Life Down On The Farm

Brian is incredibly smart. But Brian and school go together like oil and water...they can be in the same place, and you can stir them up so they are together, but they really don't mix. Brian is the kind of person who lives to learn, wants to learn, desires to learn...he just doesn't want to do it in a rigid school setting. It has been three years since he graduated from high school, and while he has passing grades from college classes he doesn't have any classes that really go together to make up the beginnings of any degree. Now he has made the decision to not return to college this fall. I can't say that I am not disappointed, because in a way I am. Not because he won't be graduating from college someday, but because I feel that everyone is now looking at my son and judging him...and that makes me sad. As I said, Brian is incredibly smart...so everyone assumes he should go to college and become something wonderful and have a great job. Why does he have to go to college for that? Just because he is a "drop-out", a "quitter", a "loser" doesn't make him any less of the person he always was. It just makes me sad that people think those things of him. I truly expect Brian to go on in his life and make wonderful things happen in the world...a college degree won't make a difference with his determination and stubbornness. It bothers me that I feel as if I have to defend his decision to not continue with college...but as he said, why keep taking student loans to do something he doesn't want to do? Brian is 21 years old, an adult in both chronological and mental age, so he has the right to make decisions for his own life. As long as he is happy, can support himself and calls his mom once in awhile that is all that matters to me. For those of you who think less of him because he chooses not to finish college I ask you to please keep those opinions to yourselves...I am sure everyone has made some decisions in their own lives that may have been questionable at the time. Just because he is stopping his "formal" education doesn't mean he will never go back to college and it certainly doesn't mean he will stop learning...that just isn't who Brian is.