Thursday, March 7, 2013

It's academic

I spent two years tolerating being amongst those whose ideals were the complete opposite of mine to get my MA, and be able to have a job where I was in the office eleven hours per week, so that I could stay home with the kids most of the time. 

I got into a lot of arguments.  It got to the point where, when I looked up from whatever I was reading on one class, the professor got a deer-in-the-headlights look for fear that I was going to jump into the discussion.  Sad, huh?  The semester after I'd had that class, one of the other students was complaining to that teacher in her office (right next to the copy/mailbox room) about a student who tore all their arguments apart with direct quotes from the text under discussion, and wasn't a feminist!!!  The instructor asked what the student looked like, and upon receiving my description, said, "Oh, that's just HH.  You'll get used to her."

I've noticed in the years I've been in college, on either side of the desk, that people get wedded to theories, then twist whatever they're looking at to fit that theory.  For instance, one of the kids entering the grad program a year after me was planning his Master's Thesis on how Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights was a closeted homosexual.  I happened to have been re-reading the book at the time (one of my all-time favorites), and countered with textual evidence that he was closer to necrophelia than homosexuality.  The response was, "No fair--I haven't read the book yet."

I've seen much the same with radical feminism.  Single girls in college bloviating about how marriage and motherhood is slavery, and how women have to be freed from that slavery. 

They've never been married.  They've never had kids--most have never even babysat.  They're mostly spoiled little girls who don't have the first clue what they're talking about.  They haven't read the book yet. 

Funny thing is this: mothers with MA or MS or even PhD or MD degrees are dropping out of the workforce.  They've decided, en masse, that maybe marriage and motherhood isn't slavery, if it's what you want to be doing.  They've realized that the contents of the book are very different from the cover, and they kind of like it. 

I do love my job.  I also love my kids.  Yes, I'll be going back to campus this fall--but only in the mornings, and only on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, when Odysseus can be home with the kids.  If things change, and he goes back to work full-time (or starts a small business where he can't watch the kids in the mornings), I will quit my job.  Because yes, it's hard work, and financially uncompensated, but raising my children and caring for my home and husband is my first priority.

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