DEIRDRE writes:

Mrs. Sherman’s remarks touched a nerve. I just wanted to give my account of how it is with colleges and the pressure housewives are under to get an education. 

I’ve been told I will be accepted at a major state university if I want to go. I’ve already got an Associates Degree. I don’t use it as a credential even though it took me four long years of part-time night school to get. Now, I feel tremendous pressure to go back to school. It does not matter that I would likely incur tremendous debt for another useless degree. My in-laws, parents, and everyone else would be so pleased if I would just go. My husband’s bosses would be impressed, my neighbors would be in awe. The teachers at my kids’ schools would think just a bit more highly of me. They don’t know what to make of me now that most of the other mothers of my second grader’s peers have gone back to work. There are only two left in her classroom that go home to their mothers after school and the kids are only seven. Clearly, it is time for me to move on and stop hovering over my children, right? So, I caved in a bit to the pressure and contacted Behemoth U. 

The advisors at Behemoth U. think I should go full time. I have said maybe part time, but advisors never care. They want it all. I remember going to the local Behemoth U. branch to register when my kids were very small and I still thought it was a bad idea for me to be home without working on a degree to be safe in case something happened. My daughter was sick and I had just given her a nebulizer treatment to help her breathing. My son still wasn’t talking well and was in speech therapy several times a week. He was coming down with the cold my daughter had. His nose was running and she looked dreadful. But, I persevered because it was time to register and it was the right thing to do, I thought. I bundled the kids up and took them out into the cold to the school. We trudged through snow to get to the registration building and then back out to get a signature from an advisor to approve the class selection. The advisor asked about my long-term plans. He never looked at the kids or acknowledged them. He asked why I was going just part-time and I explained I had other obligations and very little money. He continued to ignore the kids then wrote out a long-term advisement plan for me. He said I should only take a few classes at the branch then move on and attend the main campus full time! The main campus of Behemoth U. is a good two hour drive away by busy highway and costs thousands upon thousands of dollars a year! There was no way I could do that without divorcing my husband and turning custody of my children over to him. 

I decided that day I was done with my higher education. I brought my kids home and took good care of them. I’ve taken good care of them ever since, but I get very little affirmation for it. If I walked out of here today and went to Behemoth U., took on student loans for my husband to pay off, pursued an English degree that will never make me any money, and served TV dinners every night because I was too busy studying, I would get far more affirmation than I will ever get if I stay home and keep caring for my family. 

My father is on his way over to visit. I dread his visits. He is unhappy his “smart” daughter is a housewife in an apartment, even though I am not unhappy and my family is doing great. He is probably going to tell me yet again how smart my cousin is. He is always telling me how smart certain educated people are. My cousin, who is a woman, works for a major governmental agency, and teaches karate on the side. She has a PhD. She is probably a genius and she makes six figures. She is also a butch lesbian who did not decide that until after she had two little girls she proceeded to neglect terribly after divorcing their father. But that does not matter. She’s very smart, my father says.

 Thank you for your blog. It helps me keep the proper perspective, which can be a hard thing to do.

[Editor’s Note: The name of Behemoth University has been changed to protect the identity of its caring and conscientious employees, whose only interests are in the welfare of students and the advancement of higher learning. The reader’s name has also been changed to protect her relatives, who care nothing for status and earnestly wish for the happiness of this under-educated housewife.]

                                                                            — Comments —

Jill F. writes:

Dear pressured intelligent mother,

You are not alone. Many of us have withstood similar familial and societal pressures and lived to tell about it. My father obtained his Ph.D. from Yale and was chairman of the department at a very large University. My father-in-law was a professor as well. I remember completing my Bachelor of Science degree shortly after I got married and my father telling me, “That’s just mickey mouse stuff…get a higher degree.” Well, I didn’t. I stayed home and had babies. Eight of them. I don’t think I ever heard a kind remark from either set of parents or siblings. I educated them at home. I read to them. My intellect continued to develop and I say with honesty and all humility; after 22 years of home schooling my children, I have the equivalent of two Ph.D.’s….but that is not what matters. What really matters is that I was there for my children and they have grown into a delightful bunch of articulate and well-read world changers by the grace of God!

All of those lonely years of raising our children and trying hard to withstand unkind remarks have been good for my character. I have developed a backbone. Real conviction is doing what is right when no one recognizes it as such. I did have my husband encouraging me on but he needed encouragement as well. It was tough. Some days it is still tough because I still have young ones at home.

The Biblical principle is that we will reap what we sow. All those years I struggled to keep committed to my family in the face of scoffers my sister-in-laws were being applauded for leaving their babies with nannies and pursuing careers. I’ll admit that it hurt. But now that many of our children are grown my husband and I are reaping the fruit of our labors and we are surrounded by our mostly grown children who have our values, love our God and are choosing to marry delightful like-minded Christian spouses. The in-laws who were held up as paragons of success during those child-raising years are weeping over children who are embezzling money from them and going to prison! Guess what? Our parents still tell us that we just happened to get eight “good” children!! It certainly keeps us humble to get absolutely no credit for the way our children turned out! That’s all right, I’m too busy enjoying my family and my husband of almost 29 years.

So, dear mother, I encourage you to turn to God for your strength, read books and publications and websites that affirm your decision to put your husband and children first. You are not married to your parents and they may never understand. Your children will. Your children will (deep down) rejoice that their mother loves them enough to be there for them! And may you live to rejoice in seeing your children’s children being raised by a mama at home!

Stephanie Murgas writes:

The recent discussion about committed housewives pursuing counterproductive degrees (as far as financial reasons are concerned) has put me in my place! I have been debating whether or not to apply to graduate school for a degree in a field that would be utterly useless as far as my family would be concerned…I have no real financial aspirations except to make my own pocket money which I know I can do inside my home by teaching music lessons (my major in undergraduate school) or through the various arts and crafts I enjoy. I have been feeling the pressure to find “meaning” outside the home, and it is astounding that the majority of this pressure comes from other mothers whose lives are so wound up in the rat race that I don’t see how they have time to do anything besides work and shuttle family members around. I don’t believe I could endure a life like that, but I digress. I would intend to essentially be self-employed, but that demonstrates that another degree probably wouldn’t be worth it since I would not be competing with others for a position, I would not have a salary determined by my credentials, etc. I still haven’t decided what to do, but I may have decided that there is no point in potentially putting my family into more financial stress in this economic climate in order to satisfy my “need” for higher learning and self-satisfaction. I would rather be a lowly “less-educated” housewife, then have to bear the responsibility for potentially putting my family in a dangerous position during the years they need me the most.

Laura writes:

I agree with Jill, and I know what she says is true. Don’t spend these years with your children on institutional learning. Educate them – and yourself – at home. You will never regret it. The home is a university, and a universe, all in one.

Y. writes:

“It is not difficult to see why the female became the emblem of the universal. Nature .. surrounded her with very young children, who require being taught not so much anything as everything. Babies need not to be taught a trade, but to be introduced to a world. To put the matter shortly, woman is generally shut up in a house with a human being at the time when he asks all the questions that there are, and some that there aren’t. It would be odd if she retained any of the narrowness of a specialist. Now if anyone says that this duty of general enlightenment . is in itself too exacting and oppressive, I can understand the view. I can only answer that our race has thought it worth while to cast this burden on women in order to keep common-sense in the world. . How can it be a large career to tell other people’s children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one’s own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No. A woman’s function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute. I will pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of her task; I will never pity her for its smallness.”

“…… To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labours, and holidays; to be Whitely within a certain area, providing toys, boots, cakes and books; to be Aristotle within a certain area, teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene; I can imagine how this can exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it. How can it be a large career to tell other people about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one’s own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone and narrow to be everything to someone? No, a woman’s function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute.”

G. K. Chesterton, What’s Wrong with the World

Charles T. writes:

During my last year in graduate school, my wife was teaching classes at a local junior college. Shortly before I graduated I went to a luncheon with her that was attended by her fellow instructors and staff members. Her boss was at our table and began an aggressive, loud rant that my wife should start pursuing a masters degree now. I was incensed and wanted to tell her to butt the hell out of our life. Fortunately, I exercised some discretion. What came out, though, was my terse statement that this would be our matter to decide, followed by a cold unsmiling glance. The subject was dropped immediately. My wife, of course just smiled. We wanted to have children. And, this is exactly what we did. Strange as it may seem, we noticed that some people were “‘surprised” when we had our third child. I guess we forgot to check with the experts. Although our experience was not as intense or prolonged as the pressured mother who wrote the lead post in this thread, we can identify with what she is saying. I am proud of her for staying at home with her children.

Lydia Sherman writes:

The government is providing easy access to college loans, targeting women at home. Many women are taking these loans and going to college. It is always a shock, always sad, and extremely depressing to watch these once dedicated mothers leave their comfortable homes and their children to go after prestige and money. I never understood why the world wants to recycle fifty-year-old women into the workplace, but the emphasis seems to be on getting older women out of the home. I have had a ladies Bible class for the last 20 years that has dwindled from 20 women, to 5 women, since so many of them claimed they had to go to work. They all had husbands who worked, but were concerned about the future economy. In spite of this, those women do not seem to have a more comfortable life, and have invited more troubles upon themselves. They are finding it is expensive to have troubled children, as they have to get counselling for them, repair damaged property, or bail them out of jail. 

In my observation, it is the religious women, whose lives do not alter drastically, that give the world the most peace and feeling of well-being. You know without a doubt that certain women just will not leave their homes. They are religiously tied to them. Their dedication to their homes cannot be moved by circumstances or philosophy. Imagine the women in the most conservative and the most strict religious group you know of, going to work. It would unsettle you somewhat, wouldn’t it? Somehow, these conservative religious women give us a sense of stability and sameness in an unstable world. This is how children feel when their mother is home. When she leaves to go to college or work, it creates a feeling of uncertainty. They surely need their mothers at home at that age, for it is during the teen years that they are assaulted with a host of differing beliefs and lures. Mothers at home provide reminders to teens, of the values in which they were raised, which is like having an anchor to hold them down when varying winds of doctrine toss them about.

Hurricane Betsy writes:

It’s not only mothers who go to university who are told that they’re somehow better off away from their homes. (Because that’s what it’s about – being away from the home; getting those degrees is irrelevant.) Over the past couple of generations young people who choose to live at home after finishing high school are looked at askance, considered to be tied to mama’s apron strings or all-round oddballs. I find this trend to be chilling; even a young person with a “stay-at-home” mother is probably not suited to living alone or with a roommate the moment they finish school and start a job or postsecondary education.

In this demented day and age, when we are no longer even remotely a sane or sound culture, kicking children out is the same as throwing them to the wolves. In most cases, they just aren’t ready to handle this sick world alone. Yes, they still need mama and daddy under the same roof no matter what anyone thinks. I know countless people (old, now) who lived at home until they found someone to marry. Nothing wrong with that in my books.

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