As I look into my far future, I ponder on these questions:
What's so bad about a woman simply being a wife and mother? With the feminist push in the past century and a half, it seems that if you want to do such a thing, you are lower class or you are seen as unintelligent. After all, men who are fine with a wife who want to take care of house and children are oppressors, right? Does a woman have to work outside her home to show her equality? Is college necessary in these times?
Personally, I think that the option of not working while raising children should be open and told to young women. Older mentors should teach that it's fine if you want to devote your life to others in this way. It is not demeaning to be given a responsibility in the life of your child. For example, take my mother: she got her degree in speech therapy, but once my parents started having children, she worked minimally or not at all. It is much easier to take care of kids if you don't have a heavy job tying you down. I think that much of her children's development was influenced by her presence. That she took the time to be with us makes me respect her and my father very much. As there has been need, she has been able to work, but that's not her main role.
Getting a degree for a woman is a good thing, especially if the husband is in illness/etc. Having kids is something for after school and college, if one goes that route. It sounds like something much easier on any couple. There may be ways to work from home, but when I am a mother, I want to be there for my kids as much as possible. I don't want an institution to raise my kids; I want my hypothetical husband and I to do that.
I do believe I will be taking the college route. We'll see what the future holds. Will my knowledge gained be any good of the future? Will I have spent my family's money wisely? What will I do when I get married and have children? Will there be a long time when I do work? I want to be as selfless as possible in all of that.
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