Didn't Know
Posted on: Friday 10/19/2018 12:56:45
I was having a talk with my BIL this morning. It's getting to be a regular thing, and I like it. He told me something about my sister and her insistence about knowing about anything.
I graduated high school in 1977 and went off to OSU for Education. In 1979 my brother graduated and made is way South to Hocking Tech for a degree in Law Enforcement/Natural Resources. He was to become a forest ranger. My parents paid for our first two years.
When my sister graduated in 1980, my mother told her she was not being sent to college. She was to stay home and learn to be a good home maker. I think this came from my mother being in high school in the late 1940s, when this was the overall attitude.
My sister has always resented my mom's doing this, and been jealous of the degrees my brother and I received. She had wanted to prove that a person doesn't need college to be intelligent. When the internet and search engines came along, it was like a huge candy dish of knowledge to her. Whenever something comes along that she wants to be knowledgeable on or doesn't want to be left out on, she picks up the laptop and digs in.
I understand this. It changes my view of her with regard to this issue. There are things I would expect her to not really know about, but for all I know, she probably spent hours reading reputable articles about on line. I feel like I've done her a disservice, and I'm glad my BIL let me in on this.
Simon Says:
I’m in a not entirely dissimilar situation myself. My brother and sister both went to university, with my brother getting a BSc in Mathematics and my sister getting a PhD in Chemistry – but thanks to my messed-up health, high school was as far as I got. But that did not of course stop my inquisitiveness and liking for analysing things. I know how defensive it makes me sound, but I’ve never noticed any particular correlation between a higher education and critical thinking abilities. That’s not to say a degree doesn’t give you an advantage when it comes to getting a job – obviously it does – but nowadays especially, with so many educational resources at everyone’s fingertips, it doesn’t guarantee you’re more knowledgeable.
Hopefully your sister does indeed profit in this way.
kittenheel Says:
Hard to believe parts of society still pushed the "girls should be housewives" stereotype as recently as the 80s, but it certainly happened. I got married for the first time in 1985 at barely age 20, and I was surprised how many people asked me if I was going to keep working after I got married. /homepage
lunamor Says:
It's always good to have understanding of where someone is coming from when they show behavior that seems a bit abnormal or annoying. I remember when I was growing up, my grandmother saved EVERYTHING - bits of wrapping paper, rubber bands, just bits of this and that. We washed and reused ziploc baggies. Just lots of things like that, and she never threw things away. And I always thought it was just because she was frugal (by necessity). But when I went to college and took a couple of literature courses, one of which was set around WWII, I learned it went deeper than that. She grew up in a time when, even if you had money, you couldn't just go to a store and expect the thing you needed to be available to purchase. That things were rationed, or not made at all. So most were in the habit of never throwing things away. Anyway I liked getting a better understanding of her - it helped me appreciate her more.
Fritz The Bootlegger Says:
My mom’s father didn’t believe in college for daughters. They could go to nursing school or become teachers (which at the time was a 2 year degree). My two aunts both went into medical fields, one as an RN and the other as a medical transcriber. The aunt that was an RN hated it. She didn’t want to be a nurse. She got married (to a doctor) and had kids, got divorced, and then put herself through school, studying linguistics at Indiana (which has the best foreign language program in the country), and got her masters as well. She then taught English as a second language at Cornell for 30 years.
My mom went to a teachers college, Western Illinois for a year, got pregnant, dropped out and got married.
My dad was her second husband. I think she often resented her sister for having the drive to further her education. /homepage
kittenheel Says:
Luckily, my parents were remarkably egalitarian when it came to education. If anything, they were disappointed that I went to a state school while my brother went to Vanderbilt. Higher education just wasn't an issue when my mom was growing up, because they were dirt poor, but she did become a beautician to put my dad through school and later on went to secretarial school. /homepage
lunamor Says:
Meanwhile, my grandma went to business college in 1940! It was just a 2 year degree but not at all common then. And thanks to my grandpa dying suddenly at 47, she was insistent about us getting college degrees and not depending on men.
knifeboy Says:
These are very interesting stories, and what a plethora of viewpoints! Mary, something you said is very interesting. My niece and nephew have both had kids. My niece was a school teacher and now runs the office for her husband's company. My nephew's wife is an RN. When the were pregnant (two kids each with in the last seven years) they were asked if they were going to keep working. And this is well past the 80's. I don't get how that's still an attitude./homepage