Janine Coleman needs to start with the oldest of her eight children to remember their exact ages — 19, 16, 15, 14, 13 … no, make that 12, 10, 8 and of course there’s the baby. He’s 5.
It’s safe to say the 41-year-old Northeast woman and her husband of 22 years have a full house. So when the telecommunications company where she had worked for years told her in early 2002 that she would be laid off, she didn’t panic — she got busy.
“I realized that somebody else took my job,” Coleman said. “Not because I wasn’t doing a good job, but because of a little piece of paper. I wanted that little piece of paper.”
Coleman’s friends told her she was too old. They told her she had too many children. They told her she was just too busy. And despite a 3.6 GPA at Dunbar High School, Howard University essentially told her the same thing. Coleman remembers the letter saying something like, “We regret to inform you.”
Again, she didn’t panic. She enrolled at Strayer University’s District campus three nights a week and soon got a part-time job as a teacher’s assistant for disabled children in D.C. Schools. While it meant long nights and unique logistical challenges — her daughter’s dance classes, dinners and basketball games — it has been worth it, she says.
“While I was trying to do my own thing, I never forgot I was a mother,” Coleman said. “It meant some nights I was up studying until 3 a.m. or 4 a.m., but I always made time for my children.”
Coleman will receive her bachelor’s degree in business administration June 24 at a ceremony at the Patriot Center. Two days later, she will begin her master’s program.
“I don’t believe in sitting down,” Coleman said. “I’ve got too many mouths to feed.
“I’ve come this far, might as well get a bigger piece of paper.”
