A Mother's Push is the Greatest Force by Oluwatoyin

A Mother's Push is the Greatest Force by Oluwatoyin - October 2019 Scholarship Essay

Ever since 3rd grade, I’ve been in gifted and talented classes. I never really struggled with math, science, or reading, even up till now. Back in elementary school, being a GT student did not mean much to me. It did a little something for my ego, but I just thought I was naturally smart in those areas. However, I now know that I was not. There was a great force behind those smarts, and that force was my mother. Ever since I was three years old, she had started teaching me how to count and how to do addition and subtraction. Every day after school, I remember she’d make me do my school homework and next I’d do what we called ‘home’ homework, which was basically homework given to me from her. That included about 5 pages of math and reading lessons. Sometimes, I would become so stressed to the point of crying because I just did not want to do the work. But my mother would continue to reassure me that I would thank her later.
Low and behold, here I am thanking her today. By age 6, I knew how to multiply and divide and how to convert improper fractions to mixed fractions. Some people may think this is extra and unnecessary for a child of that age. However, I grew to learn that math is actually a big struggle for many people, and without my mother strongly emphasizing math skills at home, I would probably find myself in the same predicament. The strong foundation in mathematics that my mother laid down for me opened several doors as I continued to ascend in grade level. In my senior year of high school, my mother actually pushed me to pick up a college statistics class at a local community college. I became very comfortable and did not find my self struggling at all to my surprise. I even found myself helping other actual college students in my class because they were struggling.
Today, I am just so thankful that I started learning math as soon as I could talk because it’s really allowed to do things that I never imagined I would do at my age. I never thought I would take college classes in high school, and now I just recently graduated high school with 20 colleges credits already completed. Because of that, I may even finish my nursing program within 3 years instead of 4. Had my mother not encouraged me to focus on my math skills, and even other essential subjects, from such a young age, I probably would not have the will power to keep challenging myself through my academic journey.