My biggest fear, and how i will overcome

  One of my biggest fears in life, is my son not wanting to attend college and his getting involved in the streets. Growing up, I did not have the structure that I needed when it came to education. As a result, I had a child at the age of fourteen, and I became a high school dropout at the age of fifteen. Because education was not a priority for me, I fear that my son will follow the same path as I did. To ensure that this will not happen, i start by spending extra time with him while he is doing homework. I also try to make it a habit of studying for an extra half hour after his homework is completed. Some people may argue that these are pretty small steps to try to avoid such a big issue, but i will argue that I am only starting where my parents did not.


  My fear comes from watching the young guys around me grow into young adults, and follow down the same path as the "no good" men that they see on the corner each time they come out of their homes. Selling drugs, dropping out of high school, and hanging on the corner on a daily basis, and the disrespect of women are among some of the things that I will not tolerate from my child. I explain to my child that in order to continue to stay path, one of the most important things to do is to surround yourself with other individuals who want things out of life and that have goals for themselves. People who do not have goals set or who are just in general, someone who does not care about succeeding in life, should not be your idea of surrounding yourself with positive individuals. Positive energy is contagious and negative energy will only pull you down in the gutter along with the other negative individuals.

  Until a couple of months back, I assumed that just talking to my son about education was enough. It wasn't until he asked me the tough question, mom, did you ever go to college? This, by far, was the most difficult question that I had to answer, and it was not the question itself that that made me feel nervous, It was the follow up question, why? That made me feel bad about the decisions that I had made in my life. I had not graduated high school let alone atteneded college, and here I was preaching the value of education to my child. I felt like a complete failure as a mother, and I knew then, that it was time to turn my life around for the sake of my boy.

  At the time, I was working a dead end job in which I made only enough to pay bills, and I knew that I did not want to be stuck in that position when it was time for my son to head off to college. It was time for a change. I made the decision to not only make education a priotity for my child, but a priority for the both of us. I want my child to see first hand how serious I am about education, and that I am not all talk. In return, I hope that my child will recognize my struggles, but also see that, disadvantage dosen't always translate into failure. I would like to create a path for my child as well ass my future grandchildren. Education will become a priority of this family.

  Everyday is a working progress to ensure that my son has a good eduction, and uses it to his full advantage. I doubt that it will be an easy task, but I am willing to put all of the blood, sweat, and tears required to help my child to reach the top. It has been said that a woman can't raise a boy into a man. I beg to differ. Some of the most successful and brilliant men have been raised only by their mother's, and have also attended college. Education is something that I have become really serious about, and I only hope that my child in return will feel the same way, and carry this on when he has his own children someday.