[Magnum44]

Your post is spot on. I'd like to add, some jobs are appropriate for careers and bringing in an income sufficient to support a family. Other jobs are, by their nature, starting points for young people learning responsibilities and the ways of the world (think burger flippers and waitress, or sales clerks). These jobs will not and should not be used to support a family on, and no one in these jobs should expect their employer to "salary up" just because they feel like they deserve it.

Teaching jobs fall in the middle, traditionally the kind of job a young housewife or mother did to supplement the family income, do something positive for society (certainly gain self worth at the same time), and allow the flexibility to take absences for raising their own kids, handling the kids during summer vacations, etc. Teaching, like too many other things, has become about career pay, living wage, benefits, etc.

[Sequoyah101]

Well said. It was exactly the terms under which my Mom took the job for more than 30 years. She taught long after she “needed” to because helping children was her passion that she pursued long after her own children were long grown and gone.

She did not start teaching until we were all in school.