Hello My name is Alexis Wood, I currently live in the suburbs of Philadelphia Pa and I am a mother of two children. I have son that is 14 years old and a daughter that is 3 years old, who was recently diagnosed with autism. At the age of 14 years old I became pregnant with my first child. Throughout my entire pregnancy and during my teenage years as a mother, I was constantly bashed for having my child at a young age and was constantly told by those who were closest to me, including my own family, that I would not be able to accomplish my goals or even finish high school. After giving birth to my son Amir’e, I attended a pregnancy school for my sophomore year and after that returned back to my regular high school to finish my junior and senior year. My son attended daycare while I went to school. It was June of 2007 when I completed high school and went on to walk across the stage and obtain my diploma. I had become one of the first members of my immediate family to graduate high school. That was one of the greatest days of my life. I felt as though that was just the first step of proving everyone including my family, that they were totally wrong about how they viewed me as a teen parent. Shortly after graduating, Amir’e’s father and I split, Our relationship was very toxic, he was extremely abusive and he had been in and out of legal trouble for years. After leaving his father I became a single parent at 17 . Being a single parent was very scary for me, I didn’t know if I was capable of being totally on my own and not having my child’s father around at all, even though his present was very limited to begin with. I soon after found the courage and confidence to continue on with my life and to resume being the best mother I could be, while being single. After graduating Highschool I worked fulltime at an Adult Day program. I maintained my position there, for 3 years until I decided to enroll in college for my Bachelor’s degree in criminal justice. After passing the entry exam and being accepted, I felt as though I had gained another triumph and had yet again, proved everyone who had ever doubted me wrong. I was so proud of myself and felt as though I could achieve anything I had put my mind too. I had recently moved into my own very first apartment and had just brought my first car. At the time I felt as if I was living my very best life. About 1 year after beginning college, I had decided for career reasons, that I wanted to relocated back to hometown in Philadelphia Pennsylvania. In 2014 I successfully completed my degree and graduated with my bachelors. College had been so stressful during those 4 years but as young and determined woman, I stayed grounded in order to be successful and graduate on time. Prior to graduating, during my junior year of college I met a very kind and warm hearted individual named Eric, who today happens to be my life partner, business partner and my second child’s father. Eric and I met in 2013 and hit it off very quickly, we became best friends and then lovers. Eric at the time was going to school for carpentry. During our first few years together he motivated me and encouraged me to go back to college , in which I did in 2017 to obtained my Graduate degree in Psychology. After graduating for the 3th time in my life, that was my “Aha moment”, in which I began to realize that maybe all of the negative things that I was told when I was a teenager and how I was doubted my entire life, just because I had a child young, were all just to push and motivate me to actually materialize my dreams. I had one of those moments of truth and was fully convinced that I was the individual in my family that would break our generational curse of having multiple relatives who had failed to graduate and let obstacles get in the way. After I had graduated from grad school, I was able to land several master level jobs in the human services field. I worked in the human services field for about 2 years, up until this year when I had recently quit my most recent job and began to pursue a career in painting and contracting with Eric. As of today Eric and myself run a successful Six figure painting and contracting business, that he started in 2014.
We also have a paint brush line Called Autsome brushes in which, we started in 2018 after our daughter was diagnosed with autism, the paint brush line helps raise autism awareness and donates 5% of its revenue to nonprofits that supports individuals with autism, in the Philadelphia area.
