When Wairimu told her mother she wanted to leave engineering and pursue culinary arts, it felt like a dream being interrupted.
Her mother had imagined a future of her daughter in a hard hat, building a career in engineering, a profession that promised stability and prestige. Instead, Wairimu wanted aprons, ingredients, recipes, and a kitchen. It was not the path her mother had envisioned, and for a while, she struggled to understand it.
“I wanted to see my girl as an engineer,” her mother admits. “When she told me she wanted to follow her dream and study culinary arts, I didn’t understand which side was better for her.”
Years later, she smiles as she says, “But now I can see the fruit.”
That single sentence captures the heart of their story: a mother learning to trust what she could not yet see, and a daughter finding the courage to choose the life that felt true to her.
A bond built long before the dream
Their conversation feels less like an interview and more like two best friends reminiscing. They laugh easily, finish each other’s thoughts, and speak with the kind of tenderness that only years of shared life can create.
When asked what she loved most about motherhood, Wairimu’s mother doesn’t hesitate.
“To see you growing and becoming beautiful every day.”
For Wairimu, the memory that stands out most is not one dramatic moment but a lifetime of quiet acts of love.
“You always fought for me,” she tells her mother.
Her mother remembers Wairimu’s first steps with astonishing clarity. She remembers school visits, road trips, and the countless ordinary days that, in hindsight, became the foundation of their relationship. Wairimu remembers something else: that love was always present, even when she was too young to recognise it.
“I think when you’re a child, you’re just living through life,” she says. “As an adult, you begin to understand that what looked ordinary was actually love.”
The courage to choose differently
The turning point came during her university years. Wairimu had enrolled in engineering, but deep inside she knew it was not where she belonged.
Cooking had always drawn her in. Even as a child, she enjoyed being in the kitchen. During the COVID-19 lockdowns, that interest became an obsession. She began researching techniques, experimenting with recipes, and teaching herself through YouTube and endless hours of practice.
“No one in my family pushed me into cooking,” she says. “I just decided. If I want something, that’s it. That’s what I want.”
Leaving engineering was not a small decision. It meant disappointing expectations, risking uncertainty, and asking her family to believe in a dream that had not yet become a career.
Her mother could have insisted she stay.
Instead, she chose to support her.
The first investor
When Wairimu eventually began creating cooking content online, her mother did not fully understand where it would lead.
“I didn’t know it would go this far,” she says. “I was just supporting, supporting, supporting.”
The support was practical, as in: cameras, lights, ingredients, encouragement, ideas, and phone calls. Every new opportunity Wairimu received was celebrated at home first.
“I usually call you first,” Wairimu says. “Whenever something happens, I tell you.”
Today, her cooking videos have become more than a hobby. They have become a career.
Her mother still marvels at how quickly Wairimu mastered editing, storytelling, and digital content creation.
“I was surprised by everything about you,” she says. “Even your editing was perfect.”
Faith, hard work, and lessons
As the conversation unfolds, certain themes recur: faith, discipline, kindness, and hard work.
“What did I inherit from our family?” Wairimu asks.
“Hard work,” her mother replies. “Trust in God.”
Those values now shape how Wairimu approaches both motherhood and her career. She speaks about supporting her own child’s interests early, encouraging his talents instead of forcing a predetermined path.
“I think love,” she says when asked what she now understands most as a parent. “Support. If he wants to do something, we support him. We support the career, the goals.”
In many ways, she is passing forward the very gift her mother eventually gave her.
The dream that kept growing
Wairimu’s mother offers one piece of advice that sounds like a belief.
“The effort we put today, multiply it by three,” she says. “Don’t be lazy. Work hard and think great.”
Wairimu laughs when her mother teases her for being a big spender, for procrastinating on saving, and for constantly planning her next business idea. But beneath the teasing is admiration.
“She has always dreamed big,” her mother says. “She has never limited herself.”
That ambition, once directed toward engineering, found its true home in food, creativity, and entrepreneurship.
More than a career story
This is not simply a story about changing courses at university.
It is a story about a parent releasing control without withdrawing love.
It is about a daughter who felt safe enough to disappoint expectations because she knew she would not lose her family.
And it is about the invisible work of mothers, the prayers, the sacrifices, the school visits, the encouragement, the ingredients bought without knowing they were funding a future career.
Looking at Wairimu today, her mother does not talk about the engineer she never became.
She talks about the woman she is still becoming.
And perhaps the deeper lesson is that sometimes the greatest act of parenting is not creating the dream, but creating a home where a child is free to discover it.
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