PhD's over Children?

David at Oneway Purpose has an awesome post about qualifications and Germany (when doesn't David have an awesome post?). He adds some interesting thoughts to an article from Reuters that you don't want to miss.

Now, I read the article and am going to add my own commentary (not that David's was bad, I am just taking my thoughts in a slightly different direction).

Germans value letters attached to their name more than money, love or having children with nine out of ten rating a good qualification as their most important aim in life, a survey showed Wednesday

In essence, this is making Germany's population severely decline. Many are preferring letters next to their names rather than the legacy of children. I don't know about everyone else, but I sure would much rather have children than a "PhD" or a "Dr." next to my name (I'm not against higher education, by the way). My mom is a classic example of this and she's one of my role models.

She has a degree in Computer Science from the University of Michigan. She was making an incredible amount of money by the time she graduated from college. She also got married at 23 and had me at 26. Quoting from her Choosing Home article:

I gave my life to Christ my first year there [at college]. Through excellent discipleship and fellowship God was able to root out many false notions that had been deposited in my youth. Christ also gave me an inner confidence that I had lacked. But I held firm on marriage. It wasn't for me. Many others were there for an "Mrs." degree but I was all business. I majored in computers. This suited my logical and analaytical skills fairly well. And an added bonus, the corporations were hungry for women in this field so I figured finding a job would be easy after graduation.

My mom had no interest in marriage. But God had other plans for her.

This was also the time when I took my first "real" job as a computer sales representative for a company in our area. I quickly excelled in my job. I was learning nearly $4000 a month selling computers. The PC industry was booming and so was my career. Full steam ahead. But then came the choice.

Choosing Home.

Fortunately for my mom, God made it very clear what He wanted her to do. She stopped working and stayed home and had kids. My mom is a great encouragement to me in this area. In a world that encourages women to join the workforce, she's a voice who has encouraged me to keep going "against the current".

Getting back the the original article, it really boils down to what we value and are we open to input from God. If so, we should listen to His leading and not our own.

(See my post on Staying Home and College for more reading.)