The Woman She's Becoming

This story is more personal because I got the chance to have a sit-down and in-depth conversation with the woman who means the world to me, my mom. Vanneshia Peacock is a smart goal-oriented, strong, independent woman.

Peacock is a Senior Sourcing Specialist; however, her journey to get there was not as easy as it may seem on the outside looking into her success.

“As a single unwed pregnant woman fired from my job in my early 20s I would witness older and more successful women and aspire to be in their position one day, not knowing what the future held for me and my unborn child I had to make sure we were going to be ok,” she explains on how she got into her career.

Peacock is an Illinois native-born to a teenage mother, “having a mother so young made for a very challenging upbringing, there were times where we were homeless and didn’t know when our next meal would come from,” says Peacock.

Circumstances in her childhood improved when she moved to Houston, however, other challenges presented themselves a couple of months shy of her 18th birthday. During spring break of her senior year of high school, while her peers were planning trips she was preparing for major surgery. “I was diagnosed with Graves Disease, and ultimately had to get my thyroid removed.”

She later went on to attend Texas Woman's University in Denton, Texas. She wanted to major in nursing, yet her vision did not go as planned as she had to move back home by the end of her first year of attending.

At the young age of 23, she was single, pregnant, and unemployed. As she expressed to me her thoughts she began to get choked up, “despite my circumstances all I wanted was a healthy and happy baby. I knew if I had her I can figure out the rest as I go, and I did just that.”

She started working at Kelly Services, a staffing company in April of 2001, and from then on, she worked every day with the goal in mind to never have her daughter homeless and hungry like she was when her mom was raising her. “My daughter gave me a determination that I have never felt before because I knew her entire being was dependent on the woman I would become after facing many trials through my young life. I couldn’t let that stop me from succeeding, she said.

In 2013, she decided to go finish that degree she started back in 1992 and prove to herself that she is capable of higher education and allow her daughter to be proud of her for not giving up no matter how long it took to go back to school. In 2015, her daughter graduated from high school in May and she followed and graduated from college in October! “I knew no matter what that when I started school back in 2013 that I was not stopping until I had walked across that stage with my diploma in hand,” she explained with excitement as she reflected on one of her many accomplishments.

Little did she know that going back to school would change her life in more ways than one when she met her now husband, Anthony Peacock. They got married in May of 2017 and bought their first house together at the start of 2019. “She makes life very easy for me and I am very lucky to have this woman in my life. I knew from when I first saw her in class that something was special about her,” says Anthony Peacock.

This new year has changed many things around the world, and her work experience has been one of the many things that have been impacted. “Covid-19 has impacted everyday life by working from home since the middle of March to now, I also took a pay cut in salary but I am very blessed to still be working eight months into this pandemic and providing for my family. I hope with this new year approaching we will see many improvements in the world around us whether it be race relations, pandemic under serious control, and just the betterment of the world because right now it feels as if the world is upside down. I lean to God, not of my own understanding, and trust that he will see us through and heal the world,” says Peacock on how she views the world right now.