educated women & kids

Do educated women have fewer children? I guess women like me with a master's degree either don't have kids, or have only one or two, unless of course, they had the kids prior to getting the degree. Those who had the kids prior are assumed to have been in a state of unenglightenment, prior to their education. After their education, the kids are already grown and they can look back to say that had they known better, they would have known that educated women don't have more than two kids.

Where does that leave me and my three small children? I must be at the edge of crazy: I completed a master's degree during which time I had two kids and finished my thesis while pregnant with a third. I wonder what those judging others make of an educated child-bearing woman like me. Childless friends don't realize that email works better than calling with three kids screaming in the background. Other friends with one kid probably wonder why I don't just stick the kid(s) in daycare and get a job. And internet authors write articles about women opting out of the workforce in their commitment to motherhood. We're just opting out of a system that has no options for people who are unwilling to sacrafice their life and their children's formative years for what would only amount to a half-way decent wage, and those who are unwilling to sacrafice their income to have a job that costs money so that they can keep their life priorities straight.

Financially strapped and overeducated, I change diapers, nurse the baby, pickup from school, arrange playdates, clean the toilets, do some freelance editing work, attempt to find a part-time job that will work with my husband's job & school schedule, wash loads of laundry, give up on finding a teaching job that will work with our family schedules, read a few books, feed three kids lunch, drive to baseball games, go to play group, do more laundry, think about finding one class I could teach in between something, and finally know that one day, the children will be grown up enough that I can teach again. Why am I in such a hurry? Will the workforce still want me in three years? The children need me right now.