One more day till a four-day Thanksgiving weekend! I can't wait to just relax with the family and do some Black Friday Shopping. For the last four years, it's been a "tradition" in my family to get up at five in the morning and hit the mall to get the best deals from all the black Friday sales. I finally get to join in on this tradition now that I am back at home. My mom and siblings are crazy about Black Friday. I'm not. I love to shop but I like take my time and browse. I also hate getting up early for any reason.
Something happened yesterday that stuck with me and made me think. I was hanging out with a teacher I assist after school and girl came in. She's a high school sophomore and I guess she often stops by to just chat with the teacher. She looked at me and asked what grade I was in, then proceeded to guess--freshman? sophomore? senior? I finally answered "teacher" and she was very surprised. We had a good laugh and the teacher said I should take it as a compliment and some days I do but other times I wish I looked older so that the students will see me more as a teacher figure...
Anyway, that's not what got me in a pensive mood. We got to talking about college and the girl said her parents told her that she can't go to college. After she graduates, she has find a job and help out her parents take care of her younger siblings. I was shocked then I felt sorry for the girl. Never before had I come across someone who was told they can't go to college. It's always been a choice: other people choose not to go and others worked their butt off paying their way through college--but there's always a choice. Well, not so much a choice in my family, it's expected. It appears it goes the other way too.
Apparently, her parents can't help her pay for school and I said she can try and get scholarships or take out loans or at least take classes at the local community college. But she said her parents said a flat, solid no. I don't know if she really wants to go to college herself, but she should at least have a choice.
I don't get parents like these. They closed a big door for their daughter. I hope they change their mind later on or that she'll fight for whatever she wants to do after high school whether it's college or something else.
1 comments:
Wow that is really sad. My mom always told me "You will go to college." She didn't care where I went, if it was university or community college, or what I majored in, but she just wanted me in college after I graduated high school and I took that very seriously.
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