Quote:
Originally posted by Exquisite5
I truly have great respect for you and your opinion. What I am wondering is, what does marriage have to do with grad school? I ask because, in my undergraduate department almost ALL of the grad students were married- some even had kids. Texas A&M is the #1 grad school for Biological and Agricultural Engineering, so its no easy program, but I can only think of one or two grad students that I knew that weren't married. I speak from experience because I spent a summer doing bio-engineering research and worked very closely with them.
So I guess my question is do you really feel grad school precluded you marrying, or could it be something else? I understand the difficulty in having children, but I really am curious as to why you felt somehow grad school inhibited you marrying? That is what I took the above quoted section to mean, I apologize if I have misunderstood your intent.
I ask also because I plan to get married during law school, as I know many who have, and am wondering if I am missing something.
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darling1 couldn't have said it better...
Exquisite5---
While in doctoral or professional school programs, it is extremely difficult to devote the time required to complete the required coursework and graduate, and have the time required to nurture a relationship--most especially if the relationship is not as strong as one had imagine... Can you honestly have utter devotion to your man when you have several papers that need to be edited by the next morning? It can be done, but it's hard to do when you pursue a higher degree... I can go on and on, but I'll leave this one alone.
I did not add this in the original post, but what I wanted to say is that when you are young (under 30) and you see your girlfriends choose family rather than promoting their careers, you may start to wonder, why did I choose this life for me... I went thru that thinking. Then I saw many of those same girlfriends now divorced, fighting for child support, and wishing they had gotten more "marketable" in their career pursuits...
You mentioned that many of your fellow classmates are married with children? How many of those are men? We would like to think that society has changed and the female roles in a family are different from what they were 25 years ago. In some aspects it has.
But, ACADEMIA has not had the kind of accelerated acceptance of female roles in the home as one would anticipate similar to the private sector. There are no family leave, paid vacations or helping your child out when sick while one is in grad school. And how does one fathom paying day care with a graduate school stipends being less that $30K per year? And if you have student loans??? Not happening...
From what my friends tell me who have children day care runs at least $300 per week... And it's been hot in Texas, and I just got out of Dallas right after that little 2 year died who got forgotten in the hot van... So, when that kind of "thing" is going on, does one really want to take on the kinds of responsibilities required to upholding a family AND finishing a higher degree? I know I can admit I was too weak to do that. I have enough stress in my life.
In no way am I saying it is wrong to marry before or while in the middle of grad school. I chose to marry waaaaay after grad school. But I also made this choice knowing that I may be too old to bear children too. That was my choice, though...
Also, I have had many elder women come to me--even my own mother--and tell me that they wish they gotten their own "thangs" together before they got married. Society told them that getting married at such and such a time and date was what proper women do and now they live with some level of regret...
My point is, as time goes on, it will get easier for women to pursue higher degrees whenever they choose. But as it stands now, we still have far to go on the equity standards for pursuing those Masters and Doctorates....