Between my education and family; what do I do?

Dear Agatha, I am 30 years of age. My father died in the year I was born. His only legacy to me is an old diary where he inscribed his desire for me to be a graduate. I left secondary school in 2001. Severally I have tried to gain admission into the university but have kept failing in my bid. At a point, I had to leave home to enroll in the Nigerian Police Force. While there, I noticed it wasn’t in line with my dream so I left and started to look for ways to satisfy my father’s dream for me. I have written JAMB for times and even wrote the one 2013. I scored 202 for economics or accounting. The reason I am writing you is that I am married with three children. I don’t know if I should relocate them to my village to enable me fulfill my father’s dream for me or not. What should I do? Freeman. Dear Freeman, There is nothing wrong with having a burning ambition especially one that has to do with education and one’s quest for economic empowerment. Ordinarily, your determination to get a premium education is commendable. But the draw back here is, your blinded quest to get an education to the exclusion of every other person, including the welfare of your children. In addition, this dream is more of your father’s than yours. Are you sure you have what it takes to execute the dream of a dead man? Apart from the dream of your late father, what is your dream? Do you have any of your own? What do you want for yourself as well as for your children? If at 30 you are still pursuing the vision of your late father, when will you have the time to have positive dreams of your own as well as plan the future of your children? There is no you, without those children. Therefore, you must factor in their future and well being into your father’s dream for you. I am sure your late father didn’t plan for you to mortgage the future of your own children in-order to satisfy his dreams for you. Like every good father, he left you with a work plan for your future; one intended to ginger you into success. At 30, with three children, what kind of plans are you putting in place for them? I am sure if your father didn’t call you a graduate, the kind of desires you have to become one, would never have been born in you. So taking those children to the village while you redeem your father’s dream is intended to achieve what? What plans do you have for them in the village? If the village was very good, why did you come to the city to realize your dream? Unfortunately for you, being married means you cannot take such a fundamental decision without first discussing it with your immediate family as well as making provisions for their welfare while you achieve your own excessive desire to become a graduate. To succeed, you need the support and understanding of your wife. Don’t forget you are no longer a bachelor. You have dependants whose lives are interwoven into your decisions. It would be so unfair to package and send them to the village without first discussing the consequences of your decisions on their future. You cannot afford to behave as if you have no responsibilities or obligations to these people. Like you, they too have needs, dreams and feelings. The issue here is not just sending them to the village. Who are they going to meet there and what would be their main means of survival? What plans do you have for the education of the children? Don’t forget that children begin school from an early age these days. What kind of life exists in your village to make the children as comfortable as they are here? In another four years, what would be the outlook of your children? How would life in the village life have affected their psychologies? Marriage is about discussions and joint decisions on important issues as the one you are about to make. Your wife will be the one who has to live with the situation and cope with having to care for three children in your absence. She is the one who has to combine your roles with hers. If you want this marriage to work, don’t exclude her at all. Sit her down and ask for her opinion on this matter. It is important you get her express support before moving ahead with your decision to gain a university education on full time basis. You may not realize it now, your wife is the key to the success of this dream. If she is against it, you can be sure, you may not return to a complete family. Therefore, you must have her full support else you risk losing her and the respect of your children. Only an irresponsible father abandons his children without proper plans. No matter how strong your desire to have better education is, the welfare of your children overrides every other consideration, including your current effort at JAMB. You don’t invite children into the world without making sacrifices for them. Therefore, this isn’t your decision to make. It is the resolution of your children to make. It is their right to have their father’s attention and presence. Because the children are still tender, you may have to consider your options especially as you are considering a full time course. If you don’t have enough funds to provide for them during those years you would be in school, it may not be so easy on your wife. You must think of something for her to do to supplement whatever you are able to bring while in school. Your ambition should not eclipse your vision to the attendant challenges ahead. You could still have an education without sacrificing the future of your family, especially those innocent children whose lives are anchored on whatever you make of yours. Married men, who go back to school, don’t opt for full time unless they have more than enough to care for their families. From your story, you are a struggling man. Part time programmes are for people like you; who have responsibilities, have to work while they struggle to have an education. Had you considered that, you would have since finished instead of wasting precious time on writing entrance examinations. Granted it may be a little prohibitive in terms of cost, but it will give you time to be with your family, look for a means of livelihood and protect your home from emotional starvation. Although you didn’t say what your wife is into but your decision to send them to the village means she isn’t engaged in anything worthwhile. This means you must also consider arming her with a kind of trade to make things easy on you. Don’t forget that going to school isn’t only about paying tuition fees; you must also pay for handouts, registration and other expenses associated with being in school. No matter how hardworking you are, you need extra help from your wife to float because children don’t understand the word, lack. You cannot put their lives on hold to satisfy yours. Life is about planning. Even though you have always wanted to go back to school, you never planned how your life and those of your family would run while this dream is on. Blinded ambition can be very destructive. Every plan must have a reality socket to make it succeed. Any plan that doesn’t put your children on the front burner will not end well because they are the reason for your struggles in life. Your answer will become very clear only after you have taken all these issues into consideration. Good luck.