THERE ARE many arguments that come sailing through the air like so many intellectual frisbees for why traditional motherhood is no longer desirable. One of these arguments is that the domestic role consigns women to stupidity. In other words, before women were careerists, their mental development was neglected.

Here is an interesting statistic that suggests otherwise. In 1920, in the United States, according to historian Theda Skocpol, women constituted almost half of the 283,000 students enrolled in institutions of higher learning. The vast majority of these female students became full-time mothers and wives after college. For most of these women, college was not vocational, but for higher learning.

                                                                                                              — Comments —

Stephanie Murgas writes:

My husband and I had our first child when I was still in undergraduate school, and by the end of my schooling I was lamenting the fact that mothering and home economics were not considered “real enough” to be included in courses in higher learning. I had a vague idea in my head for most of my college years that I wanted to stay home, but that seemed a very shocking idea (!) to have. For my last elective I did take Introduction to Education because I had already been considering homeschooling (which basically is a career), but it was worthless besides the time I spent observing and helping at the preschool my daughter was attending as a course requirement, and I could have done that on my own. I even remember the speaker at my graduation summing up her speech (they were literally engraved on my ears): “And remember, no intelligent person ever gets married before the age of 30!” which was followed by thunderous applause. It was humiliating.

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