Parenting & Family Quote by Marian Wright Edelman

Edelman slips a quiet radicalism into a sentence that sounds like wholesome parenting advice. “Further in life” is deliberately vague: it’s not just salary or status, but access, resilience, belonging. By putting “considerate of others” in competition with “any college degree,” she doesn’t dismiss education so much as puncture the modern belief that credentials are the ultimate moral alibi. A diploma can certify competence; it can’t certify character. Edelman is arguing that the traits we treat as soft are, in practice, hard currency.

The line also carries an activist’s subtext about power. Consideration isn’t merely politeness; it’s a way of moving through institutions without grinding people down. In workplaces, communities, and politics, the person who can read a room, build trust, de-escalate conflict, and share credit often accumulates influence more reliably than the person with the most impressive resume. Edelman knows this from the inside: civil rights work depends on coalitions, stamina, and the unglamorous discipline of showing up for others.

Context matters. As a longtime advocate for children and families, she’s speaking into a culture anxious about meritocracy and the college pipeline, especially for parents who equate love with optimization. Her provocation reframes “success” as relational, not merely individual. It’s also a subtle rebuke to systems that sort kids early: if society won’t guarantee equal access to degrees, it can still cultivate a quality that travels across class lines and, crucially, makes a more livable world for everyone.