To Know or Not To Know

11.29.2010

As part of my baby shower conversation with Rob the other day, I asked him if we were expecting a baby, would he want to know the gender. He, of course, did what many men do and immediately returned the question for me to answer first. My answer makes me look insane. I will attempt to explain.

I’m glad that medicine has advanced and that we can find out the sex of a baby because, yes, it helps to know while preparing for baby’s arrival. But, this kind of knowledge, I feel, takes away an element of mystery. I think it’s fun to spend time guessing, partaking in all the old wives tales and games to try and figure it out, to sit and wonder what life would be like with a girl or a boy etc.

I also understand that parents have an option of not finding out so you can keep that element of mystery. But see, this is where I turn the crazy corner. It bothers me that the doctor knows. The doctor becomes the only person on the entire planet who knows the sex of your baby. I feel like no one should know or everyone should know. (See, my “all or nothing” mentality rears its ugly head.) It really irritates me that the doctor would know something about me for 9 months.

Rob, by this point, grew annoyed with me and said, “Fine, we’re finding out then.” So there you have it: A woman’s debate within her multiple personality settled by her husband’s impatience.

We’ll be finding out the sex of a baby should I get pregnant.

Then I can be annoyed for 9 months that there’s no element of mystery.

The Teaching Profession: Once Upon a Time

04.23.2010

[It’s hard to believe that April is almost over and that 1/3 of the year is practically gone!]

Food for thought: At one point in US History, only men were the educators and teaching positions were one of the highest paid salaries in the nation. Gradually, as the Industrial Revolution provided more technical opportunities and required knowledge of machinery, more men left the teaching profession to jump on the Revolution’s bandwagon.

Teachers were still needed and women wanted to work. So more women took the positions that the men were leaving behind…but it wasn’t really considered “working” if a woman was doing it and so, what was once a highly lucrative field, dropped in economic value and hasn’t recovered since.

Once starting school, a child spends more time at school with teachers than at home with parents. We instill our trust in a different individual each year and instill our trust in an institution to partner with us as parents to raise and shape a little person. Why did we consider education to be more important when men operated it?