I would like to share with you a story about my mom, a woman who was very insecure about her background. She grew up in a blue collar family where neither her mother nor father finished eighth grade. Mom completed high school, but only with tutoring by my father. She would frequently say to me, “I was born on the wrong side of the tracks.”

At age 19, she married my father, the handsome son from a wealthy family. Her beauty and charm trumped all the debutantes in town, and swept Dad off his feet. She thought she had it made and that all her fears would go away. Money and position, however, would not erase her feelings of inferiority. Those feelings were intensified instead. The contrast between her education and her in-laws with professional degrees was intimidating.

Mom wanted to fit in, join the discussions, and be an authority in her own right. In short, she wanted to feel important in her new family, and she realized that she needed more knowledge. Determined to find a way to reduce her education deficit, Mom threw herself into reading.

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