<p>I’m just wondering if a relationship between two very different people can exist? One who values education, and one who doesn’t?</p>
<p>It depends on how each is willing to adjust. But personally, I would think it’s difficult to cope with each other’s principles and ideals.</p>
<p>I don’t think it would work if they were to become parents.</p>
<p>I agree with Marian. Once you become parents, the stakes rise considerably. I would personally consider it a deal-breaker to hear a potential mate say he/she doesn’t value education, especially if that person is not independently wealthy. Apart from the intrinsic value of the pursuit of knowledge, the economic value of an educated population cannot be overestimated. It benefits both the individual and society at large. Why do you think politically repressive regimes fear the educated class the most? It’s an old saying, but true nonetheless: Knowledge is power. Who in their right mind wants to give up their power?</p>
<p>My nephew and niece-in-law are having this difficulty. The mom is very blase about the childrens’ schoolwork, while my nephew, their dad, takes it much more seriously. It is definitely causing some friction between them.</p>
<p>It’s not education it’s the question, can a relationship work where two peoples values are different? Can the one who doesn’t care about the value understand it’s important to the other person? Can the person who it matters to be willing to accept they won’t be able to change that persons mind? It could be anything, can a total slob and an anal retentive cleaner have a successful relationship? Can a total partier and teetotaler be together, and what about religion? Depends on the depth of the commitment. Personally I couldn’t be friends with people who spanked their kids as a form of discipline.</p>
<p>Depends on what you mean by “relationship” and where you are in your lives. If you’re done with your education and are dating, yes. Marriage, no. If you are in school and he or she is not, or is but is killing time in school and doesn’t enjoy learning, no: your SO will resent the time you spend on your school work. </p>
<p>People told me that I was an insufferable snob when I said that I wouldn’t date anyone without a college degree. Yet, I rarely notice those people dating high school drop-outs, or, come to think of it, anyone without a college degree. In my cynical old age, I see that criticism as “I don’t want competition for these men from someone with multiple degrees in challenging fields.” </p>
<p>(I also wonder how that would work out. Would a carpenter resent my student loans? Be willing to save to send a child to university? Spend money on tutors if the local high school were doing a bad job? There are simply too many ways in which the abstract value of “education” influences concrete decisions.)</p>
<p>^I don’t think you can categorize by jobs. One of the smartest, most aware guys I know dropped out of HS, and now, in his 50s, works in a factory and on a farm, and plays the sweetest bluegrass music you’ll ever hear ( but doesn’t make enough from that to give up the warehouse job). He’s self-educated and much more up on current events and ideas than many people I know with college degrees–even multiple ones.</p>
<p>Speaking of other disparate combos–my limited-veggie eating, meat-loving son is dating a vegan. That can be long range challenging!</p>
<p>The intersection of values and money is often interesting. </p>
<p>My BIL and his wife value education and both have advanced degrees. However, the wife came from a family where on your 18th birthday along with your gift, you got a bill for the next month’s rent. She had to pay for college herself; her parents who had money would not give her a dime. She went to CC for two years before transfering to a good local university. She also wound up paying for her MBA. </p>
<p>My in-laws on the otherhand paid for private college for all of their kids and even paid for law school for this BIL. Whenever the topic of kids and college would come up at family gatherings, they would disagree with each other - somtimes very loudly. </p>
<p>They eventually reached a compromise regarding how much they would pay for their kids (a reasonable amount, but kids had to have skin in the game), but DW and her siblings wondered for a while if they would make it. Fortunately things worked out, but there had to be compromise.</p>
<p>I think this is up there with the “big things” that couples need to discuss before considering a serious comitment along with religion, money, children, jobs…The more a couple can align with major values, probably the better, but no two people are alike. It’s important to be honest about yourself. If you can’t see yourself with someone who does not value education, then don’t date them.
I know of one couple where a college graduate is married to a high school dropout. He works hard a a laborer and is devoted to his family. However, they do have economic problems.
His intelligence is normal, and he has tried to go back to school, but it’s difficult. I suspect that his “disinterest” is a cover up for an underlying learning disabilty that he did not get help for. It would concern me if he modeled this for his child and was not interested in the child’s education, but he could also draw on his backrground to encourage the child to get the education he wished he had. It’s not his fault that he has a learning disability, but I would want to know how a future spouse and parent would handle this.</p>
<p>Commitment to education doesn’t necessarily come hand in hand with jobs. My husband has absolutely no education, is not fully literate, and is so committed to our kids’ education that he has worked two jobs for years (despite a six figure first job) so they can have every educational, cultural enrichment opportunity that either of us can think of. My D’s boyfriend (whom I love) is from an educated family, but somehow the commitment didn’t funnel through to him. She believes them to be soulmates, but his lack of commitment to education might be a deal breaker because she sees a doctorate in her future.</p>
<p>I disagree with a lot of the responses. I think a lot of it depends on how tolerant people are of different beliefs and how supportive they are of their spouse/kids in a goal they may not relate to.</p>
<p>For example, I don’t value competitive sports. But if I had a child whose passion was sports, I would support it. </p>
<p>What I would want in a partner, more than anything, when it comes to raising childer, is for them to have the same belief as I do in letting them find their own way and not push them into anything (be it sports, college, or anything else - in other words, if they would rather not go to college and get technical training or join the police/military, I want them to know it’s an option), while at the same time letting them take the lead in pursuing their passions, even if the dad and I don’t understand that passion. </p>
<p>Personally, I think being a good person (honest, decent, the type of person that does the “right thing”) is the only thing that matters. Education, etc. can be helpful, but in the grad scheme of things is not what I consider most important, even though I fully realize it opens doors. By the way, I come from a family that really emphacizes education, and I love learning/school, but I don’t expect my children to have to share this.</p>
<p>Also, I think it can work quite well if one person wants to pursue advanced degrees and the other has no interest. As long as, again, they are not judgmental about each other’s choices, I think it’s helpful to have one bread-winner while the other finishes their studies.</p>
<p>The answer depends in part by your definition of ‘values education’. Is it sufficient to believe that it’s important to do one’s best in school and earn a high school diploma? For some people, that could be ‘valuing education’. For others, that does not go nearly far enough.</p>
<p>"I also wonder how that would work out. Would a carpenter resent my student loans? Be willing to save to send a child to university? Spend money on tutors if the local high school were doing a bad job? "</p>
<p>Funny that’s the example chosen. My brother is a carpenter, by choice. His wife went to an elite school. They love each other so TOGETHER they paid of the loans. TOGETHER they saved and spent to send their sal D to college, and got tutors for her sister, who had some trouble with math in HS. Just because someone has a blue-collar job doesn’t mean that they value education and just because someone has the “right” degree doesn’t mean they’re a good person.</p>
<p>But I’m with Pootie-it comes down to definitions, for education and many other things. I personally would have a hard time being married to a right-wing hardliner. But James Carville and Mary Matalin have made a mixed political marriage work for decades. So not only do definitions matter, so do the individuals involved.</p>
<p>I recall bumping into a friend who is a fine finish carpenter in the library. He was checking out a copy of Macbeth because he had never read it and thought it was time.</p>
<p>Zoosermom is apparently the only one who did not marry someone of roughly equal educational achievement, but she’s the one who is least judgemental of those who say “I want to date someone who has finished college.” </p>
<p>Funny, that.</p>
<p>I never said that carpenters are soulless, illiterate, or unrefined; I chose that particular profession because it is a reasonably well-paying one that doesn’t require any sort of college degree. Neither did I say that such relationships can never work. </p>
<p>Amusing replies, though. It’s always funny to see those who are the most judgemental of me be the ones who have a spouse with a nearly identical level of education to them. “It just happened that way!” Yeah, right - it also so happens that the men who scream the loudest about women being shallow are the ones who happen to find a soul mate in a younger, slim, blue-eyed blonde. Give me a break - none of you preening to me about your open-mindedness would have wed someone with only a GED.</p>
<p>(For the record, my boyfriend and I have very different political views, as well as very different levels of involvement in politics. It works because we both understand that the other is coming from a good place, rather than a desire to run the nation into the ground while people starve on the streets. Yet, one of the few requirements that we each had in a significant other is “completed college”. But please, continue the lectures. It’s funny.)</p>
<p>Education doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with degrees…</p>
<p>Carry on, as they say around here. ;)</p>
<p>ariesathena, I don’t see anyone “preening” and I don’t see anyone judging YOU. (Moreover, since zoosermom is the only one who has mentioned their SO’s education, you have no reason to assume that everyone else’s is “equal.” For that matter, zoosermom didn’t say whether SHE went to college. You are making a lot of assumptions.)</p>
<p>I think that your reaction is all out of proportion. It’s not about you. Why so defensive?</p>