I did not ask to be raised by someone who refuses to stop learning. But it is the greatest gift I have ever been given.
My mom grew up less fortunate than me and my brother. She never had a chance to play a sport, participate in extracurriculars or earn a bachelor’s degree. But none of that makes her any less of a person. If anything, her willingness to keep learning despite those circumstances is exactly what makes her extraordinary.
After I was born, she discovered a passion for baking and turned it into her own business. I remember waking up to the smell of something sweet in the oven before heading out the door to school. She would drive me and my brother to school, come home and spend her afternoons helping us with homework. Once we were tucked into bed, she would head back downstairs and bake into the night.
What started with birthday cakes and a small batch of cookies slowly grew into something more. Pies, cheesecakes, breads, cakes, cookies, cupcakes and more, you name it, my mom has made it. And yes, I was the honorary taste-tester.
But my mom never stopped learning.
As my brother and I grew older, my mom added another job onto her list. She began researching fitness instruction, earned her group fitness certificate, completed CPR training and started teaching workout classes at a local gym twice a week. After long days of baking and being a personal taxi to school, she would stay up late watching workout videos, pen and notebook in hand, learning new moves to bring to her class the next day.
But my mom never stopped learning.
By the time my brother and I reached high school, we no longer needed rides to school or help with homework. Most parents would use this extra free time to finally slow down, but not my mom. She added a third job to the list, a kindergarten teacher. She had always wanted to be a teacher but never had the time. Now she did. She completed her online training in less than a week and stepped into a kindergarten classroom for the first time.
But she’s not just any kindergarten teacher. She works specifically with the children who are falling behind, the ones who need extra patience and a little more time. She finds new ways to teach sight words through YouTube and Pinterest, turns her small classroom into a home, and rewards her students with stickers for their hard work. One by one, she helps them reach grade-level benchmarks so they can return to their regular classrooms with confidence. Watching my mom’s face light up when I got home from school as she was telling me about all her kindergarteners made me realize that she was right where she needed to be.
Now my mom is a baker, a teacher and a gym instructor. And for a long time, I wanted absolutely nothing to do with any of it.
I never wanted to be busy. I never wanted to juggle responsibilities or stay up late working on something when I could be sound asleep. I watched my mom pour herself into three different jobs while still showing up for me and my brother every single day, and instead of feeling inspired, I felt exhausted just watching her. I told myself that was not the life I wanted. I wanted things to be easy. While my mom was up before the sun, I was struggling to find an ounce of motivation to just go to school. To me, busy meant stressed, and stressed did not sound like a life worth living.
But somewhere along the way, without even noticing, my perspective began to shift.
Slowly, I started to see my mom differently. I started to notice that she was not stressed, she was alive. Every new certification, every late night in the kitchen, every class she taught at the gym was not a burden to her. Sure, she felt tired, but she also felt accomplished.
She was growing constantly and intentionally, and she was doing it all on her own terms. I started to realize that what I had mistaken for chaos was discipline. What I thought was exhaustion was passion. And the women I had spent years quietly vowing not to become was the most impressive person I had ever known.
My mom has taught me many things, but what she showed me without ever saying a word is that a willingness to learn will take you further than talent ever could.
So, the next time someone asks me, “Why do you constantly work and go to school? You’ll never live!”
I’ll think of you, mom.
