I’m in a foul mood today. This is probably due to all the "news" I’ve been reading since yesterday. Warning: negativity and pointless pontification ahead.

There are many claims and even studies showing the correlation between educated women and delayed pregnancy.  So I’ve been very curious on how much my education played a part in me not wanting to have children (although, after yesterday’s bus ride I don’t even want to be in the same vicinity as anyone under 20…but that’s a different story). I’ve had sex education classes twice: the first one was on the mating of frogs given in biology class when I was 13 and second one had to do with humans, taught when I was 15. The frog sex class was a snooze fest and has probably played a huge role in why I’ve never liked studying biology in an academic environment. The human sex-ed class was given  under the watchful eye of a nun, who I thought looked like a cow (it was how she was depicted in my cartoons of her).

The sex-ed class taught me only one method of pregnancy prevention (in addition to abstinence), the rhythm method, also called the calender method. But I never relied on it because I couldn’t keep track of when it was safe for me to have sex: Is it before my period? After my period? During my period? I decided the safest method was just to avoid it altogether and thus escape the stigma associated with a teenage pregnancy. I was 19 when I discovered the pill and unless I am sterile, it was 100% effective.

Depending on the hour, I sometimes feel like a genius or a complete idiot. So one of my biggest fears regarding pregnancy was cash flow: how do I provide for the kid if the dad is a dud? How do I provide for the kid if the kid has developmental problems? Not having money or a reliable support network is one of the reasons I kept putting off my child rearing abilities. Did this decision come about because I am educated? Or because I am sensible and have the ability to think about the future? Are they related? From what I know, my gene pool isn’t particularly spectacular and there are plenty of over educated people in this world that are related to me and are missing some light bulbs. Does sitting in a classroom listening to some bore drone on and on put a hamper on one’s desire to mate without contraceptives? If someone has any papers to recommend that address these questions, I’ll be happy to read them.

I’ve known women who have had no formal education (can’t write their name in any language, nor have been told about contraceptives or the calendar method) and are attractive and self-confident and have chosen not to have kids. These women were/are working low paid service jobs. Did their decision to not have kids come about because of their common sense or because of education?

The reason I am having these thoughts is because when I read stories and see pictures of women and their kids starving in Africa or whereever…I wonder, didn’t they think before they decided to have sex and get pregnant? Its not like they were living luxurious lives before they encountered food shortages. What is with this drama of selling kids to ensure that they have food? Why didn’t they think before they got pregnant? Would sex-ed have helped?

My husband says that one reason some cultures might be resistant to sex-ed lessons could be because of previous problems arising from listening to…lets say Western Society. So there is some fear and/or doubt involved with it. And it might be hard to seperate fact from BS and one example I can think of is…listening to someone tell you to use condoms vs. listening to someone telling you not to buy cheap U.S. subsidized grain that is GMO laden. And I am sitting here with access too all sorts of reading material so I have no way of really understanding what some of these women are going though. Okay. But still…it really bothers me to see starving kids…if I were living amongst rampant malnutrition I would ensure that I have razor blades in certain holes so as to prevent unneccesary accidents. Or punch myself repeatedly if my belly started to bloat up. I have friends without kids who echo my sentiments, and ones with kids that think I am some sort of monster. I am incredibly money minded…so all my thoughts revolve around it. But I’m still wondering why aren’t these women thinking about the future at least for a little while. I wonder if consensual unprotected sex has stopped in areas right now where there is water shortages, food shortages or random violence. I guess I’ll know in nine months.