The MRS. Degree

Ok, so I’m an Elementary Education major in college. Something has always bugged me about that major though… a lot of people hear El Ed major and immediately say “Oh, so you’re here for an MRS. Degree”. It’s so frustrating! No, I am not majoring in education so I can get married; I’m majoring in education because I want to be a teacher!!! Honestly, there are cheaper ways to get married. So, that being said, anytime someone ever mentioned being a stay-at-home mom to me, I’ve balked. I don’t want to be one of the people that support the MRS. degree stereotype. I’ve loved the idea of being a mom that stays at the house and takes care of everything there, but I don’t want it to seem like these four years in college have been with the sole intent of getting married and having kids and not doing anything more with my degree.

Now bearing that in mind, I have started to have a different thinking lately. It all started when I was still dating my (now ex-) boyfriend. I started to think about how I wouldn’t mind becoming a stay-at-home mom if I were to marry him and we were blessed with children. This really became a plausible idea because he was hoping to have a job where he would be doing a lot of travelling to different locations and I considered the idea of going with him in which case I couldn’t hold down my own job but I could home-school my children and there would be a lot of “field-trips” where we could actually go and see all the different places we learned about. It sounded quite like the ideal kind of life.

Of course with the ending of that relationship came the ending of that dream. However, the seed of the idea stayed, I really began to consider staying at home, taking care of the house, cooking, possibly home-schooling kids. It really sounded like something I could get behind. Then, I started to get really into sewing. I’ve been having so much fun making things and I’ve begun to think about how cool it would be if I could open my own shop, whether online or actual store or both. At this current time I think it would have to be restricted to being an on-the-side type thing while I hold down an actual job (hopefully teaching, but with the current economy/job opportunities, who knows?). But, it would be nice, when I get married and have kids, for that to be my job (along with the stay-at-home-mom things). It’s definitely an idea I’ve been entertaining.

So really, I’m not sure what to think any more. Has my education degree become nothing more than an MRS. degree? Am I doomed to add to the stereotype? And if so, does it really matter? I mean, I’m not planning on not being a teacher at all. I think there would be at least a couple years of me being a teacher where I can influence children’s lives like I want to and where I can use all the ideas that are brewing in my head and notebooks for the classroom. And really, if I really think about it, worrying like this is all a moot point. I’m not even dating anyone right now so why am I thinking about being a stay-at-home-mom? For all I know, God wants me to always be single and always be a teacher and have my students be my kids (To be perfectly honest, I really hope that isn’t His plan, but if it is I can be content in that and it just means He has something really special planned for me). So I need to stop worrying about the future and just live in what I have been given today. That’s really hard for someone like me to do, I like planning and having control of things waaaay too much….