Breeding the new elite.
I know! It's because the wrong types are having all the kids, and so now really smart, respectable, pedigreed women are giving it all up to bear smart kids who can rule the ignorant masses...
Many people I talk to are worried that it seems to them that the ‘wrong’ sort of people are having all the babies – those who are not in stable relationships or who are, rightly or wrongly, perceived to have lower morals and to be less educated.I once read a trad blog where the readers were arguing about the merits of educating women in the first place - sending them to university and all of that, especially to earn degrees in nonessential fields. Many comments seemed to favor the notion that a woman's vocation is either to religious life or to be a wife and mother, therefore a higher education would be a waste of fertility time and money.
Bruce Weinberg, co-author of the study and professor of economics at Ohio State University comments in the article that:
“One of the major economic stories of the second half of the 20th century was that highly educated women were working more and having fewer children. It is too early to definitively say that trend is over, but there is no doubt we have seen fertility rise among older, highly educated women.”
It is not clear from this research whether women are actually leaving their jobs to have children or are employing childcare, but it is clear that they are increasingly opting to have a family – and that’s surely positive for the future of our society.
“For the less educated women, it is more a story about the timing of their fertility. They are having their children earlier now than they used to, but they are not having any more children overall.” - Crisis
I didn't say anything of course.
"It is not clear from this research whether women are actually leaving their jobs to have children or are employing childcare"
ReplyDeleteWell it darned well ought to be clear. They don't want their childminders defective morals or lowered mental state rubbing off on the little intellectuals.
It would be akin to environmental atmospheric inbreeding. Who knows how they might turn out eventually.
I believe this sacrifice should be two-fold. One woman to give birth, another to raise the child. The child minding genius would be allowed ten minute breaks in order to go online and keep up with her stocks and shares in overseas contraception development, or whatever it is educated women aspire to materially, these days.
Well, yes, more women are getting PhDs so more highly educated people are having kids. But there is still a good deal of academic prejudice against faculty having babies, especially before they get tenure.
ReplyDeleteThanks Sarah - I think it is still the same on the corporate level as well.
Deleteo please, my husband is abd on his phd.
ReplyDeleteWhen he was MA student, we had our first child, and we decided I would stay home. When his colleagues asked me my field I'd answer English and Psych and they would ask me my opinion. If they later asked me my job and I'd inform them I was a SAHM, man, their eyes would glaze over. Like everything I'd just said was no longer relevant because it had come out of my mouth. In 10 minutes they'd forgotten that I had 2 BAs and had run laps around there arguments. Apparently,mothers are supposed to be stupid.
After a while I began to realize that infants are really the most intelligent creatures in the world. You ought to see how they figure out the solutions to problems in ways no adult would even consider.
As children grow they are educated in specific ways of solving problems. And of course by the time they hit UNI. they have completely looked at things in only one way.
Eg Tell am engineer to build a bridge out of paper, that weighs within a certain weight and can hold a certain weight, and trained engineers will look at the problem and say it can't be done. Give the problem to a couple of 4th graders and you know they will figure it out. Alas education limits one's ability for thinking.