By Adrienne Tucker, PTMP
This summer, we took my 9 year old daughter Elizabeth to Bozeman, Montana to go to the Museum of the Rockies and to tour Montana State University. Why? Because she’s wanted to be a paleontologist since she was 3 years old and her father and I thought, “Why not introduce her to a real paleontologist and see real fossils?”
I told her some time ago, that whatever she wants in life, she’s going to have to get it for herself. No one is going to do the work for her. While watching a documentary on Dinosaurs on the Curiosity app, she asked me a ton of questions I couldn’t answer. “Well, there is a paleontologist in the documentary, let’s ask him.” I showed her how to look him up (professionally speaking of course) and how to correspond with him, and within a few short weeks she received an invite to tour the Montana State University campus and to meet real grad students in the field and see a real lab.
Someone referred to me as her career coach. I don’t know about that. But what I do know, is that I want to teach my daughter that she controls her future. Opportunities were out there for her to take, but she has to find them and put in the work. That’s true whether it’s career opportunities, advancement, networking, upskilling, or even becoming really good at something.
And trust me when I say, the fact I am saying this from a place of power and a certain level of privilege is not lost on me. But she doesn’t have the same privilege that I have. She is disabled, classified as such through her Autism or her hearing impairment, and needs assistance to help her navigate the world. At 9 that looks like therapy for her anxiety and emotional regulation, as well as hearing aids to help her hear and better communicate with the world around her. Her world consists of medications, modifications, accommodations, and the never ending explanations of things she just doesn’t understand, despite her 10th grade reading level and knack for Algebra.
Resilience is what is going to get her through life. Resilience will mean the difference between going through the motions or living life to its fullest. Resilience is what is going to lead her to her happiness. And I will be there every step of the way as her biggest cheerleader, and as the shoulder she needs to bury her face in and cry into. The rest will be up to her.
And just to show her life isn’t always about “chasing the dream”, we zigged when we should have zagged and made a pit stop at Yellowstone on a whim. Because life, as with parking, is also full of unexpected adventures.
Adrienne Tucker, PTMP, is the Director of Parking and Transportation for Kansas State University. Adrienne can be reached at adriennetucker@ksu.edu.