Someone has to go first

“My family doesn’t really do college.”

Our foster son and I were traveling in the car last summer, talking. With teenagers, it’s often easiest to have honest conversations in the car when my eyes on the road and his are on his iPhone. The Beats ever-present on his ears were turned off, and he was fully tuned into the discussion about his future.

As we drove through an area of town where Jay had once lived — storefronts closed, houses sagging under the weight of poverty — he talked about how education had never been a priority in his family. Mom, dad, grandma and older siblings had all found their own way to get by while seldom getting ahead.

“My family doesn’t really do college.”

He said that statement so softly, so deliberately, that it was as if he had shouted, “I can’t go to college.”

Foster children have notable challenges, but many of the big unknowns are the same for all young adults who are among the first generation in their families to attend college. (See “First to Fly,” Page 26.)

I replied to him, “Every family has a first generation. Why not yours?”

In my family, it was my mom, who wanted to be a secretary straight out of high school but ended up in college when a friend suggested they attend together. As for my dad, he escaped a hard life on a poor farm by entering the Army.

For so long, the Army was the only future Jay could see. You don’t go hungry in the Army. You are never homeless in the Army. Plus, you get to serve a larger good.

It's pretty nice plan — and even better if you’re choosing it because it’s what you want, not because you don’t have any other choice.

Because my husband and I are privileged to have had a college education — and a UD one, at that — we could envision the many futures our son could not, and we knew the paths he could take to get there. First-generation students and those from underresourced households need help in many ways, and all of us reading this have the position to help them. I am grateful UD has also made their success a priority.

Since our conversation that day in the car, much has changed. In October, in a courtroom full of family and friends, Jay became a forever part of our family. It was a longtime coming, and we are grateful he chose us. That act of adult adoption flipped Jay’s perspective on his future from resignation to possibility. Last week, he signed up for a firefighter cadet program available through the local community college; he’ll start college courses in January. Also last week, he passed his physical for military service. Instead of being resigned to a single outcome, he can now see many futures, any of which he’s free to choose. Someone has to go first, and Jay has decided it will be him.