Between the Chaplain, myself, and One’s bio dad, we are one 400 level course short of 9 college degrees (and One is the reason I didn’t finish that course), including three Masters  and an assortment of undergraduate degrees.

I always figured my kids would go to college. Both the Chaplain and I are readers and we both place a high value on education.

But for One, the shoe never really fit. From a young age, he was begging me to let him set up a garage sale or a lemonade stand and by middle school, he had a reputation among his friends as the neighborhood mechanic. Broken bikes flooded into our yard, and One stayed busy repairing brakes and replacing flats.

By high school, he had an internet hustle where he’d buy things and sell them at a mark up.

This year, in tenth grade, he was weighing his options to double up next year and finish high school early to continue on to a two-year program for mechanics at a local community college, or change schools so he could get into the vocational program at a nearby high school.

He’s opted for vocational school.

The charter school he’s attended for the past two years has its issues like every school does, but I’ve been overwhelmingly impressed by the school culture, the caring and dedicated teachers, and the way they hold young men to a high standard of excellence. I love his school. I love that it is a boy’s school, predominantly brown-skinned, and that the school’s leadership is full of educated Black men who care about their students. This school gets young men ready for college.

One doesn’t care about college. He would be happy if he never had to read a book again.

A four-year liberal arts school like the one I went to has zero appeal to him.

Sometimes I think, if he just got there, he’d realize how great it was and thrive.

There’s another big part that realizes that’s just not him and I can’t force it.

For a long time, I thought it was just a matter of finding the right gateway book, and he’d learn to love reading.

I thought maybe if he visited some campuses, he’d get a feel for college life and he’d see its appeal. Maybe he would take some classes and discover there was something he was so passionate about that he didn’t mind studying for it.

And now I will show you the most excellent way.

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part,  but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears.  When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

I’ve realized gradually that One already knows what he’s passionate about, and has a good chance at making a living doing it. He’s already kind of making a living at it now, if you don’t take into consideration that he doesn’t pay rent. He buys a lot of his own food and clothes, and has money to pay for his interests. He’s more financially independent than I was at his age.

There’s a market for the trades right now, and it’s clear the four-year degree model doesn’t work for everyone. It seems like my kid is one of those people. I suppose I should just be glad we didn’t spend tens of thousands of dollars before we figured it out.

If you have older kids, are they following the path you thought they would? If they blazed their own trail, did you have to deal with disappointment? If you have Littles, what will you do if your kid doesn’t want what you want for them, even if that thing is really important to you?

Every time I come to a parenting conundrum and I’m not sure what to do – support my kid’s passion, or encourage him to pursue a college degree? I keep coming back to 1 Corinthians. At first glance, maybe it doesn’t have the answers for our specific problems. But then again, maybe it does.