago? The avg. career change for adults is now up 3. The criteria would likely be strict because I don't see colleges eager to subsidize something they would not benefit from. Even scholarship students and graduate students benefit the college when the college pays their tuition.

If anything, if you stay on your field for 15 years, the field should pay the college for providing such a useful asset.

I am just inherently uncomfortable with

a) Critiquing people's choices in terms of motherhood vs. career. Both have their benefits and as long as the person choosing is happy it should be a none issue.

b) Creating ANY college policy where a woman that seeks to have children would be placed at a disadvantage. Extending said disadvantage to men who do not stay in the field of their choice after college makes no logical sense.

If they don't really plan on using their degree in the first place?

What's wrong with a state University?

Ivy League schools are hard enough to get into, considering all the legacies like * who get automatic spots.

So why use up a spot in pursuit of a degree? What is the difference between a degree from Harvard or a degree from your state University if you aren't going to use it anyway?


The arguments that came from that converstaion seemed to be one one misunderstanding.

The perception of people going to an ivy league school to get a degree that they knew they would never use (for example, your husband has a trust fund and you have no plans or desire to work, at any time) was fueling one side.

The other side was propelled by the image of a woman who works hard for a degree, works, and then stays home when her children are born to care for her kids.


Those are two very different situations.

one woman had the nerve to say that these young women, clearly described in the article as born to wealthy families -- therefore legacies -- were in these top schools because of merit

don't make me fall down and choke on a chicken

i suppose they think bush got into yale based on merit too

the whole thread was ppl talking past ea. other because they didn't actually feel like reading the original link

Except for the lounge, in which only thread titles matter, because they will be mocked.


I love it!


:hi:

:party:

As others observed, many of the posters, myself included (mea culpa), took the generalizations that the OP revealed and ran with 'em.

Background: After 20+ years in the engineering field, I am now a stay at home dad building a house while the kids are in school. To be honest, I've always resented the fact, that for a number of reasons, a college degree was impractical. My career has been okay, but it would have been more rewarding with a degree.

Women have made significant strides to be accepted in the workplace, and society has benefitted from that. Also, as a stay-at-home dad myself, I have absolutely no dispute with a mom who makes the same choice I have.

What I do have a quarrel with is the expectation that 37% of freshmen expect to walk into Yale, party for four years, find a wealthy spouse and retire to the hamptons.

That education was given to the person in question for a purpose. If she does not intend to use it, allow it to go to someone who will. The alternative is for american industry to continue to import foreign workers to do our science and engineering.

Also, if one is going to dispense with stereotypes, you have to dispense with all of them. 57% of college graduates are women. Because of that, women (as a group) are better prepared for the workforce than their spouses. Once parents make a choice that one of them will stay home, increasingly families will find that it mom who is better equipped to be the breadwinner.

The implication in the previous thread that highly educated women should have the choice of staying home with their kids, independent of other considerations such as whether it is better for the family that dad be the stay at home parent, rubbed me the wrong way.

"57% of college graduates are women. Because of that, women (as a group) are better prepared for the workforce than their spouses."

In that light, the decision seems more selfish in regards to society.

State schools are for people who have to work, Ivy League is for people who don't. Have you noticed a caste system springing up around you in the past 25 years or so?

I haven't noticed anything over the last 25 year period, when reflecting on it as a whole...

it's a lot older than just 25 years, though, I think ... momentary periods of egalitarianism are simply illusions ...

There's certainly plenty of it evident in this thread.

I always have to laugh when people infer that liberals aren't sexists - they are. Liberal men are among the worst.

I hate rich pukes anyway who get advantages they don't deserve.

to include an affadavit testifying to exactly what we will do with our college degree after graduation?

Last time I checked, this is a free country and anyone who attends a college, ivy league or otherwise is entitled to use their education as they wish.

Bottom line, this is a poorly designed study, but is having its intended impact on maligning women who seek higher education.

Ozark, you make a wonderful point.

I would also like to add that I went to a good school (Boston College). Not quite Ivy League, but it's an academically competitive school.

Many of my friends, from all sorts of backgrounds, have decided, after years in the work force, to stop working and raise their families. It's a decision that they never thought that they would have made. It happens. Not everybody who enters into college has their career path outlined and knows what they will be doing 15 years later.

I don't mind the discussion that people who have no plans to use their education might think twice about taking such a competitive spot. But, I in no way, want to infringe on the rights of the women who are entering the schools to do so. They may change their minds about what they want to do with their education after a year or two, just as some ambitious 18 year old might change their minds 6 years later if they have a family.

or the sole support for their children. Any woman who thinks she'll be marrying and staying home with her children for the duration might be very surprised indeed when she unexpectedly becomes a divorcee or widow.

Who here is voting to prevent men who don't have to work because of their family wealth from attending Ivy league schools??

What rubbish some of what's posted here is, what sexist damn rubbish.

Good points! :)

On admissions applications, women should be asked whether they intend to have children. Because women that have children may not fully utilize their degrees, they should be penalized for their intentions much in the way an admissions office would take in account few extra curricular activites, a lower SAT score or a lower GPA.


:sarcasm:

graduates that they won't die of cancer, become an non-functioning alcoholic, get a debilitating disease, or get hit by a car three years after graduation?

Wouldn't that just be a waste?

much importance on Ivy League diplomas anyway. After all, if Dumbass got one, it kinda takes away some of the lustre. :)

But seriously, I agree. What's wrong with a state school if you don't plan on using the degree?

I knew I wanted to stay home and raise my children. But I also knew the easiest time for me to get a college degree would be shortly after high school. While I figured I'd be fulfilled as a wife and mother I also knew I wasn't quite ready for it.

I also do a lot more than just stay home with the kids. I'm active in the local Democratic party and in my UU congregation. I am able to do more for both organizations because of my degrees.

But perhaps the most important reason is that my children will grow up. In about sixteen years I'll have an empty nest. Sure I could go back to college then but it wouldn't be the same experience I had when I was a young adult.

I keep current in my fields of study and they enable me to have an outlet when I've had it up to my eyeballs with diapers, vomit and whining. So what if a woman goes to Yale and then waits 20 years to actually use her degree. What if the person who gets her slot at the Ivy League school celebrates graduation by getting ripping drunk and slamming head first into a telephone poll?

Who are we to say who is wasting a degree and who isn't? And why should someone qualified to get into a particular school give up her slot because someone else might use the education sooner or in a different way?

I used my education, and worked for over 20 years before I was blessed with my child.

I worked for a year and a half after that, and then I went back to law school; the neat part about that is that I was building for a future and still had the flexible hours so that I could spend time with my kid.

And I've gone to both schools with a reputation, and community colleges. I now have a Bachelor's, a Master's and a Juris Doctor.

I'm doing quite a bit of community work, and the community at large is certainly getting the benefit of your education, as well as mine. And that's what counts.

Boy, I sure didn't think I'd see this kind of sexism on D.U.

Once again, racism isn't o.k., but regarding women as property seems to be.

distinction in mind.

"A girl is a female child. To accept being called a girl, one must be prepared to be treated as a child."

your use of "girl" infantalizes grown, adult women.

They don't call each other women and men at that age very often.

And she, an educated, intelligent woman is not saying "girls" to infantalize other women. It's just an expression, and people as sensitive to the use of a single word in an excellent post are apt to miss the greater point.

Forest for the trees!
The Professor

very important. I didn't miss the point of the discussion at all, simply pointing something out that nobody else did.

When no offense is intended, offense taken is unproductive.
The Professor

salient fact.

Look up each please. They're not the same thing.

Besides, i was responding to another poster. So, you once again took offense where none was proferred.

See what i mean?
The Professor

not take offense to being called "boys."

It is irrelevant whether your wife calls women "girls." And it isn't really your place to tell a woman whether she should or should not be offended by the use of a marginalizing, minimizing, or demeaning term. As someone who is not a black man, I certainly would never try to convince a black man that he should not be offended by being called a "boy".

Female persons who are 18 are old enough to be considered adults, and the correct, non-demeaning term for them is "women." Once true equality has been achieved, perhaps people will be more inclined to let misuses pass. But we are a long way from that point.

Since you are a professor, it would behoove you to ask a colleague in women's studies to direct you to some literature on the power of language in sexism or a related topic. Miss Manners (Judith Martin) also presented an excellent discussion in one of her books, on the rudeness and sexism of using the term "girls" when one is referring to women. I highly recommend reading it.

the offender usually corrects his unintended offense with an apology and the intention to abstain hereafter, rather than defending it.

I stopped being a 'girl' when I was about 11, then I was a young woman, now I am a woman. 'guys' does not imply immaturity, naivete, or innocence the same way 'girl' does; they are not comparable words at all.

as a term. It may mean something different to us older folk, but I think it's different for the young.

They may very well use it among themselves, just as some African Americans call each other the dreaded N word and live to see another day. But neither group has "reclaimed" anything, certainly not the offensive words except among themselves. The Professor certainly wouldn't be able to use the N word directly to any black person's face, more proof it hasn't been "reclaimed."

In fact, no oppressed group can "reclaim" an offensive word because the offense is all in the dominant culture's use of it, both historically and in the present. It's up the dominant culture entirely and the oppressed group can only "reclaim" it among themselves, not for the dominant culture.

So these "girls" you speak of don't let the Professor off the hook at all. THEY can use the term, his wife can use the term, but he has no business using it, no more so than using the N word.

I know the theory behind what you are saying, but I value experience more than theory these days. Theory building is a tenuous exercise, especially in sociologically related disciplines.

and none of the 20 yr olds I know use it. Any woman over the age of 18 who still calls herself and her peers and/or elders a 'girl' is an idiot.

Then again, I'm an old bag and appreciate a compliment now and then.

and if anyone calls me a girl, I get on their ass about it. It certainly doesn't happen twice. I'd rather be called a bitch about it than a girl. I don't play with dolls, I work, I am independent, and I don't draw up hopscotch on the sidewalk. I am a woman. I earned the title of woman and wear it proudly, and sometimes I am not a lady about it.

and I sometimes use "girls." ("Hey girls!" to my girlfriends.)

accepted term, that is one thing. for it to be used in speaking of women in general by a boy is inappropriate. 'you go girl!' and 'hey girl!' don't come close to the usage in the OP.

(doesn't that sound stupid? I typed man first, then thought I would throw in boy just for effect- we are talking about adults here, not children)

and I sometimes use "girls." ("Hey girls!" to my girlfriends.)

But have society pay them? Through taxes collected? No. There is no reason for the government to encourage reproduction.

Mothers have been working for centuries. Today's mothers, however, have a host of navel-gazing authors reporting about how hard it is.

Yes, it is. Now work it out with your spouse, or get back in the workforce.

By the time a woman has had her children and stayed home with them until they are school-age, her college degree has become rather obsolete. Or if a woman leaves her career to have children, when she returns to the workplace, she's lost alot of time and experience. (There's always somebody there to take your place). Also, there are always younger applicants.

I don't know that the entire degree is valueless though.

certainly if you majored in a technical field your degree would be obsolete & useless after a long break to raise children, i see women in this category who just can't work again unless they want to bag groceries

maybe it's ok if you majored in something where you could get a job with any degree, such as you majored in art & your job was sales, hell, you can always get a job in sales if you're a good saleswoman

situation would be if she had no higher education at all.

BTW I do not think women should get paid to stay at home. Its a choice.

There was a time when college was intended to broaden the individual. I find that I am somewhat annoyed when people equate going to college with going to a trade school of some kind. The purpose of college is not primarily to provide the student with a career or profession. Yes some college degrees such as business or law are obviously leading to a job of some kind, but what about degrees in English literature or philosophy? I majored in philosophy in college, and now I program computers having attended computer school after college. Why should women who are able to stay home to raise children or simply choose not to work be denied education. That sounds like something out of the distant past when women were generally uneducated since men felt that there was no need for it. Education is satisfying in itself, and should not be reserved for those who plan to "use" it in some specific way.

Every town has a library. Every day is an opportunity to learn.

College, particularly Ivy league colleges, (not to be confused with education), are a finite resource, and like other resources should be conserved and put to best possible use.

The student?

The university?

They don't have a problem telling a "b" student from a little town that giving him a four-year education would be a poor use of their resources. Why should they instead give it to a student from a private school in the city who intends to use it to find a spouse?

more that needs be said.

The experience of Prop 209 here in California, which has led to large reductions in the number of Black and Latino students to the UC system, has taught me that ANYTHING can change in college admissions if the political climate supports it.

mention futures) of prospective students?

Who spends 15 contiguous full-time years in the field for which they are trained.

An incentive to actually use your degree.

The priviledged at Yale wouldn't care though.

Lots less scholarship $ since they'd be paying out to successful graduates.

Including Buffy in her search for Mr Right.

an education?

Buffy subsidizes the people who do.

of the entire university system in order to charge people who don't spend 15 years in the field they imagined they might at age 18?

Statistics today indicate that Y% of college graduates spend 15 contiguous years in the field for which they are trained (either their major or their minor). While X% do not.

Tuition should be raised by a factor of X/Y. Those that work in their fields would then get a refund of their whole tuition. Buffy Botox would then subsidize Darla Diligent.

If the stick-tuit-iveness quotient approaches 70 or 80%, the refund would be reduced to prevent tuition becoming so high that no one could afford it.

for whom it is truly a financial imperitive.

It's an investment with a 100% ROI.

You just gotta use it.

How many middle income families do you anticipate will be able to ride the increased tuition for a payback 19 years after their child begins college (assuming no masters or doctorate work)?

First, the formula is an oversimplification. The colleges pay into a trust fund which draws interest. This interest would keep tuitions lower than they otherwise would be.

Second, it provides a strong incentive to use one's education, which is the whole point.

Third, I would suggest only a refund of the first four years. Comparatively few people seeking MRS degrees would stick with it for six years.

Fourth, loan programs would be established with balloon payments after 15 years.

How about BA's in English, Political Science and Philosphy?

How about the biology major who decides to go to law school?

Upper education is supposed to be about the education not a simple worker field training center.

there are penalties if in your 30's you decide to do something different than you thought you'd want to do when you were 19.

:eyes:

I studied polisci and I'm in marketing and sales.

My father has an English BA (with a film minor) and a data programming Associates he got 10 years later. He works in construction management and has for over 25 years.

My mother has a Master's in English and is pursuing an Urban Planning Master's. The only job she held that really jibbed with her degree was as a speech writer.

My sister has a BA in English, she works on contract prposals for school construction.

My cousin got his BA in Chemistry, had a job lined up with Merck but he became a commodities broker instead.

My uncle has two Master's in Chemistry and Biology. He runs his own furniture store.

The list goes on and on and that is just from my family!

some 50's sitcom idea of work, but for some reason people think you need to be held responsible, in the most punitive way, for deviating from any idea you had about life when you were a college student.

...I think people get pissed when others make different choices then themselves especially when its seems illogical in one's world view.

"How can a bright woman throw away her oppotunities for motherhood?"

"Why bother going to college if you aren't going to use your degree?"

Unfortunately instead of live and let live, we seek some soothing balm to our dented isolation....hence the attacks and anger.

I'm not applying that to posters I've argued with here(the examples are more relevant to the thread) and I am certainly not excluding myself from that assessment. It just seems to be the way it is. Unfortunate.....indeed.

Someone who was denied a college diploma is more inclined to see college as a financial investment in a better career.

Someone who acquired a college education is more inclined to see it as something else, because leaving that career path implies abandoning the investment.

Yes, there is a penalty for changing career tracks. Your training does not give you any advantage over every other job seeker in the new career that you seek.

There are many majors which you aren't exactly trained for a particuliar job. I went to a liberal art's college where they told us that they were teaching us to think. By that standard, there are many jobs which would be the student's field. By strict standards though, there might be some majors which wouldn't have a specific job associated with them. For some jobs and majors, they may or may not be the student's "field" depending upon how you define field. What about graduate study? For example, students who study law or libray science come from many different majors. At some large companies, they are open to training employees in different fields and hiring them for those jobs in the company even though they might not meet the requirements expected of outside applicants.
You would also be discriminating aginst anyone who had to drop out of the workforce for any reason including medical and disability.
This is also unfair to students who have a hard time getting a job in ther "field" or who might not be able to find another good job in their field after getting laid off.
It also enslaves those who find out after getting into the workforce that their job isn't really for them.

:shrug:

There was a steep dropoff but there has been some recovery.

Our colleges are being used as trade schools for people who see their education as a financial investment. No wonder the faculty is under attack by RWers. They're there for the investment, not the education.

You can now earn a boutique BA in fields where you can learn everything you need to know on the job. People are learning how to edit video in their Communications programs and after four years, still can't spell the difference between their, there, and they're.

is far more intelligent than most of the current crop of college graduates I've run across. Learning for learning's sake is important- but that doesn't require a degree.

nt

content. But they need to leave the slots in the sciences and the professional schools to the serious students who wish to make a career. Otherwise they may truly be denying someone an opportunity.

When I was in high school I applied for a job as kennel help at a local veterinary clinic. I was denied the job SPECIFICALLY because I was a girl. When I explained that I wanted to be a veterinarian some day, the vet (a man, of course) laughed and said "That's ridiculous. Girls don't become veterinarians. And even if they did go to school, they would just get married and have kids and never use their degree anyway." When I went to vet school , NONE of my female colleagues gave up their profession to stay at home and have kids. That would have been a shameful waste, and would have proven that old SOB right.

We seem to going backwards rather than forward. Some colleges (such as the Ivy League school mentioned) are extremely competetive. Their slots should be for those who take their professional careers seriously, not for wealthy dilettantes and dabblers.

circumstances will never change. I don't know about Ivy League schools since its true they are very hard to get into, but as for persuing higher education I don't begrudge any stay at home mom getting one. Her situation could change drastically and she may have to work outside the home one day.

discussed in the article indicates that they will never have to work outside the home- divorced or not.

The article was not a tirade directed at women in general, nor even at women who make the decision to stay home, but was a commentary on a prticular group of women attending a particular group of schools. The female equivalents of GWB, if you will.

Some Yalies are middle class kids with excellent SATs, grades and ambition. Not all are W.

But the author seemed to be discussing wealthy women of privileged families who pursue a degree just because. It sounded as though she was focusing on the female equivalents of Bush, in fact! :)

I'd like to actually look at it.

...see post 100

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=5310675&mesg_id=5312584

the university.

I think the article could have been written better and much more broadly to include the male legacies that are certainly in the group that the author focused on. She's only 20, and should be called on her too narrow focus- but hopefully she'll expand her worldview. It isn't just wealthy women who plan on being stay at home moms who are taking up space in ivy league schools (or other colleges for that matter).

admittance.

If you want to argue admittance standards, that is a separate issue.

where she got an excellent education and was all set to work. Which she did. Even after she had gotten married and had her first and second child, she hired a part time nanny. But the stress of both jobs, mom and editor, was too much. She does some part time freelancing now.

She certainly did not start her college career with a plan to be a dilettante. She did marry well and does not really have to work outside the home. But she never planned any of this.

No matter what anyone says, the hardest job in the world is raising a child. It is just too damn important. I am amazed that some people on this thread don't recognize that.

We seem to going backwards rather than forward. Some colleges (such as the Ivy League school mentioned) are extremely competetive. Their slots should be for those who take their professional careers seriously, not for wealthy dilettantes and dabblers.

As I asked earlier in the thread, who here is calling for the wealthy and privileged MEN who don't have to work at all to not go to Ivy League schools? Or if not that, what demands are you going to put on them to "use" their educations?

And let's get this clear too:

"That's ridiculous. Girls don't become veterinarians. And even if they did go to school, they would just get married and have kids and never use their degree anyway."

It wasn't just a choice, it was required, another example of the classic double bind women were put through. They were required to quit working when they got married or at latest when they got pregnant. Period. So this guy was blaming women for not being serious when our society forced women NOT to continue their careers. Please don't buy into and extend that bit of mythology yourself. Take a look around you. Since women have had the opportunity to pretty much become whatever they want, most women work rather than stay home as homemakers and stay at home mothers. We're not really any flakier or less responsible than men.

really, and the fact that it also raises issues of GENDER means that, unfortunately, it can be used as a wedge issue between the Feminist crowd and the Social Justice-minded Progressive crowd.

The CLASS side of this is that presumably rich women are going to an elite (read: "rich") institution to meet rich men to have their rich babies. Although it is great that these women have that choice, it raises questions about where women (as women) came from and whether they are simply going back. Also, many women (read: "non-rich") do not have these same opportunities. These questions cannot be shouted down as male chauvinism or sexism, and thus conveniently made to go away.

Wedge issue on DU? Yes, there it is, and the Right Wing could use this to plan every election for the next 30 years: Just find a thread on DU with 200+ responses and issue talking points wedging the issue and sending the Democrats into (more) disarray.

"Although it is great that these women have that choice, it raises questions about where women (as women) came from and whether they are simply going back."

But once you get it, you are on your way.

the whole damned thing, k?

:)

If a woman is willing to gamble her future away and marry any idiot just to be married, then college is probably a waste. But even with a solid "Mrs degree" to a successful man, things happen in life that are unexpected. A woman with a college degree is much better prepared for the unexpected.

Wouldn't it be better if they were used for something more tangible than a contingency plan?

How many people's lives go EXACTLY according to plan? If they have the grades and can afford the tuition/loans, they have every right to be there.

Please play along.

I see college diplomas as 1) a finite resource and 2) primarily a financial investment.

In this regard, oil is little different. If I can afford to hoard a disproportionate share of it "just in case", is that okay?

Because I have hoarded oil, there is a family breadwinner who cannot obtain it, thus preventing her from travelling to the job that best suits her. Also, since she can't get there, the best-paying job has been given to an H1-B visa holder who does have the oil.

In this example, would you describe my hoarding as "selfish"?

You might not see college diplomas as finite (but they are) and you might not see it is primarily a financial investment (debatable) but IMHO it's hard to describe holding a finite resource "just in case" as anything other than hoarding.

that doesn't mean they all will marry well or even marry at all. An education is always an investment in one's self and I would argue that even if they do achieve their dream wedding and leave the working world behind for motherhood, they will have a better foundation for motherhood via education.

An education is always an investment in one's self and I would argue that even if they do achieve their dream wedding and leave the working world behind for motherhood, they will have a better foundation for motherhood via education.

I doubt college would have better prepared me for stay-at-home parenting.

intellectually when you have a good education. There's more to being a stay-at-home then cooking and cleaning. Young children exposed to intelligent conversation have an advantage.

An elite college diploma is not the same thing as a well-rounded education and innate curiosity.

Being potentially able to help with 7th grade math someday does not justify an otherwise unused engineering degree.


on edit:
The subject didn't come out right (bad characters, I guess), it should read
"Education + culture + knowledge + information <> Yale diploma"

who only planto be stay at home moms?

Come on.

The OP stated that 60% of female ivy league freshmen plan to be stay at home moms.

Why would you spend (or more realistically ask mom and dad to spend) $500,000 to be a stay at home mom. But they do.

..

I think you are mistaken in the proportion. There are a lot of business majors, but I do not believe they comprise more than half of all undergraduates, in most 4 year universities.

The post in which the example of an engineering degree was used could have been replaced by the example of a philosophy degree that is used to explain the sociological context of "the grouchy ladybug" to one's preschooler.

An elite education is only fully utilized in a workplace.

Philosophy is one of those majors that has little direct economic value.

The example of "the grouchy ladybug" story book (or "My Pet Goat") assumes that the mother in question was a sociology, anthropology or linguistics major. Were she a philosophy major, she might deal with the ethics of the book or the belief systems represented in that book and their history. That is, if she weren't dead tired herself from a full day with the kids....but that's another story.

Probably a minor in teaching would be prudent.

Unless the philosophy major ends up teaching or in law school. Otherwise, they get to ponder the great philosophical question, "Do you want fries with that?"

"Did you bullshit last week? Well, did you try to bullshit?"

Sorry I just got History of the World Part 1 on DVD as a b-day gift and couldn't resist Brook's "stand-up philosopher" bit.

Which means you shouldn't take things at face value.

That 60% number you throw around is based on a small sample (138) survey that had issues with it including allegations of gaming the results from various sources including the Nation and Slate.

See post #100 for more info.

Thanks for chasing down the methodology.

This is an academic discussion, but it is still an interesting one, and has some tangible effect.

They often have to pay for childcare, work at least 8 hours, then go home to spend time with their children & do ALL the housework. Plus yardwork, etc. (If they can afford a house with a yard.) Yes, some do get paid to stay home. As reviled "welfare mothers" they receive a pittance & are scorned by society.

And what about married working mothers? I hear that not all their husbands do 50% of the work at home.

I'm glad that some women can afford to stay home with their kids & have no career plans. And it's much nicer at home after all the kids are in school. I don't care whether or not they are degreed. They may need to work someday, after all. And the super-affluent ones in the referenced article can get involved in cultural charities. But what part of "society" should pay them?

would do more to help US families of ALL kinds than just implementing a policy for stay at home parents to be paid for their efforts. Though the Social Security system should be changed to reflect the stay at home parets' contributions to society, just not by the current crop in DC, of course.

The only issue I see is that it still makes one partner dependent on the whim of the other.

like underwater basket weaving or something. Liberal arts classes require a lot of smarts, a lot of critical thinking and a lot of writing. Something that the current administration is sadly lacking in and that is partly what is wrong with the country. People don't know how to think properly.

As someone working on a PhD in the sciences, I also wish people would stop trivializing the humanities and social sciences. The issues facing higher education affect us all, and obsessing over this distinction makes it harder to organize against those who would destroy affordable higher ed.

The lack of education in Liberal Arts, social sciences, etc. is a big contributor to the sheeple mentality that is so pervasive today and for the disregard for the earth and overal stupidity of many of todays voters.

1. Regardless what you "do" with your degree, isn't it best to have the brightest students at the best colleges? It makes taking the classes with your peers a better experience for all involved. It doesn't matter if you plan on wiping your ass with the piece of paper after you're done... if you plan on putting in the time and hard work to get the degree, then you deserve the chance, regardless who you are.

2. I TOTALLY agree that having an educated mother raise her children is SUPER important in today's world. Isn't the whole point of having children to give them the best future possible? Maybe (hopefully) a better future than you had even?

3. What's to say that women won't be the ones in the workforce with the men home raising the child? (now this is assuming a classic man and woman union, but substitute any homosexual partnership as well and the theory still holds) In my eyes it's best to have BOTH parents be as well educated as possible.


The only thing I really disagree with is ... I do not think that women or men should be compensated for raising children, in fact I think that women or men who instead decide to permanently discard their reproductive organs should be compensated. We have a growing population problem. There will be PLENTY of babies born to sustain our population and encouraging people to raise children, especially when they need financial help, is not wise at all.

I'm quite sure the women rushing off to catch the "el" downtown to work in the morning look at them with envy as they push their costly strollers down the street to Star bucks to meet up with fellow moms and chew the fat for a few hours. Then off to the gym or park, lunch and, then, meet hubby for dinner.

envy, too, although many people who have worked would love to give up the daily grind.

And if these women in your neighborhood are chewing the fat, going to the gym or park, etc., so what? Why begrudge them because not everyone can do what they're doing? It's their (or their and their husbands') choice, isn't it?

Disgusting. Whether you work for someone or not should not define your value or whether you should educate yourself. Colleges should not be factories for businesses. Everything revolves around the dollar in this fucking country. It makes me sick.

education will make a better parent even if they never work in their lives. Do we want people to not be educated and instead get all their "education" and marching orders from the likes of Hannity and Limbaugh because they can't think for themselves? This is one of the reasons why this kind of thing is so pervasive these days. Why is it the Republicans are so against education?

is only a tool toward employment.

does the argument a disservice.

Awarding high end educations to those who use it only as a high-end dating service is a waste of resources.

I don't buy the idea that this is an efficient contingency plan.

But preparation for the rest of your life is rather more than that, IMO.

I say by all means stay home, because Ivy league graduates of either sex are annoying to work with!

If only Yalie GW Bush had stayed at home....;)

About most of them anyway. :)

Age
race
socio-economic class
major

etc.?

I am not sure the rep of this blog but it is a fairly convincing take down. Even cites a near identical story from the NYT in 1980!

http://lettrist.blogspot.com/2005/09/many-women-at-elite-colleges-set.html

"I also criticized Story's story for citing the results from an e-mail survey of 138 Yale undergraduate females without crediting the survey to any author. For a story so dependent on the fuzzy quantifier "many," it's important for readers to know the provenance of Story's purported hunk of hard data, that "roughly 60 percent said that when they had children, they planned to cut back on work or stop working entirely."

Story says she conducted the survey from November 2004 to January 2005 while at Columbia. Earlier this week, the editors of Gelf Magazine posted a list of questions from the survey, and remarked how some of them were "loaded," that is, likely to produce a biased result. For instance, the first question—"When you have children, do you plan to stay at home with them or do you plan to continue working? Why?"—assumes that the respondents intend to have children.

Story says she revised the survey after its weaknesses were pointed out to her. But in her final tabulation, she retained the responses from about 30 women who answered the first survey because, she said, the responses didn't vary significantly from those given to the revised version. She concedes the survey wasn't conducted with social-science rigor but calls it "a very good journalistic questionnaire.""

Read the whole thing.

So this is based on an e-mail survey from 138 Yale women.

Also here's a Katha Pollitt take down from the Nation

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051017/pollitt

And the survey was poorly designed to boot. And of course, no proper sampling techniques.

A lot of sound and fury over very little. The "study" and all the articles around it are meaningless.

Yet it has brought out the very prejudice that I mention in my post: that is that somehow motherhood is not an important enough job to warrant a higher education. There's lots of heady language, but in the end it amounts to the same thing

How can someone that stupid be at Yale?

(oh, never mind... Already know the answer to that...)

http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20051017&s=pollitt

Louise Story is the name of this silly little "researcher".



"..."I sense that she had a story to tell, and she only wanted to tell it one way," Mary Miller, master of Saybrook, one of Story's targeted colleges, told me. Miller said Story met with whole suites of students and weeded out the women who didn't fit her thesis. Even among the ones she focused on, "I haven't found that the students' views are as hard and fast as Story portrayed them...""

"... In two days of interviewing professors, grad students and undergrads, I didn't find one person who felt Story fairly represented women at Yale. Instead, I learned of women who had thrown Story's questionnaire away in disgust, heard a lot of complaints about Yale's lack of affordable childcare and read numerous scathing unpublished letters to the Times, including a particularly erudite one from a group of sociology graduate students. Physics professor Megan Urry had perhaps the best riposte: She polled her class of 120, using "clickers" (electronic polling devices used as a teaching tool). Of forty-five female students, how many said they planned "to be stay-at-home primary parent"? Two. Twenty-six, or 58 percent, said they planned to "work full time, share home responsibilities with partner"--and good luck to them, because 33 percent of the men said they wanted stay-home wives. ..."

...sorry had relive the worst statistical proclamamtion every uttered in light of how bogus this whole thing seems!

:-)

The woman held up as a poster child for this BS trend in the 1980 NYT piece is now an investment banker!

"that is that somehow motherhood is not an important enough job to warrant a higher education."

You hit the nail on the head. People want to punish these women for their choices. I don't hear about 1 year students taking
up valuable spaces (with that 1 year coming under many circumstances from lack of funding to partying one's ass off).

Should I go laugh at people I know with Master's degree that do nothing in their field of study? Or why even go that far, how about just BA's and BS's?

Either the student writer was midguided in her fervor or someone wanted to make feminists look like lunatics who hate women who stay at home.

women will all go home and male employees won't have to compete with them.


Every point you made is on the money. I especially like this from the Nation article:

"What's painful about the way the Times frames work-family issues is partly its obsessive focus on the most privileged as bellwethers of American womanhood--you'd never know that most mothers who work need the money. But what's also depressing is the way the Times lumps together women who want to take a bit of time off or work reasonable hours--the hours that everybody worked not so long ago--with women who give up their careers for good. Cutting back to spend time with one's child shouldn't be equated with lack of commitment to one's profession. You would not know, either, that choices about how to combine work and motherhood are fluid and provisional and not made in a vacuum. The lack of good childcare and paid parental leave, horrendous work hours, inflexible career ladders, the still-conventional domestic expectations of far too many men and the industrial-size helpings of maternal guilt ladled out by the media are all part of it. "

http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20051017&s=pollitt

...she takes it all down from premise to methdology to just about everything.

And remember that the NYTimes routinely likes to knock women in the shins with a fake story like this.

I agree with your take on the Politt article. It was very well done.

...is that this was apparently a j-school project that the NYT slapped on the front page.

And allow it to be perceived as fact?

Only because the (male) editors like to hit women in the kneecaps every once in awhile.

But that hasn't stopped some from siding with her.

Louise Story carefully chooses her subjects according to her bias (no random sample), gives them a loaded questionaire (no testing of questions), writes an article which gives the impression she has done a real study, and then is unapologetic when her "results" are questioned:


"She concedes the survey wasn't conducted with social-science rigor but calls it "a very good journalistic questionnaire."

http://lettrist.blogspot.com/2005/09/many-women-at-elite-colleges-set.html


Louise Story presented a faux study as if it meant something and misrepresented many women in the process. An ethical journalist would have made the nature of his casual, anecdotal study clear:

"The problem with Story's e-mail survey is not that she asked a lot of students questions. Reporters are supposed to ask lots of people questions. But if a journalist wants readers to be impressed by numbers like "roughly 60 percent," they must 1) say who collected the numbers and 2) explain how the numbers were collected. The Times and Story failed the reader by not stating that these findings were about as anecdotal and impressionistic as, say, the findings of a columnist like David S. Broder based on 100 interviews he conducted in Iowa to take the state's political temperature. Broder would never write, "roughly 60 percent of 100 Iowans interviewed believe the president is doing a bad job," because a hard number indicates that such numerical findings have real significance (especially when their source is not divulged). Instead, Broder would typically place the results in their proper anecdotal context, by using a phrase like "most of the Iowans I met with. ..." That would dispel the misapprehension that he thought his interviews had the same footing as as a Gallup poll. Story, on the other hand, presented her results to sound like good sociology."




"

though they might be, but that she sacrifices any sort of rigor or accuracy to whatever the hell point she wants to make.

The New York Times knows that Anne Coulter isn't "news" but "opinion" and would put her on the opinion page if they published her. But the Louise Story "study" appeared on page one of the New York Times as NEWS.

I expect Coulter to vomit up her entrails, so it's no surprise.

But Louise Story, who has an education (she seems to be working on her 3rd degree) should be honest about what kind of "data" she's working from and the New York Times should be honest enough to examine her work and reveal her anecdotal evidence for what it is. And for God's sake, don't put it on page 1.

And the article uses sloppy words like 'many', 'some' to cover up the lack of survey legitimacy.

:)

If a women has the right to choose to end a potential human being, then surely she also has the right to choose an education at any institution that will accept her.

Singling them out and *not* going after the other college students who under-utilize their college degree is sexism, plain and simple.

If childcare were more easily affordable and of higher quality, fewer families would decide to have a sahm, imo. Many don't trust others to be around their children, or are convinced they won't earn enough to pay for the childcare.

of the child rearing really need some help from society at large to accomplish this. Some progressive countries have a family allowance for each child to help with the expense of their rearing. Also, childcare facilities for working mothers in Scandanavian countries and many other countries in Europe are state run and staffed by trained professional, as well as being free, like public schools.

Women have always done work in society that helps out the family economically. I don't see why we can't come up with a system that accommodates mothers so that they can have the help they need in rearing the children if they have to work, or if they stay at home, that they receive some sort of compensation for it. After all nannies and teachers are paid. Why not mothers?

material necessity has pressed even the least occupationally ambitious into the workplace. 60% may want to stay home, an unsurprising number, but the number that actually do stay home decreases each year. Given that despite the gains made in the workplace we still operate under the assumption that the mother must be primary caregiver (hence fathers do not take paternity leave, or only stay at home, once their wives out-gain them in the workplace-by default). The "Second Shift" that working women face is the biggest issue families face today (Russell-Hochschild). Exhausted parents hoping for a break from work and chores. That 60% is probably a reflection of cultural beliefs about child-rearing. Yet those "morals" are always compromised by the primacy of material reality (the needs and wants of the economy). The most accurate talking point about "family values" is this: The biggest threat to the family is your workplace and your economy. The economy demands that your workplace demand from you, your time...increasing amounts of time.


In 1997, 70% of mother's were in the workforce. A number, because of the permanent crisis economy we live in, that has most likely increased-google U.S. Census.

http://www.lifecourse.cornell.edu/archives/factsht/fsfeb99.pdf

I agree that feminists must deal with this issue carefully. The point is agency and free choice. If we critique housewives for their choice then I see a contradiction. Critiquing a husband who marginalizes his wife seems appropriate, but critiquing the mother seems misplaced. The next critique should be aimed at the fact that agency and free choice on this matter is made virtually impossible, save for the most materially well off, because of cost inflation, price fixing, etc. If a mother or father want to stay home then they will have to have good luck in trying to pay the bills.

I am worth more to us financially staying home in this economy!

I used to teach but don't see myself putting up with no child left behind after being my own boss for so long.

Not to mention that part of the American dream is to buy more junk than we need. My kids learned to do without because I stayed at home and they all have said that they would rather have me home and knowing what was going on in their world than being able to go to the movies more often.

I am a Household Executive. I manage everything and seriously save us money by being home. Of course, here in MI, I would be lucky to make $10 an hour somewhere!

I have no doubt that what I do is the most important thing I could be doing. I am very fortunate and so is my family.

several new fields: I have been learning about speech therapy, sign language, behavior therapy, etc for the last five years. I'll probably never get a degree for it, but to my autistic son and his nonautistic brother, I think this will be invaluable.

I don't believe in a "wasted" education, and I'm not all that upset about slots at Ivy League universities "being taken up" like this.

I am more worried, however about higher education becoming more out of the reach of middle and low income people. And that may be a function of a growing population and greater competition to get in. But I don't begrudge any woman getting a good education. You never know when or how it will be used.

I'm far more concerned in the affordability and availability of quality higher education to anyone with the interest and aptitude regardless of how they intend to use it.

"I don't believe in a wasted education."

"I don't begrudge any woman getting an education."

An education is about more than just using it to get a paycheck. An education enhances parenting skills, general life skills, and life long learning skills. It's no coincidence that the large majority of people with post grad educations, vote Democratic.

I majored in Social Work and don't work in the field but certainly use my education in all areas of my life. Had I had the opportunity to attend an Ivy League University, I would have, regardless of what my career goals were at that time.

If these women choose to stay at home and raise their children, fine by me. My only hope is that they will, at some point, make some contributions to the larger society, perhaps doing volunteer work.

All of us, owe something back to society, particularly those privileged enough to attend the best educational systems in our society.

What ever happened to investing in oneself? If you only go to college for any future money it may bring in you won't do well. An education is never wasted.

Raising children is work as is volunteer or activist work.

It's insulting to women to be told if they choose to stay at home and raise their children, they should remain ignorant.

can sometimes be a bane to society. I know that sounds harsh, but some of the worst parenting practices that I've seen come from "ignorant" women, and I don't mean you have to go to college to avoid ignorance. I've met degreed women who never bother to pick up a book, use critical thinking skills, etc, yet I've seen "uneducated" women educate themselves. If Oprah et al say that motherhood is the most important and hardest job in the world, then shouldn't these women be educated?

from taking up the slots at elite schools.

And open the doors to more regular Americans.

Also, they have fewer children. Right there you are seeing some payoff from those supposedly wasted degrees.

I am an "educated" (although not ivy league) stay-at-home mom. I am also a feminist. I use my education and work experience in ways that may not be immediately evident to those who spend their time in the more mainstream work arena. For instance, I own a small business and work from home. This gives me the flexibility I need to care for my children properly. I would not get that from most corporate employers, so I choose not to work there. Also, I volunteer large amounts of time with local democracy groups and with my local Democratic party.

I don't see where how this is selfish life. I am doing a good job raising my kids, I contribute to my family's bottom line and I help in the community. My education improves my performance on all fronts.

Just because a woman plans to spend a few years out of a very long life raising her children , doesn't mean she doesn't deserve to get the very best degree she can achieve. If she's the best, she's the best, and being in a country with CHOICE means that she has a choice. She may choose what to do with her education, in her own timeframe. It's called CHOICE. She can go to work as soon as she's confident that her children can function unharmed without her constant supervision. Unfortunately in this country, quality childcare can be hard to find. As a mom who stayed home with my children, because I had the choice, I applaud every woman who sacrifices those years. :applause: It's not easy for an intelligent woman to spend her days with pre-schoolers. But the children are the future, and they are worth it!!! :applause: (Hopefully those same children will remember this when mom is old, and not stick her in some corporate home to sit and wait death.)

They are all a waste of money. Most of the people that get these degrees never use them in real life. nya nya nya






:sarcasm:

Not all that fully formed, but one I'll toss out anyway.

First, it should be understood that the way things are in a culture or society -- whatever that means at any given time -- is absolutely the result and consequence of all the decisions and actions of all the people in that culture or society. IOW: what we've got is what we've all built together, for better or worse.

Right now we have a situation where women are by no means equal participants in U.S. society and culture, but are in better shape than they were prior to 1968, thanks to the work of a lot of women in many, many different fields and over decades, including those decades between 1848 and the passage of women's suffrage in 1919.

IOW, collectively we've decided that adult women get an expanded but by no means fully equal role in society, and female children get a somewhat more expanded opportunity in their upbringing so that they can be better prepared to participate as adults. All of this is better. It's not great.

But we have NOT as a society come to see essential life-supporting tasks such as raising children, making a home, caring for the sick and elderly, etc., as important responsibilities of the society as a whole. These and others remain responsibilities for WOMEN, and pretty much women alone. And because both these tasks and women themselves are still seriously devalued, something which paying women for their work at home incl. raising children would help address to some extent, these jobs are not well thought of, not well paying, not something anyone aspires to as a rule, and certainly not jobs men feel any responsibility toward whatsoever, including paying for them.

This societal shrug off by the men of this culture is wrong, and it needs to change.

So instead of paying women who stay home and do that work, I would rather see society take its social responsibilities more seriously and spread the responsibilities around more equitably.

For example, it is tothe benefit of the entire society that children get raised well. In tribal situations and in earlier times, children were raised by the tribe and/or extended family. There's no reason that can't happen now -- it's no less a societal obligation now than it was then, it's just that we've been acculturated to think of it as "women's work" rather than "society's obligation toward furthering and building a decent society."

This is not to say that society should be responsible instead of the mother, but that society's role be greatly expanded so that every mother and every family has all the support for raising their children that they would ever need. Toward that end, high quality childcare should be the automatic right of any working family (notice: I said working FAMILY, not "working woman"), at an extremely affordable cost if not just outright free. Perhaps we choose a society in which different members of society are expected to participate, or maybe we could begin to value these jobs highly enough to pay the people who do them very well and honor those careers based on nurturing other members of our society.

As long as raising children remains primarily women's work and their sole responsibility, women will never have full equality. They will never be totally free to participate in society fully. It's just that simple.

I think back to my own childrearing days when I also worked, partly because we needed the money but also because I needed the intellectual stimulation and sense of accomplishment. No one on the planet should have to go through the unbelievable guilt of what working mothers typically go through: they either feel guilty if their child is sick but they didn't miss work to stay with her, or they stay home with the child and feel unbelievably guilty and filled with anxiety about their job stability because they missed work. I can still feel that pain as acutely as ever after more than 20 years and it sucks. No one should have to go through that: we can and must build a society where women and families are fully supported to both participate fully in society AND get their children raised and their sick and elderly cared for and so forth and so on. Actually, Clinton's Family Leave was a good first step toward such a society IMO.

I would like to add On-Off ramps for careers to allow women AND men to get off to raise a family, take care of an aged loved one...and an On ramp to allow them to resume.

You and I are trying to come to grips with the same problem: the undervaluing of caretaking work that is devalued, gets dumped mostly on women, and is often ill-paid or non-paying. I like your ideas, I just despair of society and of men, in particular, ever understanding how important caretaking is to the maintenance of family and society. That's why I suggested pay. Money is something society (and men) understand.

You said:



The article cited in the thread you referenced actually says:




There is a BIG difference.

Many of the people I work with are two physician couples. In most, the wife works part time, definitely a lower load than a full time physician of the same specialty typically would. But they are in fact using their medical training.

So, if those 90 percent of those 60 percent of Yale women were planning on doing something like the doctors I described, and only 10 percent of the 60 percent were planning on not working at all, then you would have grossly misrepresented the true results of the study.

I have no problem with women who stay home and raise the children and don't work in the "work world". I just don't think you have fairly represented what 60 percent of the Yale women actually were saying in the survey.