What is this "American Dream" we all talk about?

With now being a new mother, all I want to do is see my little one succeed and be the best he can be.  Its sounds so cliche, kind of like an army commercial.  I want my son to dream big and leap without looking. One of my fears is that society will fill his head with some of the things that my head was filled with. Growing up all I wanted to do is fulfill the   "American Dream" and live in a house with a husband, and children. Now through life experience I'm starting to feel like my idea of an "American Dream" has certainly changed and is completely off kilter from a big part of our society. It makes me think of a story of a girl..

She moved to Boston with her two sisters and Mother as a little girl. All they had was the clothes on their backs and little money. They slept in the car the first few weeks of arriving to Boston. The weather was much different then it was in the south, so one of the girls fell very sick and was hospitalized for pneumonia. They also slept in a homeless shelter before they were placed in an apartment. Life went on, the world kept trucking, no one stopped to ask how she was doing, no one seemed to care.

With no money, no father and no family here in Boston, all she had was  her sisters, mother and a hope that life would get better.  She was raised in one of the toughest neighborhoods in Boston during the 70's. Her environment created a skin so thick it couldn't be sliced with a knife. She learned very early in her life that the world never will stop rotating for her.

Now here she is, 16 and pregnant, dropped out of high school.  Now here she is with four children, on public assistance in an apartment that she shares with the roaches. Society deemed her a burden and a failure, "live your life and we'll just have to take care of you.. Teach your children to be mediocre just like you"

She attended a typing class through the city welfare program, obtained her G.E.D. She entered a paralegal program, and obtained a job through her experience. Three weeks after of her 3rd child's high school graduation, she attended her own graduation from college.  After this, its all history. Master certificates followed, and with a few weeks left to her graduation from her Master's program, the question is what would have happened if she surrendered. She was born in a hole in America that she had to climb and dig herself out of.

I suppose for her the American dream is pain, disappointment, a good fight, resiliency, and relentlessness.  The two children, a house and a husband was not in her design. However, she's here breathing and here in America destined to do great things.

I don't want society to box my son in..