Literate women Vs better mothers

[Amherstclane]

Hi Friends.
What is your opinion about the question : do Literate women make better mothers ?

Children in developing countries are healthier and more likely to survive past the age of five if their mothers can read and write. Experts in public health accepted this idea decades ago, but until now no one has been able to show that a woman's ability to read itself improves her children's chances of survival.
Most literate mothers learnt to read in primary school, and the fact that a women has had an education may simply indicate her family's wealth or that it values its children more highly. Now a long-term study carried out in Nicaragua has eliminated these factors by showing that teaching reading to poor adult women, who would otherwise have remained illiterate, has a direct effect on their children's health and survival.

Must give your opinion.
Thanks.

[Glassylicious]

This debate will ultimately hinge on a few issues. It honestly depends on how you define "better mothers", and also if you intend on strictly defining "getting an education" as "learning how to read and write".

From your argument, "better mothers" appear to be women who can get their kid to live past the age of 5. But honestly, there's a lot more to parenting than to ensure their child is alive and kicking. What about teaching the child to grow up and mature? Teaching the child the value of a proper education? Teaching the child certain important values of life like kindness and respect? There is no mention of that whatsoever, and in my opinion, these traits are as heavily associated with "being a better mother" as getting the child to live past the age of 5.

The way I see it the correlation proven in the study seems way too sketchy. So many other factors could be at play here. One possible explanation for the study is that families who can afford to allow their daughters to learn how to read and write can probably afford basic healthcare and proper food as well, thus ensuring a better quality of life.

Also, from how I see it, a PROPER education will and should go a lot further than just teaching you how to read and write. It promotes intellectual thinking and reasoning, and widens perspective. There is no mention of those aspects of education either.

Also, even if the correlation is proven true, there is no offered explanation on how merely knowing how to read [since we are applying that strict definition suggested by the topic] can get your kid to survive longer, which is really the burning issue here. Any suggestions?

[chongkeat]

But honestly, there's a lot more to parenting than to ensure their child is alive and kicking. What about teaching the child to grow up and mature? Teaching the child the value of a proper education? Teaching the child certain important values of life like kindness and respect? There is no mention of that whatsoever, and in my opinion, these traits are as heavily associated with "being a better mother" as getting the child to live past the age of 5.
Indeed, it does depend on the definition of a "better mother". However, in times of hardship, proper education and values pales in comparison to basic survival.

Assuming equal conditions, a literate mother would make a better mother, giving her children a better chance of survival, simply because she would at least know more, and is more capable of making informed decisions, as in not being scammed out of her children and/or home etc.

Or to put it in another way, literacy would not make a mother worse at parenting.

The way I see it the correlation proven in the study seems way too sketchy. So many other factors could be at play here. One possible explanation for the study is that families who can afford to allow their daughters to learn how to read and write can probably afford basic healthcare and proper food as well, thus ensuring a better quality of life.
The study did not involve a survey of existing literate mothers, it looks at teaching poor illiterate adult women to read, people who would've otherwise remained illiterate.

Also, even if the correlation is proven true, there is no offered explanation on how merely knowing how to read [since we are applying that strict definition suggested by the topic] can get your kid to survive longer, which is really the burning issue here. Any suggestions?
Of course, if we use the definition of literacy as merely "knowing how to read", then it won't do as much good as, say, learning how to make crafts, or taking on some basic marketable skills.

[Miracle_seed]

Female literacy rate has significant effect on infant/children mortality rate. In a large developing country (e.g. India), you will find that areas with high female literacy rate have much lower children mortality and morbidity rate.

[Glassylicious]

The study did not involve a survey of existing literate mothers, it looks at teaching poor illiterate adult women to read, people who would've otherwise remained illiterate.

Ah, yes, good point. I don't know how I missed that. My apologies on that particular blooper.

Female literacy rate has significant effect on infant/children mortality rate. In a large developing country (e.g. India), you will find that areas with high female literacy rate have much lower children mortality and morbidity rate.

This is very fascinating news. Here's a question that I would find interesting to discuss: How does a mother's literacy affect her child's lifespan?

Chongkeat has kindly made a few suggestions on how this could be so. However, before we go on, this does heavily involve the definition of "literacy". Do we apply literacy in its strict, literal sense? If yes, then we are talking about the ability to read and write, and nothing beyond that.

Chongkeat has brought up a pretty good point. In dire circumstances, basic survival is of utmost priority, and a proper education, not so much. He also goes on to suggest how a mother could be "better" through literacy.

But I am currently mulling over a few questions which arise over his statement, because I feel that some parts of his statement rely on the assumption of a few factors and I think it would be constructive to this discussion to share them:

1. How do we define "dire circumstances"? Are we talking about absolute hardcore poverty, or do we have urban poverty in mind?

2. Hardcore poverty predominantly happens in rural areas [e.g. villages]. Would there be much of a chance for the women to put their literacy skills to use, in a rural village where books and newspapers may be in extremely limited supply, if not completely unavailable?

3. Would teaching these hardcore poor women how to read necessarily make them more knowledgeable and streetwise, as they are unlikely to have little to no access to books/newspapers/etc at home?

They may learn at school, depending on the text you get them to read, and sure, one may venture the suggestion that the people conducting the studies could have supplied books for them to take home, but for argument's sake, let's put that aside for a while and focus on a poor, literate woman living and raising a child in "dire circumstances".

[nickvl]

Well, long long time ago in England, being literate made all the difference...(in this case i'm referring to just reading and writing).

Back then, (and some countries till now) murder carried the capital punishment. Because at that time literacy was very important, if you could prove you could read, you walk away alive. I guess this is a little off-topic..... but maybe if this rule was applied to women too, it kinda shows how the survival rate would be better...

[Miracle_seed]

This is very fascinating news. Here's a question that I would find interesting to discuss: How does a mother's literacy affect her child's lifespan?

Chongkeat has kindly made a few suggestions on how this could be so. However, before we go on, this does heavily involve on the definition of "literacy". Do we apply literacy in its strict, literal sense? If yes, then we are talking about the ability to read and write, and nothing beyond that.

Chongkeat has brought up a pretty good point. In dire circumstances, basic survival is of utmost priority, and a proper education, not so much. He also goes on to suggest how a mother could be "better" through literacy.

But I am currently mulling over a few questions which arise over his statement, because I feel that some parts of his statement rely on the assumption of a few factors and I think it would be constructive to this discussion to share them:

1. How do we define "dire circumstances"? Are we talking about absolute hardcore poverty, or do we have urban poverty in mind?

2. Hardcore poverty predominantly happens in rural areas [e.g. villages]. Would there be much of a chance for the women to put their literacy skills to use, in a rural village where books and newspapers may be in extremely limited supply, if not completely unavailable?

3. Would teaching these hardcore poor women how to read necessarily make them more knowledgeable and streetwise, as they are unlikely to have little to no access to books/newspapers/etc at home?

They may learn at school, depending on the text you get them to read, and sure, one may venture the suggestion that the people conducting the studies could have supplied books for them to take home, but for argument's sake, let's put that aside for a while and focus on a poor, literate woman living and raising a child in "dire circumstances".Recently, we went for community medicine posting, community diagnosis in a village, and we have collected various data, including literacy of the residents. The literacy is graded in scale from 1 to 10, where 1 being illiterate, 2 is being able to read and write, 3 to 10 from 1st grade up to university. I find that generally for female of the younger generation from 20s to 40s, they receive education up to 4th-5th grade. Most of them do visit hospital or primary health care centres at least once a month for antenatal care, and their children are immunised. The district has a female literacy rate of around 81%, higher than national average. Here, I would take illiterate as totally not able to read and write, or perhaps to limited extent. Don't think that there isn't any totally illiterate people around, there are, especially of older generation. Perhaps people of our generation take education as granted, that we forget many of those from our grandfather generation do not have a chance to receive even primary education.

We don't expect them to get the information from newspaper (in fact most of the houses do not subscribe to newspapers), however, quite a lot of them have TV at home and it could be the source of health information. I think we need at least a little bit of literacy for them to understand basic concepts of health. Furthermore, I suppose everyone is taught about health concepts even back in primary schools, thus even though a person may not have finished primary school but she would have acquired some basic knowledge (e.g. go to a doctor when sick). However, the district has good healthcare coverage, so I think it would be a factor contributing to lower children mortality rate.

[youngyew]

Female literacy rate has significant effect on infant/children mortality rate. In a large developing country (e.g. India), you will find that areas with high female literacy rate have much lower children mortality and morbidity rate.
Correlation does not imply causation, and in this case it could very well be that socio-economical status is the driver behind both literacy rate and children mortality rate.

[chongkeat]

1. How do we define "dire circumstances"? Are we talking about absolute hardcore poverty, or do we have urban poverty in mind?
Total illiteracy would definitely have to be in the setting of absolute hardcore, rural poverty. We'd be hard pressed to find an urban folk who can't read at all, even in developing nations.

2. Hardcore poverty predominantly happens in rural areas [e.g. villages]. Would there be much of a chance for the women to put their literacy skills to use, in a rural village where books and newspapers may be in extremely limited supply, if not completely unavailable?

3. Would teaching these hardcore poor women how to read necessarily make them more knowledgeable and streetwise, as they are unlikely to have little to no access to books/newspapers/etc at home?

I guess spending their time learning how to read would not be of much use, perhaps even being detrimental to their socioeconomic status, in the very short term.

So, I'd think of literacy as a sort of long term investment, as a sort of bridge to gain knowledge. Like what Miracle_seed said, an example would be reading health information.

As for books or newspapers, my guess would be that any rural village that is receiving aid in the form of teaching how to read and write, would somehow provide books or other encouraging reading materials.

IMHO, literacy and reading materials go together, as in both being either accessible, or inaccessible together.

[wkkbig]

a combination of both.

for example tribal women depend on experience and lessons from elders etc
maybe literate women sometimes dont spend enough time with their children to get these experience due to lack of time and observations. reading is one thing, but there are things you just cant learn. like studying and going into the world and work :)

my 1 cent

[vseehua]

Thread restored, since this topic is actually good and there are people who are still interested.
*seehua~