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<p>Eh, I wouldn’t be so sure about that. Anecdata only, of course, but I know quite a few Ivy or similar level education women (including grad level) who are SAHM’s. They are the ones who have married super-well-earning men and are best able to come in and out of the white-collar work force at their leisure (as consultants, etc.) and be able to afford a pleasant lifestyle as a SAHM. And hey, more power to 'em.</p>
<p>I think CollegeDad’s comment was rather sexist about SAHM. My mother went to school and worked full time until I was 8 and now works part time. This had no effect on whether or not I achieved in school. To say so is ridiculous. I feel like it’s 1950 again.</p>
<p>and sorry to disagree Pizzagirl, but I know one possible Ivy girl who would rather die than stay at home(I respect those who do, don’t get me wrong, but it’s just not for me) and many girls in my generation agree. I want to be the breadwinner thank you</p>
<p>rocket6louise, perspectives sometimes change as the situation changes. I attended an Ivy that had recently admitted women. 300 women to 800 men in my freshman class. Obviously a highly selected group of women. High expectations for themselves. I lived in a suite for the last three years with four roommates. All of us married. Of the five, three wives opted to stay at home after they had kids. One was a pediatrician. One had a marketing job. Can’t remember what the third one did. My wife, who is super-ambitious, chose to slow down when the kids were young so she could spend time with them. The last is a lawyer who never stayed at home. </p>
<p>I’m not making any value judgment. But, it is a little hard to know how one will react to truly life-changing events like having a child. I think it is unlikely that any one of these women thought they would choose to stay at home and three did. Part of this is because of that a) inadequate child care that is frequently available; b) our society’s (and biology’s) focus on the mother as caregiver; and c) per Pizzagirl’s description, they had married men who could afford to have wives who stayed at home.</p>
<p>I don’t think it was a sexist comment. I have a profession and was only home with the kids for the first 6 (4 for the younger one) years and it was only that long because of the market conditions in the 80s. I think my kids paid a price for my demanding job/travel- especially one of them- even with a husband who did more than his share. Every family is different, and I obviously support women in the workplace, but let’s not pretend it’s easy to do it all. It’s not. Something slips. (sorry- not the topic of this thread)</p>
<p>Thank you for your insights and replies to my first post! As a new member I appreciate all the comments. I found the range of comments and various topics sprouting from my simple post quite amusing. Also a few misconceptions surfaced. To clarify:</p>
<p>I have a son, not a daughter (never indicated in original post…) not that it matters.
My son loves his college choice and has many new friends - alas no problems.
I nor my son feel inferior by our current socio-economical situations - instead we feel extremely blessed and somewhat unique at this early juncture (freshman year).
CollegeDad WAS just trying to be nice.
Starbright DID have a wonderful thing to say.</p>
<p>Interesting first post. Looking forward to hearing from all of you again in the future!</p>
<p>Indianaivymom:</p>
<p>There are so many kinds of diversity on a college campus; diversity of wealth is just one of them. Many years ago, I met a young Asian-American woman who told me she loved being at Harvard because it was so diverse. She came from a large high school in socio-economically homogeneous suburban community in Indiana where she was one of only six Asian-Americans, so the larger number of people like herself at Harvard was a real draw. My S wanted to be with students whose academic interests were not all like his, and Harvard provided that, too.<br>
I am glad that your son is having a great experience at his college.</p>
<p>I have three sons in the ivys and we live very modestly, partly because we have three kids in the ivys. I guess I knew early on that all of my kids were going to college and some of them would have opportunities to go where ever they wanted. I also have a daughter who attended a private university (taking a break this year). I was a stay at home mom that supplemented the education of our children. We took very simple vacations with our kids, in fact, they have only been on a plane once.
Our first son (ivy has never been disclosed or I would be a give away to anyone in my area) has been exposed to some of the wealthiest people in the world at his school. He goes with the flow and has commented about how lucky he feels to have arrived at the same place without many of the financial advantages of his peers. Sons two and three are different in that most of their friends are of a similar background. They have met many extremely wealthy students, but generally their friends are not.
I have not heard anything from these three that has ever made me feel that they were not where they belonged. Interesting fact about my youngest. She felt financial pressure at her school where I would guess most parents ranged from low to upper middle class. Maybe it is just a girl thing.</p>
<p>Sorry to crash the party. My girls are definitely NOT at Ivies but are still in a private school environment surrounded by far more wealth than they or their peers from their lives before college. We are beyond regular. I attended public U H attended <gasp> community college, I teach at a public high school he sells insurance we live, not only in an unimpressive zipcode but a largely unknown one. We are both quite smart and hope one day to be fabulously rich to boot ;).</gasp></p>
<p>Our kids though find that they have found other VERY down to earth friends even though some are mind bogglingly wealthy. People are people and you can find decent ones and maroons in every economic bracket.</p>
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<p>You’re not getting it. We’re not talking about what an 18 or 19 year old thinks about the prospect of SAH when she’s in college and excitedly thinking about her career. Which is what she <em>should</em> be thinking of, at that stage in the game! We’re talking about what happens down the road. </p>
<p>I assure you, I came of age in the mid eighties and there wasn’t a single one of my compatriots who had as a goal “staying at home with the children.” We were all out to conquer the boardroom, Wall Street, the medical field, etc. But here we are … twenty-some years down the pike … and indeed a bunch of them have SAH, have downshifted their careers significantly, etc. </p>
<p>The fact that a given 18 or 19 yo girl doesn’t explicitly want to be a SAHM is not the issue. My D is 17 and I wouldn’t at all expect her to think of that as her goal <em>at this point in her life.</em> But, the fact remains, going to a “better / elite college” (however one defines better) also increases the chance of a) doing well economically and b) meeting / marrying someone who does well economically and those things increase future options in life, including the chance to SAH if that is what someone desires down the road.</p>
<p>Sorry for misunderstanding your post pizzagirl!!!
I thought you meant girls went in with those ambitions…
But I understand what you mean and can somewhat understand(still hope its not me though!)</p>
<p>Pizzagirl, you raise an excellent point.
I know what I am about to say will get me creamed. While I think that giving equal opportunity for an undergrad is desirable. With the limited resources most of our educational institutions are facing. as a nation we might want to rethink about the notion of equal opportunity in our professional schools especially in Meicine. Most of them are striving for a 50/50 mix. But it costs a lot to train an MD. Amongst our MD circle we often talk about that (in secret). We know of so many of our colleagues and classmates that quit or choose to become part-time practitioners after they have children. Yet we also know of many well qualified male applicants that would have become dedicated, excellent and full-time MD shunted out of medical schools. Same case with my wife, 10 years after she graduated from Wharton MBA in the late 70’s, the school did a survey and found that 90% of the female graduates had quit and became SAHM.</p>
<p>^^your idea kinda of works in theory, but what about the women who don’t have children and stay dedicated to their fields.? how can you possible weed them out?</p>
<p>Oh, please!
My first year in grad school, I was accused by a male fellow student of wanting to take a job from a future breadwinner. Well, I have worked every day for the last 30+ years except for the couple of months I was on maternity leave. I could do that because my husband fully shared in the housekeeping and parenting.
Let’s not get back to the times when it was okay for women to be kept barefoot and pregnant. There are too many talented women out there. And given the gender imbalance between male and female students, it would be suicidal for American society to keep out women from professional schools because some–some!-- decide to stay at home for a time to raise their children (usually because the men don’t bother).</p>
<p>Making professional schools more affordable for all? By all means. Engaging in crystal-ball gazing about individual applicants’ life trajectories and indulging in sex discrimination? No, no, no.</p>
<p>bioeng: I am one of those women MD. Still in full time practice >20 years after graduating from medical school. Not lucky enough to marry one of those high earning men, I guess. I am in a moderately demanding subspecialty. Of the 10 women or so who trained around my time in my subspecialty at one of the top programs in the country, I am the only one left in full time practice in the subspecialty. Most others are still working at least part time but in other medical fields. Add that there is a significant (wo)man power shortage in my field.</p>
<p>The main reason for this has been that the various practices and employers have been unwilling to make any accomodations to schedule/structure when asked. One woman with breast cancer, for example, could not work part time after her treatment, and had to leave. I have a housedad H which has allowed me to have family and career. He’s not very good with cooking, dishes or cleaning though. Wonder if that’s good enough for a (para) Ivy league quality son :)? We’ll find out in 6 weeks.</p>
<p>I suspect that has a lot to do with the (hard to believe) 90% attrition in the MBA population also. If the system was willing to give and have some flexibility, I think many more women would continue to work. </p>
<p>Incidentally, I <em>only</em> work 40-50 hr/week. There are male colleagues who consider that part time work.</p>
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<p>That’s ridiculous. So we should penalize women applicants to medical school (etc) because some women choose to SAH afterwards? That’s really clear, logical thinking. (Not.) Discriminate a “class” for what some choose to do with it. </p>
<p>That’s sort of like what Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsberg had to deal with when they were becoming lawyers, no? “Well, you’re a woman, and all the women we know are SAH, so we’re just going to judge you on the basis of your lady parts and not your expressed desire / interest / ability for a career in law.”</p>
<p>No one knows what’s in the cards for anyone. The high-flying female surgeon might have a child with special needs and decide to SAH. Or the high-flying male lawyer might have a midlife career change of heart and give up law to go teach at an inner city school. Or a million different things might occur. It’s not the job of the medical school, law school, etc. to try to divine those things ahead of time. If at the time of applying the applicant demonstrates the academic qualifications and express the passion for the field, that’s all the burden they need to demonstrate.</p>
<p>Your thinking is about 50 years behind the times – penalizing all women for what some choose to do. I expect you’ll rethink it.</p>
<p>For all the complaining on the board about Asian discrimination in admissions - what you’re proposing is ten times worse!</p>
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<p>But so what? Wharton did its job by training these women for the workforce, providing them the skills and connections needed. That’s not a failure of Wharton that these women wound up SAH, any more than it’s a failure of Wharton if a male Wharton grad decides to give it up and teach at an inner-city school.</p>
<p>Out of curiosity, how many parents on here are in the same field that they trained / studied for in college? I happen to have stayed in the same career, but it seems like an anomaly these days.</p>
<p>Well, there was one Harvard MBA who quit his profession. He became POTUS. Should HBS not have admitted him, knowing that down the line he was going to quit?</p>
<p>^^ Do you mean Harvard Law School, not Business school? </p>
<p>And don’t forget about his wife, who is now a SAHM. Waste of a HLS degree if I ever saw one. ;)</p>
<p>Seriously though, it is true that significantly more women drop out/down out of professions than men. I think the solution is to change the work structure so that that doesn’t need to happen.</p>
<p>I am definitely conflicted about this one. I know a number of highly paid professionals of various ages who have quit to stay home with the kids. I have talked to parents who said-we scrimped and saved for years, we gave up everything and sacrificed our retirement to pay for our daughters private schools, bachelors and masters degree. As soon as she finished school, she worked in the career field for a year, then quit to get married. I’m sure the colleges made out just fine, though I think those daughters ought to be attempting to pay their parents back.</p>
<p>I personally knew that I would continue to work whether I married and had children or not. There was no doubt for me, though some women that I have known, it was obvious that they would quit at the first opportunity and were just searching for the right man. It still happens.</p>
<p>On the other hand, when I went into the military, I heard resentment from men who were angry about the quota of women getting coveted pilot slots. The quota was 1.5% female, who were required to compete nationally, instead of locally for slots. My extraordinary best friend never got a slot, though she would have been an incredible pilot, and any guy with a 2.0GPA got one-several of which never even made it through the training. In my current job, guys I know were angry about women getting special opportunities and taking the positions aways from the men (yes, those 2% of newhire positions going to women really made all the difference). So, a bit of a conflict. Should you take a coveted slot from someone else and spend a half a million dollars of your parents money if you intend to quit as fast as you can? Though nobody knows what lies in the future, and it’s great we now have choices, sometimes it is fairly predictable.</p>
<p>I went to an IVY having grown up in basically a lower middle class family … and it was not an issue at all. Similar to other posters I made great friends (who came from all levels of economic backgronds) and met a few total jerks (who also came from all levels of economic backgrounds). To be honest the only place at Cornell I saw economic elitism was a 1 or 2 of the frats … Cornell has a ton of frats and there were a couple where basically everyone had money and acted like they were rich and I just avoided those guys (there also were frats of jocks, jews, preppies, regular guys, nerds, etc … there are a lot of frats). One of the great things about college, IMO, is there is not a dominant in-crowd like there can be in high-school … there were lots of elements of the Cornell culture I just did not interect with and the rich snob crowd … it was small and Cornell is big so it was not very hard to find and hang with kids I liked a lot.</p>