Monday, June 8, 2009
eureka week 4
Last year I had the pleasure of working with a young women in my classroom. I was the assistant for her and I called us the mother/daughter team. She had graduated the year before and this was her first year teaching. Although she went to school and got her degree, her plans were to get married and raise a family. She was uncomfortable talking about this, as if this was wrong. Her fiance has a job which can support this and I thought it was great. My problem with all this gender stuff is that children seem to get lost in it. It is as if making the choice of being a stay at home mom is a bad thing. Being able to raise my child has been the most rewarding job I have ever had. Unfortunately, school was not stressed to me when I was younger, so I think it is great that she at least has a degree in case something should happen in her future and she finds herself back in the workforce.
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Joan,
ReplyDeleteI'm right there with you! Somehow people think that if a woman works but tells people that she really wants to get married and raise a family, she's somehow intellectually inferior to the other women who have gotten degrees and are pursuing a career. That's actually what my Wiki page is about - working women vs. stay at home moms.
When I had my bookstore, it was near Rutgers University and many of the professors lived in the town nearby. I don't know how many times I heard (only from women) "I'm only buying this book so that I can zone out," when it came to buying a romance book. Somehow they thought I would judge them for reading "romance" or "trash." I was just happy someone was purchasing something from me and that the person was reading. That was most important to me.
I crochet too. I would do that at work during the slow times and "career women" would say to me, "Oh, I wish I had time to do that sort of hobby." A little condescening? Yeah. I would say with a smile, "You do have time. You just choose to do other things with your time."
I admire stay at home moms. I think there's a stigma to them as unworthy or not as smart but I feel they are less selfish and more invested in their children. Just my opinion.
Tarybn
Joan,
ReplyDeleteMy eldest daughter graduated and received her Masters in Special Education a couple of years'ago. I think she was even planning her wedding while she was in school. She met her husband to be through a friend at college. She also received her degree in teaching (she didn't go on for a Masters), she opted to marry after graduating with her B.A. Unfortunately, at the time, I was unable to "put" my daughter through college and took out loans, but she started teaching and while teaching and planning wedding went for her Masters (got a raise in salary upon receiving it). Her (now) sister-in-law as I said got her teaching certificate, her parents paid for her entire schooling (out of their own pockets) and what does she do - you ask? Never even tried to get a teaching position, married and moved to Pittsburgh and has been working at Sam's Club ever since. Her husband saw no need to pursue a teaching position! Isn't that a kick in the "you know what"?
Robin