<p>I think that how a girl dresses is a reflection of how she wants people to see her…revealing clothing says, “look at me! I’m hot!” No thanks, not at my house. I"m not saying my daughter has to dress like an Amish girl, but like little miss hot pants? Not happening.</p>
<p>I still wonder if the stats about family size (from Foreign Policy) are misunderstood. It is not hard to figure out why women with higher levels of education tend to have careers and smaller families. Large families tend to require staying home (can’t afford daycare for six kids, etc.) and sacrificing a career that a lot of time/$ were invested in training for. (Personally, I know several female doctors with 6 kids each who stay home with their kids–so yes, educated women, myself included, are staying home, too, but I am not talking anecdotes here. If I were talking anecdotes, I’d say, “Gee, all the smart women are staying home and raising large families!”) </p>
<p>The general trend I am talking about is that women who have SMALL families tend to be more educated than women who have BIG families. The other things (liberal, conservative, pro-abortion rights, pro-life, religious, non-religious go along with those categories). </p>
<p>To put it another way, women who favor more traditional female roles are those who are more likely to have large families. They are less likely to seek higher education and careers because raising a large family IS the career they have in mind. Bottom line: Higher education and less traditional/more feminist values leads women to careers, which leads them to later marriage, to smaller–easier to manage along with the career–families. How else can I say this? Career women tend to have more education than women who stay home with the kids? That seems pretty obvious–they have careers because they are educated. . . </p>
<p>The whole point of the stats was to show that this group of educated, boomer career women did not reproduce. To go from 39% of one generation to 7% of the next is a huge drop. That is what I found interesting.</p>
<p>I think that having kids or not & a large family or not should be a choice.
Women didn’t often have a choice- birth control was undependable- pressure to have babies may have been the only way they saw to have respect in their community.
IN many areas in US, that is no longer the case- when women and their spouses have a choice, fertility rates go down, and as the human species is hardly in danger of dying out except through our own * over* population, I think this is a good thing :)</p>
<p>
I’m not quite sure how this thread came to encompass this particular subject, but seeing as how it’s here…
dke~ I don’t think that I made myself very clear, and for that, I apologize. I am most decidedly NOT in favor of girls dressing promiscuously, and my girls definitely do NOT do that. What I was trying, albeit rather unsuccessfully, to say was this: To me, the clothing/self-esteem dealio works the other way around. My girls dress in a respectable fashion because they HAVE respect for themselves. The self-respect is not granted by their clothing, but rather by the views they have of themselves because we, as parents, have modeled for them (and outright TOLD them) that girls/women SHOULD ALWAYS be respected by guys/men. They see that in operation in our home, and they have received constant input and feedback from us.</p>
<p>None of my girls has ever thought to choose a shirt that said, “HOTTIE” simply because that is not how they view THEMSELVES. Now, when they were 10 or 11, they might have chosen one that said “Princess” or “Angel,” and to me, that is SO not an issue. It’s a SHIRT. And it’s the fad. That is all.</p>
<p>As I said, my 11-year-old will still pick out something with “Princess” or “Cutie” on it, but it is NOT done with the deep psychological meaning that ADULTS tend to assign to this stuff. She might buy it because it is a color she likes or it has glitter on it or because she LIKES princesses…no crime there, IMHO.</p>
<p>I think that one of the reasons why my children have rebelled SO little is that I do not place very many arbitrary limits on them. I encourage them to make good choices on their own. And they do…because the basic foundation has been laid, and that foundation is based on the essentials, like self-respect, not on an endless list of rules and regulations.</p>
<p>~berurah</p>
<p>My D (the yooungest) came up to me the other day, and said, MOM, how come you let me wear that!!?? What?</p>
<p>You know, those shirts that said Brat and Princess on them? </p>
<p>I said you picked them out, and you weren’t gonna wear hottie or hotstuff or "your boyfriend thinks I am hot’ shirts</p>
<p>It was the pink pleather pants she just had to have (8dollars on sale)…she sees the pictures and snarls at me for letting her leave the house like that</p>
<p>they were really kind of cute, not tight or anything, but so sweaty</p>
<p>My girls both wore tiaras to school on their birthdays this year. The schools were great sports about it and it was fun for them.</p>
<p>We are a sarcastic family, though, and are fond of calling each other (with all the love in the world, of course) “Satan,” “Demon” “Devil” “Beelzebub” and such the like.</p>
<p>zoosermom~</p>
<p>We have tiaras too! In fact, it is my firm belief that each and every girl/woman should have a tiara. My youngest D wears hers with her shirt that says, “Don’t let the tiara fool you!” 
~b.</p>
<p>We have tiaras too! In fact, it is my firm belief that each and every girl/woman should have a tiara. My youngest D wears hers with her shirt that says, “Don’t let the tiara fool you!” ~b.</p>
<p>Oh funny!!! My D has one of those British Queen names and adds a little crown to her signature. She always says that she was meant to rule the world and it’s a major inconvenience that she’s going to have to be elected instead of crowned!</p>
<p>My Ds have tiaras and wear them and call themselves pretty pretty princesses, one had a feather wand she brought to school…she was turning 17</p>
<p>And everyone wanted to play with it</p>
<p>my D did wear a tiara to I think Prom- it went with her ballet pink tulle skirt
My younger D wore a head scarf for the whole of 4th gd year, and is wearing it again to protect her cornrows- but would never wear a tiara</p>
<p>Neither one really wears tshirts that say anything but something connected with their schools or sports teams but I did like the one I saw in the Alloy catalog * ex- girlfriend*</p>
<p>
Well, dammit…she may just be running against MY daughter!! <em>lol</em> 
Maybe, they could run on a ticket together…the TIARA TICKET!!!:D</p>
<p>~b.</p>
<p>What part of the country is your daughter from? Mine is NYC and we need some geographic diversity. Which ever girl is older can run at the top of the ticket first.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Where I live, the stay at home moms tend to be better educated than working mothers. Many have PhDs. They also have well-educated husbands who enable them to be able to stay home with the kids. More working class couples require both husband and wife to work, sometimes two jobs each.</p>
<p>In my area it is like MomofFour. The stay at home moms tend to be the more highly educated, because they can afford to be stay at home moms with their higher income earning husbands.</p>
<p>MomOFour and I seem to have the same experience. Here many of the better educated women have opted out of working to be with the kids. Their attitude seems to be “I did the career thing already. Time for a change.”</p>
<p>MomOFour, have to agree with you. It’s been like that in every place we’ve lived. Our circle of friends all fit that bill; well-educated moms who have been fortunate enough to make the choice to stay home and raise their children themselves.</p>
<p>I certainly consider myself fortunate to be in that group. Not that it’s always been easy, but I’ve never once regretted my decision to stay at home with my kids. Now that they’re older, I’ve been able to do a little work from home, which I’m also fortunate to be able to do.</p>
<p>I think the point is that every family is different and that it’s unwise (and silly) to make generalizations about any ‘type’ of family.</p>
<p>Ditto to MomofFour, mkm56 and dke. In fact, as a SAHM, all of the stay at home mom’s I’ve known in 4 cities have held at least a bachelor’s degree. I know women with PhD’s, MD’s and JD’s who have chosen to stay home with their kids after spending many years in the workforce – sometimes when the children are older, not just with infants. In all cases, the women I know view this option as a real privilege, not a burden, and one that is not available to all moms.</p>
<p>At my kids former elem school, we have 3 stay at home moms who are MD’s.</p>
<p>Actually one could argue that the more educated a woman is the more educated her husband is (since women tend to marry men who are equal or more educated than they are), therefore, such women are more likely to be able to stay at home because <em>their</em> husbands earn higher incomes.</p>
<p>I do know several parents who are DRs but they are more likely to have part time or flex time work- rather than being completely stay at home-
I do know personally 3 stay at home dads who are attorneys though :)</p>