Regarding Women Pursuing Advanced Degrees at the likely expense of motherhood

93 points76 commentssubmitted by houseoftolstoyMod to r/WhereAllTheGoodMenAre

Picture for reference: https://i.imgur.com/PZd2IG9.png

Whether or not women are truly happy to spend most of their fertile years pursuing even more years of "education" is one thing. We can also debate whether or not the time and money invested has any real benefits. While I argue that the outcomes are not worth the costs for the vast majority of these women, there is a glaring issue with women like this. That being her desire to be seen in the equivalent light of a mother.

Mothers are indeed important, as they are necessary for the continuation of our species. So when you see a picture of a mother with her baby, the general reaction will be one of warmth and happiness. This same feeling is not one bit replicated when a woman takes the same type of picture with a stack of papers instead of a baby. This is just an absurd attempt to try and claim that a woman getting a degree should be praised the same as a mother.

These days it certainly does not take much to become a mother, as any woman can do that by sleeping with a guy and getting knocked up. The picture being replicated here though is meant to be the archetype of the mother who took the effort to meet a man worth marrying and being a good father. The point is that mothers are at their best when they do things right by first marrying the man and then having children with him (as fathers are still essential to society), and this picture is trying to equivocate that same essence but with a stack of papers. I bring up the implication of the father being completely in the picture as a husband because in order for a woman to do that, she has to put in a lot of effort to get that sort of man. That effort is something so many women are either incapable of or unwilling to do.

Perhaps this woman put some effort into those papers, but that will not inspire the same joy that a picture of a mother holding her baby will. It probably does bother her that she does not get the same adoration a mother would receive, as she believes that her choices should also be validated all the same. The problem is that whether or not she believes it or makes any effort towards it, her body is meant to bear children (not the same thing as being guaranteed to have them). We all inherently recognize this reality, but she has been told that this role is something that is not all that important, as she can just do it later or ignore it altogether. She may think she can ignore those desires, but her body and instincts are telling her that she should be having babies. Instead she insists that this will make her just as happy, and that she should be just as highly regarded as a mother would be.

You cannot fight against nature and expect that there will not be natural consequences in return. Women who think they can delay or entirely forego having a family if their own may think that everything will be blissful in the end, but they better be darn sure that they are not going to regret not placing emphasis on finding a man to marry and have children, because if they are wrong about that assumption, they are going to find that the second half of their lives are going to be lonely and unhappy.