That impoverished student would be me, and I feel like I'm begging, but desperate times call for desperate measures. I'm studying part-time for my M.Sc., and working three days a week to support my family and pay the mortgage, bills and my tuition fees. (Actually, my meagre income has been further reduced these past few weeks, as I've been on paternity leave.)
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Education & Careers
Comments (13)
Dear MS Mo:
Although I have spent hundreds of hours on the computer in the past few years, yours is the first I have ever seen that was, in essence, "cyberpanhandling". Being a card-carrying liberal I'm not automatically averse to the practice. But even I would take a good look at someone's life story before deciding to help.
It seems to me that you are asking the general public to subsidize your choice to have a child and to take on the that ongoing expense and the loss of wages during maternity leave. Were it not for that, you were capable of making acceptable progress academically. No baby, no begging problem. You remind me of Catholic families I know who buy a 3BR 1.5BA house when first married and then proceed to have six children. They then cannot afford to "move up" for educational or other factors and wind up iving in an overcrowded urban slum with three kids to a BR, etc.. When one asks why so many kids and suggests poor choices, said family cites freedom to have the size family they want. They still reserve the right to expect the government or welfare or society in general to subsidize their lifestyle by providing larger quarters.
I wish you nothing but the best, and all possible success. And its not like I don't admire your aggressiveness in reaching your objective. But -- especially in these times -- very hard choices must be made. Significant numbers of women are putting off having children into their thirties and even forties because they cannot handle both education/kids or career/kids. They make their choices rationally. You are probably going to have yours made for you by others. You have chosen to go the combined kid/education track, but it will only work if there is enough money. You can't undo the baby, but you can (and may be forced to) put back the degree.
Posted by: jim speck | March 30, 2008 2:24 PM