I’m wondering about the same thing now that I am about to finish my PhD in political science. My degrees (English and Italian literature, then pol sci in grad school) have not been very useful in terms of landing me a great paying job but they have helped me see beauty and to think more critically about the world I live in. I hope I will be able to use that knowledge in my current sahm life. But I really hate it when people ask that question about wasting education. I think it really stands for wasting my life for those pesky kids. Maybe I’m just cynical.

I would say that you might still use your College Education in a very important way; it thought you how to teach yourself.  The way I see it, college is kind of the last step of the process where information is given to you.  When I need to know something now, I don’t go to a class, I research it myself, figure it out and apply it.  And I bet you do too.

I really don’t think that I am wasting my college education, especially as a homeschooling mother.  Many people probably thought my college education was a waste when I was getting it.  (My major was that lucrative field “Religious Studies”.)  Once I became disillusioned with the teacher education program, I just studied what I wanted to study and figured I’d land some sort of white collar job.  (I fell into medical billing, which actually gave me some important life information.)

On a practical level the college class I use the most is Computer Information Systems; it introduced me to the inner workings of Word, Excel, and Powerpoint.  On a lifestyle level, my major is probably what helped keep me Catholic.  I learned more about Catholicism in two semesters of History of Christianity at a secular university in the Bible belt than I did in 12 years of Catholic school.

I also met the two most influential people in the course of my life (outside my family of origin):  my best friend and my husband.  My best friend was my college room-mate and she led me to consider natural childbirth, breastfeeding, being a stay-at-home mom, and homeschooling even though I was extremely resistant to her “weirdness” at first.  And my husband is, well, my husband.  I didn’t meet him until my senior year (when I had sworn off dating because I was preparing to graduate).

I think there are several issues to consider when it comes to college:
1)  job training vs. learning for a love of knowledge
2)  prestige vs. cost effectiveness

I think my parents allowed me a certain amount of leeway with my educational goals because I opted for my second-choice college that offered me a free ride including housing instead of my more prestigious and expensive first-choice college that offered me absolutely no scholarship money.

Hmmm…I’ve said this same thing before (and it sure would help us to not have the student loan from my graduate degree) but I feel blessed to have had the opportunity as a young woman to have gotten an education.  At the time when I made the decision to attend college, I was several years away from meeting my future spouse (and I did have a full scholarship for that one).  At the time I chose to attend graduate school, I didn’t know I’d commit to staying home with my children for good.  I certainly identify with your statement that I saw it as a means to an end (I needed the graduate degree to do the job I wanted to do) and while I worked very hard, it wasn’t my love of learning that pushed me, it was my love of excelling.  Now that I have daughters, I think my primary goal for them is to develop a lifelong love of learning, and do my best to help them discern their futures.  I certainly don’t want to discourage them from higher education on the grounds that they might not use it.

Unfortunately, the idea that education is for the love of learning can be taken to an almost elitist end. I have met too many traditional Catholics educated at liberal arts Catholic colleges who think themselves above the other “uneducated” ordinary Catholics and yet they can’t function practically in the world. They think that there must be some high philosophical reason why they don’t have the money to hire the lower folks who actually know how to do the job….this is a problem. There has to be a balance achieved between practical knowlege and the attainment of a well rounded education. Didn’t St. Benedict say “Pray and Work”..and by work he included manual hands on skill. He didn’t leave the menial tasks to the “lowly” brothers. I have had to remind a few people that St. Joseph was a carpenter.

Jennifer,
My cousin is not married and has no kids and doesn’t have a job.  She’s the one wasting her education.  I was taught the college was to teach you how to learn.  I felt like I got that from my education.  I love to learn and I know how to get information if I need it.  In graduate school I learned how to lead by focusing on what I need to correct about myself.  I thought I wasn’t going to be married and have kids, so I got my graduate degree and now that I’m married (fear to say) I wish I hadn’t because I really would like to be a SAHM, but I have to work.  Good news is that with my experience and degree I may be afforded the opportunity to work from home.

I like reading your post, but they all have the same ending “Now that I’m Catholic….”or “Catholicism has taught me….”  I mean really, were you that lost that Catholicism brought you common sense.  I don’t get it.

I do not regret my college education one bit. There is a time and a season for everything. My great-grandmothers all had bachelor’s degrees at the turn of the last century (ca. 1900)—quite a bluestocking feat back in the day. They all married college educated men.

Growing up in such a family, it wasn’t “if” I would go to college as a young woman, it was “when.”

I home schooled our daughter, led a Camp Fire USA club, educated lots of young people and continue to work in the community today. I write for Catholic publications, as well as secular ones, one matters of interest and importance to everyone.

As one sage put it: When you educate a man, you educate an individual. When you educate a woman, you educate an entire family.

I would go so far as to say: When you educate a woman, you educate a community, as well.

I don’t think your education was wasted.  Who knows what you’ll be doing in 20 or 30 years?  You might be a business owner, a consultant, or a highly paid employee in an advertising firm at that time.  Or maybe a famous writer!

Women should look at their educations as an investment that pays off over the course of a lifetime.

My take is completely different, as I never finished college.  I went for 2 years because my parents forced it, then dropped out because I finally admitted that I didn’t want a career and I didn’t want to spend 4 years amassing debt for a degree “just in case I HAVE to work” when I could marry my man earlier.  I wanted a husband, a home, and children.  There is a tendency for women to mention what they did before staying home to raise their children, as if it they get more “points” for what they gave up.  I call it the “Ooooo” factor.  You know what I mean : “I was a (insert career here)” or “I graduated from (insert impressive school name here) but now I’m home with my children.”  People say “Ooooo. Wow.  Good for you.”  My knee jerk reaction, and I’m well aware it is a defense of my own choices (after all, I’m still pretty smart!) is to say that a degree gets people knowledge in a certain direction, but living without one and running a home gets people knowledge in all directions.  Especially as a homeschooling mother.  I know what I know because I read, read, read.  About everything my children want to know about.  About everything I want to know about.  About everything I need to know about to function.  I am absolutely not degrading formal, higher education resulting in a degree, but I would like to bring to light the fact that I am educated, as well.  Just not “formal, higher education resulting in a degree”.  See?  A self-made woman I am!  A bit of a tangent, I know, but these are my thoughts while reading ... Warmly, Allison

This article hit home for me. I don’t believe she is saying that it is waste for housewives/sahm’s to be educated; rather that sometimes we waste our education on learning the wrong things. I am grateful for my education and my college degree but like Jennifer I don’t use much of that degree (computer science) in my daily life as a mom of two (soon three) little ones. On the other hand I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve wished I took classes like child psychology and development, or other things that might have been more useful to me right now. If I could go back and do it over, I’d do it differently. I suppose everyone says that. :) I’m thankful that I have the degree and the job I had before the kiddos (which helped me pay off the degree) but now there are so many things I wish I’d taken more time to learn about when I had the opportunity.

Here is an interesting book, part of it goes through the Swedish Housewives of the mid 1900s. 

http://www.isi.org/books/bookdetail.aspx?id=5afd5e0b-5e25-4c61-9ae4-705e3c37e030

I do think all to often snooty little lefty girls jealous of others waste their time on topics that they know little about, but only wish to establish themselves for the fools they are.

Congratulations to this writer for sharing her shallow thoughts in a broad forum. ZZZZZZZZZZ

I don’t believe any education is wasted. 
I recall being at some formal dinner and my older table mates were talking about a young couple they knew, who were Mormon and married young and of course she was pregnant.  The man spat out, “She’s just wasting her education.”

Had I been able to articulate my thoughts, I would have said, “Yes, what a shame for children to have a mother capable of critical thought, who knows how to research and how to write. Excuse me sir, but do you really think it is a waste to educate anyone?”
I’m still upset with myself for not speaking up.

I do like what two of the commenters had to say already…

“As one sage put it: When you educate a man, you educate an individual. When you educate a woman, you educate an entire family.

I would go so far as to say: When you educate a woman, you educate a community, as well. “

AND

“Women should look at their educations as an investment that pays off over the course of a lifetime.”

Well said.

Interesting article. I am a single woman with a liberal arts degree from a Catholic University. I would like to add to the conversation the assertion that a liberal education falls under the category of a leisure activity. This does not make is any less necessary to society. However, I certainly do not consider it a necessity to joining the work force or raising a family.

I doubled in writing and history, which at the time felt like a stupid move! Turned out to be rather true, but I don’t regret it one bit now that I am raising my children. History gave me an understanding of humans and civilization, and writing helps me explain things in ways the children understand easily. Children ask a lot of questions. Sometimes I feel like I’m teaching a college course. The degree on my wall may not get me any salary today, but I think my children are completely gaining from my education. And perhaps they will grow up to cure cancer, be president, or priests or something!

I went to college for Psychology and never finished. I dropped out when I realized that the probability of me obtaining a job in the field I desired was almost nil and that the other options for me with that degree were most definitely not suitable for my temperament. I was also quite frustrated at the time because the vast majority of my college experience consisted not of learning how to think and research for myself, but how to discern the opinions of my professors so I would be able to nod my head in agreement and give the “acceptable” answers. I realize this isn’t necessarily the experience at every college out there, but it certainly was at mine.

So, I feel that my “education”- if you could even call it that- was a waste of my time. I learned significantly more about the world and how things work by actually working. And college most certainly did not prepare me for motherhood. I agree with the commenter above who said that there are many different ways to be educated. We do ourselves a disservice by assuming that holding a college degree means a person is educated. I’ve learned more via real world experience and my own initiative in studying my various interests than I ever learned in college.

@Allison: But there is a difference between someone who, for example, sweated blood going to medical school and giving up a six-figure income to raise children than someone who worked as a cashier at the local grocery store.  Sacrifice matters; the former is giving up far more, including a much different socio-economic level and lifestyle.  It impresses people more because more is forsaken for the sake of children having a SAHM.  It doesn’t mean the cashier isn’t smart, it just means that they didn’t sacrifice all those years of grueling schooling/training to be a SAHM. 

The other thing that should be looked at re: this question is: What do you do when that last baby finally walks out the door to go on their life path, be it college or marriage or religious vocation, etc.?  Chances are, you’ve got years ahead of you where you can do those things that you always wanted, and some of those options might require a college degree.  I think it’s a better idea to have the college education done by the time you are 50 as opposed to starting at that age (although lots of people do it, more power to them).

Regarding KayGee’s comment ~ Sacrifice should not be measured in terms of salary, socio-economic level, and lifestyle ; that’s despicable, as well as theologically unsound : after all, the widow’s mite was a pleasing sacrifice to the Lord, not the rich man’s treasure.  It’s a heart thing.  An analogy would be to look at the Blessed Mother.  Her salvation FROM sin is no less effecacious than our salvation OUT OF sin.  A woman who gives up college to raise children early sacrifices much ; a woman who gives up the money and position after college also sacrifices much.  Measurment cheapens it.  If we were at a cocktail party, this is the point when I would put down my drink and flounce away . . .

Oh, wait.  Then I would come back with my hand outstretched, saying sheepishly, “I’m sorry I flounced away.  I’m glad for the conversation.”  Warmly once again,
Allison

Here is the crux of the situation.  Women of our generation were repeatedly told “We could do it all”, and because we as women now the had the freedom to have any career we were made to feel that the only acceptable “choice” was to have a career. To aspire to be a “stay-at-home-mom” indicated a lack of ambition (the horror!).

Now we have a generation of women who are seeing that no person can do it all, and something has to give.  More women are giving up careers to stay home with their young children, and more women would if they could afford to do so but feel trapped by mortgages that require two-incomes to pay or that their job has the better health insurance. 

But what do we tell our daughters?  How do we reconcile our feminist ideals with the reality that children do best when they have a parent at home with them?

This is something my best friend and I have discussed.  She suggested that we talk to our daughters about the possibility of staying home with their kids and which careers might be more conducive to this than others.  For instance, being a teacher or hairdresser might be more flexible than being a doctor.  And I think this ties in a lot with asking them “what is God calling you to be when you grow up” rather than “what do you want to be when you grow up”.

Hi Allison,
I am also quick at the tongue…or keyboard when I am annoyed (just read my earlier post) at what sounds like a demeaning of my efforts or what I am “bringing to the table” so to speak when raising my kids. I think we all want to think we have made the right choices when it comes to raising our kids. Unfortunately, we women have a habit of measuring these things against eachother. That makes it worse because then we lose the support of eachother. Like the popular saying WWJD ( I am Catholic, but I couldn’t resist :)...I am always trying to of WWMD… What kind of friend would Our Blessed Mother be?

My mother’s biggest concern when I got married—after getting a bachelor’s degree in psychology, and an MA in English Lit—was that I was “wasting my education.”

I think a little knowledge of psychology—not to mention all the hours I logged as a counselor—has gone a long way towards helping my marriage, and my kids, frankly.  And a background in English means my kids enjoy the company of a mother who will be forever correcting their grammar so they don’t embarass themselves at job interviews, frankly.

Then there is learning time management.  College helps you learn how to budget your time, one thing that moms really do need to know how to do.

I am pregnant with my first and hoping to stay home indefinitely with my kids.  My husband is currently getting his PH.D. but I really wanted to get one too (I graduated last year with my bachelors degree) and was really hurt when my best friend told me that it wasn’t fair if I took a spot in the Ph.D. program if I wasn’t going to use it.  I think that education for education’s sake is good enough, you don’t necessarily have to use your degree (most working Americans don’t get a job in the exact field they went to school for anyway).  And statistics show that children are much more likely to go to college and get graduate degrees (and I can help them navigate the difficult worlds of college and academia, something my parents never could help me with because they never attended college).  Isn’t that reason enough to get an education? 

I may never be a teacher like I planned, but what was I supposed to do in the meantime, wait around in minimum wage jobs hoping I would meet someone who would make enough that I could be a homemaker?  No thank you.  I graduated with a 4.0 from college and I don’t regret a second of it (or the hard work and late nights that went into it!).

Responding to Mandi:
I definitely agree that pursuing an education for it’s own sake is a perfectly legitimate thing to do. It is; however, a very expensive thing to do. A VERY expensive thing to do. Either you have to go into a lot of debt, or you have to be good enough at whatever it is to get a scholarship which means that other people are paying for it. So, I think it’s really important to really discern whether or not you are called to it.

as a part time community college instructor- I encourage all to consider taking classes there- have your children go in with a plan so that their first year of college will be virtually free.

and moms of older kids who might have a wee bit of time- sign up for a class a semester—-personally, I think it is a great thing to exercise the brain and be an example to the kiddos

>How do we reconcile our feminist ideals with the reality that children >do best when they have a parent at home with them ?

Well, first off, it doesn’t need to be the mother who stays home.

There’s also telecommuting, home-based jobs, and the old-fashioned family business - they are often known as “Mom-and-Pop”, after all !

Finally, why should kids have it easy ? Lots of our ancestors grew up in single-parent families - only the parents were widows or widowers. If the worst a kid nowadays has to deal with is not having Mommy around all the time, that’s nothing compared with having a parent die, as happened shockingly often in previous centuries. (It still happens sometimes, of course, - as my father died when I was 12, I’m a bit sensitive on the issue. )

My thoughts on this is that children, need to have a parent at home with them as much as possible College educated parents can provide a door on the worldview using their education to nuture their children to adulthood. Yes, it doen’t pay in money but it does pay if you have raised loving, caring, individuals who choose to practice their religion.  College educated parents can recognize that time spent with their children in the run of the mill home schedule is an investment in the future because know one else will love, nuture or educate them as well.

Germaine dear, an expensive, time-consuming college education that one doesn’t even plan on using in the work force is absolutely not necessary to “provide a door on the worldview using their education to nurture their children to adulthood.”  Nor do those same formally educated mothers hold a patent on raising “loving, caring individuals who choose to practice their religion” or recognizing “that time spent with their children in the run of the mill home schedule is an investment in the future.”  It costs only a library card and curiosity for all of the great works of history, psychology, philosophy, etc. to be ingested, contemplated, enjoyed, lived, and if one homeschools, shared with the children.  All without the bias of the professor (a real plus). I am writing about, per the article, SAHMs, not any college degree for someone needing it for a chosen profession.  A degree is certainly not wasted, but is also not necessary in many, many lifestyles.  My husband just piped up, adding that Abe Lincoln’s parents were not educated.  He learned by reading, reading, reading.  Additionally, your comment contains several errors in punctuation, construction, and spelling ~ how embarrassing, given your disdainful commenting about all those wonderful things only college educated parents provide their children…

Couple of thoughts here - I have my BA with dual majors (Psych and English).  When grad school disappeared as an immediate option during my Sr. year it was any job that would allow me to pay my bills and eat.  I worked for the next decade in several different industries - none having anything to do with my degree.  Ah, but my life now?  As a foster and adoptive mom I am thankful every day for the developmental and trauma classes I had - as a homeschooler I’ve had the pleasure of introducing my children to authors I’ve loved and hated and seeing their responses.  While I know that some members of my family think I’ve “wasted” my education I disagree, quoting the words of Elizabeth Barrett Browning “if I can help one sparrow back into its nest again, I shall not live in vain.”  If I can help one of the soul sick, battered and confused children who have come through my door to heal then I have indeed used my education in the very best way I can imagine - there is no dollar amount in the world that would compensate like see that same child become a happy, healthy, functioning young adult.

As far as the usefulness of the education after the children are grown - well, currently, assuming my youngest leaves home at 18 - I will be 58 and my DH will be 62 so I’m thinking I’ll be planning retirement not a career.  And DH would tell you - it depends on the major - he’s a Principle Developer (he writes software) and when the subject of college comes up he tells the young guys that Comp. Sci. wasn’t even a full-blown major when he went to school at one of the country’s top Tech schools.  It was a minor program and the languages they taught were COBOL and FORTRAN - both of which are long obsolete.

I got my degree in film school. Learning to tell stories and make movies was fascinating and led to a lucrative career in that field before having children and staying home with them. I do not have loans that I am paying back right now which may cloud my view of things, but I can honestly say I would not change anything. I also don’t go over and over in my head everyday how little I use my actual degree and “Why did I do that??” I’m not looking for a work-from-home business even though what I learned in my career could easily afford me a full career out of my own home with hours that I could make my own. I envy moms who make this look incredibly easy. Good for them! Seriously! But I just can’t do it. My kids have one chance. One. One chance to be kids with me at home with them. My husband does not make a grand salary and we make great sacrifices to have me stay at home but I realize that this is the life of most sahm’s.  It’s just what we do. I can say with great certainty that I am sure glad that my mom wasn’t trying to juggle a career when I was a kid at home. I will never waiver on that statement. She and my dad always made it very clear that I could do whatever I put my mind to and they would help me (and my 6 siblings) as much as they could (my dad did not make a lot of money either). My mom was a professional mother if there ever was one. She took tremendous pride in being a mother and was amazing at that. Our lives were not perfect, she was not perfect but she did the best with what she knew in every situation. She is still one of the smartest people I know and her formal education stopped when she graduated from high school. In fact, not one of my four grandparents have a college degree and both sets respectively have incredibly lucrative and successful (and international) family businesses. In my opinion, as a whole, we are a huge ADD culture and it has bled into our homes so fiercely. We can’t “just” be a mom anymore. We have to be something else, have a different title, perhaps even more than two titles! And even for us moms who are “just” trying to do our best raising children in the faith, well, that’s just not good enough. We need to be geniuses, too. If we don’t have a degree, or aren’t getting paid to use the one we do have, why aren’t we reading Tolstoy or studying Kant, Socrates and Plato simultaneously in our free time? I’m not saying we should just stop educating ourselves but I do think there is something to be said for just being at peace with a day filled with Beatrix Potter, math-via-lemonade stand profits, planting one more flower in our garden, burying a special and loved deceased caterpillar, playing Memory, baseball, chess and whatever else suits our children’s fancies. And hopefully end the day learning something new by reading… if there is that moment. Certainly leading by example teaches our children what they learn most. And I love music, reading, playing, art, science, and watching really really smart people do what they do best:) And I really think I learned that from watching my mom… who had no degree and didn’t pretend to be knee-deep in serious study with every free second she had.

I am a doctor who considered many times quitting medical school, especially after I met my husband.  I was an evangelical missionary before going to medical school and went to med school to serve God and be around kids (since I was single when I entered medical school and didn’t know if I’d have any physically) by being a pediatrician.  Now that I am Catholic homeschooling mom, who works part time and volunteers doing ultrasounds for the Life Network, I can say that it is a sacrifice for my family for me to work and spend time away from the kids I love being around and pay my babysitter half my salary, etc.  Not that I am complaining, but there are sacrifices with any vocation to which we are called.  I ask Gianna Molla that I might gain some of her wisdom in how she raised her godly children while still serving her young patients in the poorest of situations in her city.

I think a lot of the readers are missing the point, Jennifer seems to be saying that her university experience may have been wasted because it didn’t give her a REAL education.  She doesn’t seem to be saying at all that educating women is a waste of time, just that it would be nice if university educations were all about the whole person and training in wisdom instead of really expensive vocational schools.

I refuse to believe that any university experience is “wasted.”

However, I think that we should tell our young women to “caveat emptor” - let the buyer beware. Never forget, you are PAYING for this education. Are you getting a good return for your money?

A good education should form the entire person. However, some persons are more “formed” than others. There is no “one size fits all” in education. And, God gifts each human person with different talents and treasures.

This is where parents, priests and wise mentors become invaluable when helping a young person (or a more “mature” person, cough-cough) to choose a course of study.

No matter what one’s educational background…whether from Oxford or the School of Hard Knocks…I think the point is to make the most of what you have with what you’ve got.

Good advice for young men, as well as young women!