ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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SHARON OUAKIL

A.A., B.A., Executive M.B.A. | Early Childhood Education Leader | Child Development Specialist

There is a house in Baltimore where the door has always been open.

Over the years, children came through that door — some her own, some belonging to

neighbors and friends and classmates — and many of them never quite left. They grew up

SHARON OUAKIL

A.A., B.A., Executive M.B.A. | Early Childhood Education Leader | Child Development Specialist

There is a house in Baltimore where the door has always been open.

Over the years, children came through that door — some her own, some belonging to

neighbors and friends and classmates — and many of them never quite left. They grew up,

graduated, built lives, had children of their own. And still, when they call, they say the same

word: Moms.

Sharon Ouakil will tell you that word is the credential that matters most. Not because it

diminishes the degrees on her wall or the decades she spent in classrooms, boardrooms, and

program offices. But because it is the proof — living, breathing, still texting her on a Tuesday

— that everything she believes about children is true. That when young people feel genuinely

seen, genuinely safe, and genuinely belonging, they do not forget. They come back. They call

you by the name that means home.

She is a mother of four adult children — three sons and a daughter — and the honorary

mother of a community that grew up around her table and never fully dispersed. That

community is, in many ways, the first draft of this book.

Sharon came to early childhood education the way most people come to their truest work: not

by accident, but by accumulation. A classroom first, then a curriculum, then a program, then a

system. She taught preschool and K–12, wrote curriculum, directed programs, led

organizations, and spent years as a Child Development Specialist working across the full birth-

to-eight span. She ran afterschool programs and summer camps where children between six

and thirteen learned to read through environmental science and learned to lead through trust.

Her education is woven through all of it — and it did not come easily, or all at once, or under

ideal circumstances. Sharon earned her degrees as a single parent, working and raising her

children at the same time. She set her first goal with the kind of clarity that only a mother

building something for herself and her family can: finish the Associate's degree before her

oldest children graduated high school. She did.

The Associate's in Teacher Education from the Community College of Baltimore County gave

her the language of child development. The Bachelor's in Early Childhood Education and

Human Development from Coppin State University — an HBCU that did not simply educate

her but formed her — gave her the pride, the standard, and the unshakeable conviction that

excellence and identity are not in competition. They are the same thing. And the Executive

MBA from Howard University, The MECCA, taught her that the systems surrounding children

are as consequential as the classrooms inside them.

She will tell you that doing it while raising four children, working, and building a life was not a

sacrifice. It was a demonstration. The same one she has been making in classrooms and

boardrooms ever since: that it is possible to keep going, and that someone watching you keep

going may be learning the most important lesson of their life.

She has spent her career asking one question, in every role and every room: What does this

child need from the adults around them — and are we giving it? This book is her most

complete answer to date.

Sharon lives in Maryland with her husband Fouad, who she will tell you is not a noun in her life but

a verb — one who moves things, makes things happen, and has never once stopped believing

in what she is building.

The door is still open. The community is still there. And the work continues.