Education Level of Parents

Parents Forum
1

<p>My mom has always told me that she would have been a better mother if she were college educated. My own drive to finish college/grad school is somewhat influenced by the idea that I will be a better mother as a result. And not in the sense that I will be a better provider given the increased earning power of a college graduate. I feel that there is something inherently valuable in education that brings out the best in people whether it be applied to work, relationships, parenting, etc.</p>

<p>What do you think? Do you think that higher education makes a person a better parent? If so, please offer specifics.</p>

<p>*this is not a question of whether college educated people make for better parents than parents who did not attend college. it is a question of how higher education can make an individual person an even better parent than they would have been without the education.</p>

2

<p>The majority (some 75%) of people do not have college educations and would argue that they can be as good, if not better, parents. Those of us capable of finishing college think of different values when parenting- we consider the intellectual development as well as the other factors common to the majority. Your mother probably wishes she had the increased skills associated with a formal college education- more factual knowledge, exposure to other ideas, crtical thinking…</p>

<p>I agree with your mother. She would have benefited from the increased enrichment and would have had more to pass along to her children. She would have been able to get something for herself no one can take away. She would have something as a person in her own right, not connected to being a wife or parent. She could be happier with herself and “had it all” instead of giving up an education to become a wife and mother. It certainly is not about the money. More about sense of self/self esteem. More confidence in knowing she is making good choices in her parenting decisions. More empowerment in her role in our society- more choices available even if she ended up doing no more than if she didn’t have a college degree.</p>

<p>Your mother is probably frustrated because she “knows what she doesn’t know”, some people are totally oblivious to things she considers and happy in their ignorance. This is hard to articulate. A college education is valuable to those who can notice the difference it makes in a life. I’ll quit now, leaving you with some thoughts but not a finished essay.</p>

<p>Addenda- for her/me/you- being better educated makes us better people (achieved our level of ability), therefore able to be better parents (the same goes for the guys).</p>

3

<p>“My mom has always told me that she would have been a better mother if she were college educated.”</p>

<p>Not true. Those responsible for raising the next generation are always better off knowing less.</p>

4

<p>I think that good parents come in all shapes, sizes, colors and education levels. So no, I don’t agree that off the cuff college educated people make better parents but I think what your mother probably realizes that a college education tends to make one value education. College degree parents tend to instill the need for college in their children and those children tend to perform better in elementary and secondary school leading to an increase of those kids going on to college. Perhaps she associates that drive with being a “good parent.” She clearly values education because she got you where you are today.</p>

5

<p>I have always believed that my kids would have been better off to have had college-educated parents. They have been very successful in school because it’s been my mission in life to make sure that they don’t have the struggle that my husband I have, but there are certainly gaps in their lives and educations. We are comfortably off, but I still think there should be some assistance or understanding of first-generation students, even if they aren’t poor, because it’s very hard for those kids to navigate the college admissions process.</p>

6

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<p>I think this sums up my mom’s situation. She is not a college graduate, but was always telling me to “go to college so you can take care of yourself. You don’t want to have to depend on a man”. Looking back, I think there was a time that she felt trapped in her marriage for economic reasons.</p>

<p>My mother was/is a great parent. But she may have been happier had she felt fulfilled; maybe a happier woman is a better mother? </p>

<p>I have tried to pass along the same philosophy to my D’s. I want them to have a career that allows them to support themselves. If they decide to marry and become a SAHM, I want it to be an option they choose, not the only option available.</p>

7

<p>I think some non-college educated parents (including zoosermom I expect) can educate themselves to a large extent to make up for their lack of higher level education. Nevertheless I think our kids did benefit from the dinner table conversations that our college education helped us have. We’ve talked about everything from the physics of black hole and string theory, about whether religions are a product of evolution, the death toll of Napoleon’s attempt to take over Russia and how it’s been graphed. Our vocabularies are large and we have a house full of books. </p>

<p>Also my first reaction to any new experience is to research it, so I know a lot about different approaches to child-rearing, education etc. Though that doesn’t necessarily mean I made the optimum choices though!</p>

8

<p>I hope you give your mom an extra hug and thank her for what she’s done for you!</p>

<p>I think being educated helps. I will never forget walking towards a state park and hearing a dad say to his kid something about having gone sledding there as a kid “before this was a historic deal”. The choice of the word ‘deal’ is what got to me - not descriptive, not accurate. Someone more educated would have used better language.</p>

<p>My parents are not college grads. Dad attended. I spend years sloughing off his bad attitude about college degrees. He has a lot of raw intelligence and attained much w/o the education, and dealt with educated people that didn’t have the brains he did, but I had to develop my own appreciation for what college could do for me and not just consider it ‘a piece of paper’.</p>

9

<p>Sending girls to college wasn’t a priority back in the 50s when mom was young–poor girls married and became housewives. (Rich girls who went to college also married and became housewives-- wives of rich, well-educated men they met at college. . .) Mom was certainly smart enough for college, but it wasn’t in the cards for her. All her daughters and sons have college degrees, some have graduate/professional degrees. She didn’t really encourage us to go to college. It was just what “smart” kids of our generation, in our neighborhood, did. My dad was “old school” --“No wife of mine is gonna WORK”–it would be an insult to him as a man, saying he couldn’t provide for his (large) family. Mom wasn’t interested in a career–raising kids and volunteering were enough for her. She didn’t really consider “personal fulfillment.” </p>

<p>Our kids definitely have advantages that we didn’t have. Recently I had a nice conversation with my oldest S, a college senior. I noticed what college has done/is doing for him. His reasoning skills are sharper, he’s more observant, more logical, more precise, more articulate, more tolerant of others. (Maybe he is just getting older, but I’d like to think he’s getting something for the $$). I think less educated people can be more hasty or emotional in their actions (like disciplining kids, for example) instead of stopping and thinking, asking “Why?” or seeking more information on how to handle a situation. I think a broader world view, and an historical perspective are part of it. Having an opportunity to travel and see how other people live is important, too, IMO. I don’t know if my S will ever be a parent, but if he does have kids, I think his education will help him. Also, I think education can help in relationships–understanding psychology, being more thoughtful about your partner’s or co-worker’s role, etc. (Not that educated people aren’t jerks, too).</p>

<p>My mom has lived a fairly narrow life, in the here and now, concerned about what to cook for dinner, the laundry, etc. She doesn’t like to read much and isn’t intellectually curious. But I don’t look down on her for that. She played the hand she was dealt, and played it well. We’ve had an opportunity to see more of the big picture, our lives have had more possibilities, and so will our kids’ lives, because of our educations. (Which our parents helped pay for–thanks, mom & dad).</p>

10

<p>I don’t know that you can necessarily generalize (negatively) about women who who do not have college educations:</p>

<p>“She would have something as a person in her own right, not connected to being a wife or parent. She could be happier with herself and “had it all” instead of giving up an education to become a wife and mother.”</p>

<p>My grandmother had a 4th grade education. She ran several businesses, worked her whole life (self-supporting after her husband died when her youngest was 5), helped transition immigrants into her adopted country from her country of origin, raised two children and helped support various people in need (and worked until she was 91!). </p>

<p>I think it might be a little elitist to assume that lack of a college education means that one necessarily gave up a life to be a wife/mother or didn’t have ‘something in her own right.’ It’s certainly far, far easier when you have an education to support yourself – but it’s not a given that without higher education, you can’t or are fundamentally deficient in some way.</p>

<p>Certainly college gives one more options — my grandmother knew this and worked hard to provide the best education for her kids, one of whom ended up getting her masters.</p>

11

<p>I think being informed and educated in general helps with a lot of things in life. I have three degrees including a PhD, as does my spouse. However, we would both agree that some of the most informed and educated people we have met and known have had little to no formal higher education. Likewise, I’ve met plenty of very narrow, shallow or just-not-too-bright people with a degree after their name.</p>

<p>However, I do think the more us parents come to know ourselves, the world around us, and actively read, listen and learn their whole lives from various sources (and college is one of the most efficient sources!), it can make us better parents. </p>

<p>Also there are lots of correlates with education, such as income and choices that can make life easier, give us more opportunities and experiences, or in some cases give us more time. And all those things can enable us to give our children things we might not otherwise be able to.</p>

12

<p>That’s so true, starbright!</p>

<p>I just disagree that the phrase: “She would have something as a person in her own right” can only apply to a person w/higher education.</p>

13

<p>I have a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology and as a mother of 4 daughters? I use that degree every day of my life. ;)</p>

14

<p>Yes, I think education helps you be a better parent. </p>

<p>As a GENERAL rule, more educated people have better vocabularies. Little kids absorb the vocabulary their parents use. We all learned the meaning of many words from the language spoken in our homes when we were little. My mom was a good mom in many ways, but she had no intellectual interests. When I was 7 or so, I would ask her what a word in a book I was reading meant, and she would tell me. By the time I was 10, she would tell me, “Look it up in the dictionary” because she didn’t know. Of course, I could do that…but did I look up each and every word I didn’t recognize? No. Fast forward a lot of years. I was usually able to answer the “what does X mean?” questions unless a scientific or other technical term was involved. I think my offspring had much larger vocabularies when they began school and up to about age 10 or so than I did at the same age. I think that’s a tremendous advantage. </p>

<p>I learned what words meant from books–but quite often I didn’t really “get” how a word was pronounced from the dictionary. So, there were words which were part of my reading and writing vocabulary that I never said. (In my case, that was in part due to an incident when I was about nine when I used the PERFECT word and all the adults cracked up laughing because I said it incorrectly.)</p>

<p>And the advantage isn’t one limited to reading and writing skills. Even when we are very little, people judge us by our spoken vocabularies. A teacher often will assume that the child with high level verbal skills is more intelligent than the one without them. Oh, they will make exceptions for children of immigrants. But put two kids in a kindergarten classroom, and most teachers will jump to the conclusion that the child who uses an advanced vocabulary is smarter than the one who doesn’t. Reality may just be that the first child has more educated parents, especially an educated mother, and has simply learned the words from her, whereas the second child is the child of a less educated woman with a smaller vocabulary. He may be every bit as smart. Most teachers won’t think so, and, unfortunately, that affects the way they treat the kids.</p>

<p>In school, the child with a limited vocabulary will be at a tremendous disadvantage because he’s playing catch up. He not only has to learn to read the words on paper–he has to learn what they mean. </p>

<p>I also think more educated mothers are more likely to challenge authority figures and authority figures treat them differently. It’s not that less educated women can’t challenge authority figures–some do. However, I think it’s simply true that a more educated mother is more likely to demand–and receive–explanations as to why doctors are prescribing X medicine or ordering Y tests or to say “Despite the fact that all the lab work looks wrong, I KNOW there’s something wrong with my child.” So many childhood disabilities–even things like autism–can be mitigated by early childhood intervention. I believe that more educated mothers are more likely not only to notice that something is wrong, but to INSIST that more testing or whatever is needed is done. Too many doctors don’t really take the time to explain things and the more limited the mother’s vocabulary, the less of the explanation she will understand. </p>

<p>More educated mommies are more likely to stimulate young children without having to work at it. One study showed that stay at home mommies who were college educated are much more likely to talk “at” their non-verbal babies and toddlers. I really don’t know why that’s true, but it is. Years ago, there was a NYC hospital that had a “project talk” for teenage moms. It seems that even when they want to do all the right things, 15 year old high school drop out moms don’t talk to their newborns; they don’t read them nursery rhymes; they don’t play “games” like “patty cake” or "peek a boo. " And, unsurprisingly, their children’s development lags.</p>

<p>Of course, there are plenty of college-educated moms who are horrific parents. There are also uneducated women who are model moms. Still, I think that the SAME person will be a better mom with more education. I don’t really think it’s a matter of having a college degree. You can do a lot to educate yourself and many women do.</p>

15

<p>I’m a big believer in education, but I can’t think of a single thing I learned in college that made me a better parent. A better provider, yes. A better parent, no. </p>

<p>I know dreadful parents with college educations and amazing parents with high school educations. And vice-versa. </p>

<p>If I had to make a list of qualities essential for being a good parent, a college education wouldn’t even make the top 10…which would start with love, patience, good impulse control and a well-developed sense of humor.</p>

16

<p>^ So true. The direct impact probably has a lot to do with what one was able to study in school. </p>

<p>I’d add to your list a lot of things that probably don’t come from a university degree: perspective taking, the ability to separate your own needs from those of your children, consistency, emotional stability, affection.</p>

17

<p>I think what is more likely to “brand” someone is limited life experiences and interests, rather than lack of a college degree. Somehow, I don’t think anyone meeting zoosermom would think “uneducated.” However, my SIL, who has always lived in tiny towns and reads only her tiny town newspaper and Christian romantic fiction does make one think “uneducated.” On one level, it’s fine if she wants her life to revolve around quilting and going to bingo, but I sort of think her own daughter will end up with the same kind of life.</p>

18

<p>There are a few key ideas here. </p>

<p>First, having economic options means one is less likely to be trapped in a bad relationship. That could be extremely important as a mother. Educated people tend to have more economic options.</p>

<p>Second, being well-educated means you can share lots of things with your children. Explanations for how things work. A world view that is sophisticated. An awful lot of what we do as parents is teach our children. We teach values, we teach them how to think, we teach them how to see the world. I remember discussing with my son when he was probably around 7 the coalition-building among nations that took place just prior to World War I. We discuss the theory of evolution and evidence for it. Someone who is not well-educated in school can teach him or herself but it is harder to do.</p>

<p>This doesn’t obviate the critical importance of acceptance, love, warmth, etc. But being able to teach one’s children is aided by education. I’ve told this story before, I think, but a girlfriend of mine from college was the daughter of a music professor at the University of Indiana. The greater Bloomington School district was voting on whether to teach foreign languages (for which they might have needed to increase taxes). A farmer from the outer reaches of the district stood up at a public meeting, explained that he opposed adding languages, and said, “If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it’s good enough for my kid.” I don’t think that farmer’s lack of education was doing his kid a service.</p>

<p>Third, there are times when having the ability to learn and do research really helps. Let me draw on personal experience here for a couple of data points. We have two kids. Both had major medical problems and without the ability to research and be confident in talking with doctors, it is likely that one of our children who now sees well would be effectively legally blind. She was diagnosed with a degenerative retinal disease and was close to if not legally blind. By reading, getting tests, knowing people (came with my education), we were able to figure out what was wrong with the help of our 3rd ophthalmologist, we got a diagnosis, but had to push him to think through his diagnosis to figure out what a treatment could be. If we’d listened to any of the three doctors, she’d have terrible vision today. But, with our informed nudging, he referred us to an “outside-the-standard ophthalmologist’s box” person who could treat her, and our daughter now has 20/20 distance vision. With our son, he has had surgery to alleviate a problem. His first set of doctors told us the surgery never worked. He was truly exhausted every day and while he is still somewhat tired, his worst day post-surgery beats his best day pre-surgery. In both cases, if we’d listened to our original doctors, one kid would be legally blind and the other kid would be too exhausted to work.</p>

<p>Similarly, both have learning disabilities. One’s LD’s are severe although he is unusually bright. We read about the LD’s, contacted experts, negotiated with the school system (I wrote hundreds of emails and memos and met with every teacher before every semester), and ultimately set up a partial homeschooling program. A psychologist who tested him early on said that they called kids with those scores “severely gifted.” The prognosis for kids like that is a high likelihood of depression or drug use. He has done very well and is attending one of the most highly regarded LACs (by reputation and it is fantastic so far). It is unlikely that we could have guided him through the school bureaucracy if we were not well-educated. </p>

<p>Being well-educated does not will not make you a better person, but it may make you better able to help your kid in a number of ways.</p>

19

<p>Intellectual curiosity makes a better mother, not a piece of paper. My mothers formal education ended at the age of 14. Her parents could not afford to pay for her books/uniforms after her winning a full scholarship to a girls boarding school. No females went beyond 14 unless they had the money to do so. She was the most intellectually curious I have ever met, her mother was the same. If she didn’t know the answer she found the answer, she instilled in her 3 children the desire to learn explore get fanatical about whatever we had an interest in. My siblings and I are often referred to as the Jeopardy contestant family. We know alot about the most trivial to the most detailed of topics. Volumes and volumes of seemingly useless information until someone asks. Two days before my mother passed away, (breast cancer at 51) her cousin was visiting her in the hospital, Jeopardy was on the TV, my mother had metastatic brain cancer, she was still answering the Jeopardy questions correctly.</p>

20

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<p>Yes, it could make you a ‘better’ mother, but surely you also have other great reasons to finish college/grad school? A good education should enrich your own life in many other ways too.</p>