An opportunity that eluded us sixty years ago is now on the cusp of presentation to our granddaughter.

In our time at her age, our parents were anxious for us to no longer be financially dependent on them. The idea was for us to leave school as soon as possible, to become part of the wage-earning demographic, and add to the family's ability to pay its bills. I felt devastated, informed by my mother that I would not return to school, that grade ten at high school would represent the highest academic attainment I could aspire to. My husband was permitted a few more years than I before he too was expected to launch himself into a working wage.

This, despite that we were enterprising enough through expectation and necessity, to find ourselves part-time employment whose profits were turned directly over to our parents. Truth to tell, we did not live in abject poverty, since both our parents owned their own homes albeit with mortgages, working hard to pay the bills. The need for higher education of any kind simply seemed not to have occurred to them, to aid our passage into maturity and a secure future.

For our children it was different; we meant, passionately, for it to be different for them. They, we agreed, would not be denied any opportunities. However they aspired we would support them. We too lived not in poverty, but with a severely straitened income, a budget so tight that concerns over paying all our bills were ever present, but we managed, frugally. And our children did use their opportunities to attend university to enable them to explore those areas of future employment that beckoned them.

And now our granddaughter, at a time in her schooling that has already far surpassed what I was allowed to achieve, is busy exploring her opportunities, looking at the various universities within this country whose programs would fulfill her expectations. She has many options and means to make the most of her opportunities, as she should.