Recently a few of the blogs I read regularly have had a lot to say about women working outside the home. I agree with probably 99% of what they say. As much as I love teaching, I'm miserable when I'm not home taking care of my family. I'm a home-body. I like to get out and about, but not when it's required. I'd rather be home and then enjoy getting out for errands and stuff. Once I'm an empty-nester I might feel differently but for now I'm happy being a SAHM.
However, I've heard criticism from a few sources of parents allowing, or even encouraging, their daughters to go to college instead of staying home and focusing on learning the skills necessary to be good homemakers. While I agree that it's extremely important for them to learn these skills, to think they don't need a college education because they're going to be wives and mothers is very short-sighted and detrimental to their future families.
To illustrate, let me tell you a story. My grandmother was born in the early part of the 1900s. Her parents were immigrants and there were several children in the family. Some of the siblings went to college. Perhaps all of them, but I don't remember. I'm pretty sure there was a sister who married young and started a family. Her kids were older than the youngest sibling, I know. This family was very devout and very traditional. But education was important and my great-grandfather was proud to be able to send his sons and daughters to college who wanted to go.
My grandmother started teacher's training but preferred to go into nursing. Her father wasn't going to allow her at first because her sister was already a nurse so why would they need two nurses in the family? Finally my grandmother was able to convince him to let her go. She completed her training and went to work. When she married my grandfather she quit work and was a SAHW/M. She was very happy. She was a wonderful cook and baker. Her home was always spotless. Due to her nurse's training she knew the importance of cleanliness. Her home wasn't just clean it was sanitary. lol
She had 4 children, one of whom died at the age of two. Because of her nurse's training she was able to care for my aunt at the end at the hospital. She knew what was what. When my dad and his brothers were older my grandfather was serving a very small church in the town where I grew up. Things were very tight. My grandmother had to go back to work. Thanks to her nurse's training she was able to get a good job at a local hospital for decent pay. In fact, there were months where not only did my grandfather not get a full salary (or any salary) but they had to put some of Grandma's salary into the church for things that were needed.
She worked at the hospital for several years, starting the nursery. She even went back to college for teacher's training so she could teach at the school of nursing. One of her professors apologized to her that due to some policy at the college she couldn't graduate with honors. He made a point of saying that she certainly deserved them. She was well-loved by everyone who worked with her and well-respected by the doctors. On top of it all, she kept her home and worked in the church.
My grandmother came from a very traditional family. It was expected that the daughters would grow up, get married, and raise their families as SAHMs. However, education was very important and being a SAHM was no excuse for not having that education. Even though Grandma started off as a SAHM, she did find herself in a situation where her family needed the income that her training could provide. She still took care of the home and baked fresh bread when needed (Grandpa hated store bread) and took care of Dad and his brothers. If you ask them, they're extremely proud of their mother and everything she did for them.
Grandma certainly had a heart for home but she also had a heart for nursing and the people she cared for and worked with. She loved her years of nursing and training other nurses. God blessed her in both places.
If my great-grandparents had been of the mind that their daughters didn't need a college education because they were girls and their goals were to be keepers of the home, that would not have kept Grandma in the home during the lean years. She would still have needed to work outside the home, but what would she have done? Perhaps worked retail. But that doesn't pay very well, especially for someone with no experience. Because of her training she was able to not only contribute financially to her family when it was needed, she was able to contribute well. Because of the knowledge she received from her training, she was a better wife and mother. It's also known that the children of well-educated parents are often more successful themselves.
Parents who try to discourage their daughters from seeking higher education are not only doing them a great disservice, but they're doing a disservice to their future grandchildren.
6 comments:
I'm glad you brought this up. I've been troubled by all the blogs and websites that discourage parents from sending their girls (and now boys, too) to college. They home-college over the internet. While I know there is much feminism taught at college, and that they are not necessarily safe places for girls, and there is much opportunity for immorality, I still cannot see not sending a daughter to college if she wants to go. Many of these blogs are quite radical. I also notice that the moms of these girls went to college themselves; nobody held them back. They made poor choices and got involved in feminism and immorality, and their daughters are made to pay for their poor choices. We ALL know that grown children make their own choices. If these homeschooled children are really trained the way we are told that they are, there should be no problem with allowing them to go to college, right?
In fact, lots of these blogs are really starting to trouble me. They have had an effect on me, too, even though I didn't homeschool, nor would I want to, and in some of my posts, I come across as more radical than I really am. I am a moderate. I have decided to stop going to a lot of the blogs that I have been visiting for some time now. They are having a negative effect on me, and I'm an older lady whose children are grown. They have no interest in courtship, or in homeschooling their own children, but I guess it is my job to talk them into it???
It seems like every month there is a new fad. It starts off with homeschool, then dresses-only, then patriarchy, then courtship, then daughters staying home, now the new one is "husbands staying home", too. The perpetrators of these fads make a lot of money selling books. I've bought some of them.
I mean, if people want to do these things, that's fine -- I'm all for freedom -- but they make everybody else feel condemned, and many of them end up selling stuff to the people who read their blogs.
A daughter may really have to care for herself and her children some day. My husband's grandmother did, and she was born in the 1800's, because her husband died, leaving her with 5 children. Ok, they can argue that churches and extended family and the community should have cared for them, and maybe they should have (but she wouldn't have wanted charity), but the didn't. Bottom line.
Thanks for your post today.
Now that I have daughters:) I have to consider this, and I really do want them to be college educated. My education makes me a better wife, mother, and pastor's wife. I have been able to make better decisions for my family and I am taken seriously as an intelligent individual by doctors and other professionals that we depend on. Education is important to everyone!
Civilla- Exactly! We have no idea what life holds for us. Just because we believe in marriage in death to us part, doesn't mean that our spouses won't up and leave us some day. Or that he won't die, leaving us entirely alone (at least with divorce there's child support). It's so important that a woman have a way to earn a good living to support herself and her children in case something happens. If you don't have an education it's so difficult to find a job that allows you to support a family on your own. I've had responses to statements like that telling me that we need to trust God to provide. Well, He provides us with the opportunities for a good education!
Or in the case of my grandmother and many others, sometimes it's necessary for her to help out the family financially. It wasn't permanent, it was for a season. A rather long season, but it blessed her family and many others.
Pam- You're absolutely right. We are taken more seriously if we have an education. Not just women, either, but men.
I'm a WOHM with a daughter in college - not a Christian college, a state university. My younger children attend public school. There are bloggers out there who believe I am on the fast track to hell!
Never-the-less, I am baptized!
Anyhow, I think you are absolutely right. I have witnessed in my lifetime women whose husbands have become disabled and they have been called upon to support their family. They were fortunate to have the education to be able to do this.
My daughter in college is studying to be a social worker. However, what she wants most of all is to be a wife and mother. Until that time she hopes to help people as a social worker. What's wrong with that?
I notice that it is easy to say, "Just trust God" or "just have faith" when it is for SOMEBODY ELSE. They need to practice that on themselves first and then tell others how to trust God. I notice too many of these ladies with easy circumstances who have never walked where some have walked are dispensing advice to the hurting. Very troubling. I'm glad I went to college, but feel pressure to say that it was a mistake, when it was my precious husband's gift to me (he used his inheritance to send me). I don't have girls, so the subject doesn't come up for me, but I feel pressure to tell people not to send girls to college. I don't want to do that. I have never raised girls. I enjoyed college.
Sue Bee and Civilla- You're right! There is nothing wrong with enjoying an education and reaping the rewards...whether we use the degree or not or only use it temporarily. I'm trying to remember who said this, maybe Benjamin Franklin, but knowledge is one investment that no one can steal from you. (Please don't quote me on that one...I'm sure I've messed it up.)
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