Young are on the move

Our young Maine people need real life choices, choices to include the best of things and yes, the worst of things, and the continuum in between.

Maine’s 16-, 17- and 18-year-olds face hard decisions. For some, time pushes them along with high school graduation, commencement of adult lives. Some have long planned their future and move forth with enthusiasm, energy, more sure of fulfilling their dreams. Still others might wander early, seeking self-satisfaction without the diploma.

Do Maine’s young adults truly have the choice to remain in Maine to reach their dreams? Does this four-season vacationland hold the potential for young adults to make their living? I’ve heard of Maine’s brain drain as you probably have. We’ve been told that as our young, talented and educated leave Maine’s next, others migrate north. What we don’t read about is that those who satistically replace our young are not our Maine-raised daughters and sons. They have fled south toward a “land of opportunity.”

My husband and I moved to Maine in the mid-1970s. We were, in our 20s, with college educations and a couple of children. For years we dreamed our dreams and planned to live in a rural setting, a nice, safe place to raise our growing famiily. As our children grew, matured, we watched them migrate south for college, travel or jobs. We witnessed our fledglings spread their wings and fly, one after another, after another after another. Of those four, one has returned to live in Maine (for now).

Two remain in the nest. Last summer, my 17-year-old son, now a young man, spent three weeks looking locally for a summer job. It was time to experience th working world. Would anyone disagree? Now consider Piscataquis County, not unlike other northern Maine counties), with about 17,000 people and four high schools. Even if less than half the students in the local high school had summer work, that could be 400 summer job.

Realistically speaking, how manny summer jobs can a small county develop for the summer season? Then add the college students, home in the summer, and seasonal adult workers. Ah, you migh say, the college students can work away from home. Away from Maine too?

There’s a new phenomenon beginning locally, and in my family. You probably know what I’m leading up to. My 17-year-old son, a high school senior, moved away to find a summer job, in Falmouth, not Maine, but Massachusetts. He was lucky. His uncle and aunt said, “Come on down. There are lots of jobs here.”

Five days later he was working. He was offered three jobs. Other area high school students did the same; left Maine to seek summer work.

I reflect back on Augus King’s inaugural address. I was there on that bitter cold night. I got heated up with the fervor of the evening. He said over and again that Maine was “‘on the move.” I misunderstood. I thought he meant that Maine was growing, developing jobs, expanding with new technologies, keeping up.

Only now I understand. It’s our Maine young people who are on the move — away. Do they have the real choices that young people deserve?

Brenda M. Brown lives in Dover-Foxcroft and teaches special education at Foxcroft Academy.