My mother, a farm girl from the hills of New York, surprised me one day
when she said, “I always intended to go back to college and get a degree.”
She never did.
Instead she projected her dream onto the five children she bore her first
six years of marriage. One by one, thanks to her, we all went to college
with generous financial aid packages. One by one, we abandoned college and
her dream as we dropped out to marry. Only my youngest brother stayed and
became a math teacher.
My mother did not give up her dream. She referred me to an accredited
degree program for students unable to attend college. I applied, but never
began. I wanted a college degree, someday, when I wasn’t so busy reading
books to toddlers and supervising homework. Instead, I encouraged my
husband to pick up where I dropped out. He began attending classes
evenings and weekends, while maintaining a full-time job. It only took him
six years of study, commuting and a special test to graduate.
At that same time, my oldest brother was also cramming college courses in
around his work schedule. He finished his work at the area’s community
college the same spring our kid brother did. Little brother went on to a
private school. Big brother began riding his motorcycle two hours, one way,
over the hills of New York State to attend the Rochester Institute of
Technology.
Someone once said that every time my older brother and his wife had another
kid, he went back to college. Three kids were enough to encourage him to
complete his degree in electrical engineering. My husband’s six children
proudly watched him graduate. College degrees in hand, they both realized
the financial benefits of a college degree with newer and better jobs.
Our youngest child was out of diapers and into the tricycle patrol when I
decided to take one class at South Arkansas Community College. Studying the
class schedule to find just one class, I was the proverbial kid in a candy
shop: I left the registrar’s office enrolled in five classes. I graduated
in the spring and began the commute to Southern Arkansas University in
Magnolia.
As my degree in math and science became a reality, my youngest sister
returned to college to complete her business degree, graduating a week
before I did.
Finally, my middle sister, with her fourth child barely out of diapers,
decided to catch up with her sisters and brothers. She worked out an
arrangement with a very liberal arts college to skip her classes and study
at home. She checked in regularly with her professors, reviewed her work,
took tests and got another load of assignments to become an elementary ed
teacher specializing in math and computers. She was the last of my mom’s
five to go back to college and graduate.
Recently, one of my children reflected the experience of all my mother’s
grandchildren, “I knew school was important. I grew up watching you go to
college.” My mother never fulfilled her dream of college degree. She did,
however, motivate 13 others to finish and has half dozen others who plan to
join them.
Not bad for a farm girl from the hills of New York.