Indentured Educated Women

I often think about gender and how it intersects with being an educated debtor. Many women have written to me, expressing their fears about never being able to have a family or owning a home. The option of domesticity has been stripped from many of us who are indentured educated women. While it was once enormously painful for me to accept that I will never have a child, I have now come to terms with it. (I'd really like to adopt, but that costs money, something I seriously lack!) And for those who have told me to have a child, and that things are always tough, i.e., that it's "never the right time to have a child," I can assure you that it is not appropriate or fair to bring a child into this world. I live with my in-laws. I can't buy my own groceries. How on earth could I justify having a baby? Of course, for those of you who have made the decision to have children, I respect that entirely. However, when it comes to my own personal life, it wouldn't be right. That does not mean I pass judgment on anyone who thinks otherwise. We all make different decisions, especially when it comes to intimate matters such as having a child.

I know I'd make a wonderful mother. Being a teacher and seeing how the children in Korea related to me so well made me realize that. Alas, it is not in the cards. And when I think about those children, my heart gets torn to pieces. I miss them terribly. So . . . perhaps I haven't come to terms with being childless? Perhaps . . .

As for ever owning a home? That is entirely out of the picture, and I don't really give a damned. As long as I can get back into an apartment, I'll be happy as ever.

I have also heard from women who are mothers. They fret about their indebted children. Those stories are heart breaking, too. They only wish the best for their children, and they feel helpless about the crisis. It hits them hard, because it is their child who is suffering from a broken, unjust, corrupted system.

Recently, I did some investigative work, and attended a talk for parents with college bound students. It was hard for me to remain quiet, because the room was filled with anxious parents. At one point, after I mentioned that outstanding student loan debt will hit $1 TRILLION in June of 2012, a father said, "college is a racket."

That father is dead right.

At this point, I don't want my nieces or nephews to go to college, and that is painful for me to state. After all, I was on a track to become an academic. Higher education is near and dear to me. But it's so broken at this point. It's been corporatized, and is now a twisted, absurd reflection of what it once was. I don't want my family members to suffer in the ways that so many of you are suffering. I also don't want their mothers to be tormented by the debt that they will acquire and most likely never be rid of.

Mary Cassatt, "Mother's Goodnight Kiss (1888)"