Teneille Young may very well be the poster la­dy for fol­low­ing one's dreams af­ter 40. Com­fort­able enough with who she is at 42, she of­fers her­self as a singer at live per­for­mances and in mu­sic videos “just as she is.”

As the in­spir­ing mum and home­mak­er shared with Sun­day Guardian in an in­ter­view last Mon­day, the tu­mul­tuous and un­for­get­table 2020 em­bold­ened her to ex­plore her cre­ative tal­ents and even take up kick­box­ing as part of her fit­ness regime. She urges women to love them­selves and be fear­less in seek­ing out their dreams.

Young spent most of her adult­hood faith­ful­ly cater­ing to the needs of her fam­i­ly and as a “back­stage mum” tak­ing her girls, Lay­la, 13, Leah, ten and Lily, sev­en to var­i­ous ex­tracur­ric­u­lar ac­tiv­i­ties, in­clud­ing con­certs at Queen's Hall. When the girls' vo­cal coach, Kyle Richard­son, left for Spain to join the cast of Li­on King in 2019, Young sought out pop­u­lar singer and vo­cal coach Wendy Shep­pard to in­struct them.

Months lat­er, in Oc­to­ber, when Young jok­ing­ly What­sApped Shep­pard a record­ing of her­self and Richard­son singing a song from the 1978 hit “Grease”, Shep­pard in­sist­ed that Young join her in a Christ­mas per­for­mance at Fi­es­ta Plaza. Ini­tial­ly tak­en aback, Young even­tu­al­ly agreed. Since then, she has been liv­ing out her deep­est dream to be a singer. Apart from per­for­mances at var­i­ous lo­cal venues, she launched an en­dear­ing cov­er video of Queen's “I Want to Break Free” last Au­gust on Trin­i­ty TV's “Dare To Dream” fundrais­er, a cov­er video of La­dy Gaga's “Shal­low”, and “Al­ways on My Mind” with Shep­pard. She even plans to start writ­ing her own songs.

Young's fol­low­ing on Face­book sur­pass­es 1,100 and though she on­ly joined In­sta­gram a year ago af­ter urg­ings and strict di­rec­tions from Lay­la, her fan base on that plat­form al­so num­bers over 1,100. She has come to em­brace the say­ings, “When your life feels black and white, make sure that you dream in colour” and every­thing hap­pens in its per­fect tim­ing.

“It was not re­al­ly some­thing that I ever thought about do­ing,” Young laughed as she re­called her live de­but at Fi­es­ta Plaza with Shep­pard two years ago.

“I mean you sing in the show­er and you imag­ine your­self on stage per­form­ing, but I didn't ac­tu­al­ly think it would ever hap­pen.”

With some vo­cal train­ing from Shep­pard to pre­pare and calm­ing words from singer, Ray­mond Ed­wards whom she met back­stage on the day, she and Shep­pard end­ed up do­ing a duet of Bob Mar­ley's “Is This Love?”.

“It was nerve-rack­ing but ex­hil­a­rat­ing. It was sur­re­al like I was on stage per­form­ing, but look­ing at my­self do­ing it. Per­form­ing with Wendy brings out the best in you. You feed off each oth­er, so it helped that it wasn't just me on stage.”

She al­so per­formed with Shep­pard at West­mall and at the Oval that Christ­mas, where the girls joined in.

“I al­ways joke with her (Shep­pard) and say: like I was on tour with you that De­cem­ber,” Young said.

Be­ing on a mu­sic tour was far from her mind as a stu­dent of Bish­op Anstey High School where she was an ac­com­plished sci­ence stu­dent. But Young said she was al­ways very fond of singing.

“I ac­tu­al­ly did try out for the choir and did not make it. I was like: OK, well, I will just sing in the show­er.”

It was ca­su­al­ly singing in the show­er at her child­hood home in San­ta Cruz years ear­li­er that had made Young dis­cov­er her love for the art.

“The la­dy next door told me when I was sev­en that her four-year-old grand­son would go out to the wall and lis­ten when­ev­er I was singing in the show­er and I loved singing even more.”

Her life would take oth­er turns be­fore she had the chance to live out her se­cret pas­sion. De­clin­ing a schol­ar­ship from a for­eign uni­ver­si­ty, Young de­cid­ed to work at her par­ents' pho­to lab and stu­dio in Ari­ma af­ter com­plet­ing Form Six stud­ies.

“I re­al­ly en­joyed it. My par­ents taught me every­thing there is to know about busi­ness. I didn't learn it in a class­room. It was a priv­i­lege to serve the peo­ple in Ari­ma and the sur­round­ing towns. It re­al­ly taught me re­spect, to in­ter­act with the pub­lic, to com­mu­ni­cate. It gave me the con­fi­dence to do what I'm do­ing to­day; to ac­tu­al­ly get up on stage and per­form and make these mu­sic videos. I just think every­thing hap­pens the way it's sup­posed to hap­pen. All of that was prepar­ing me for this,” she said.

Work­ing in the fam­i­ly busi­ness al­so al­lowed her to meet her hus­band, An­gus.

“He en­cour­aged me to go back to school and be­come qual­i­fied. I did the pro­gramme at ROYTEC–the Uni­ver­si­ty of New Brunswick's Bach­e­lor of Busi­ness Ad­min­is­tra­tion Pro­gramme and I ma­jored in Fi­nance.”

Her per­fect grade point av­er­age and all-round per­son­al­i­ty en­sured that Young was vale­dic­to­ri­an of the Class of 2006. She de­liv­ered a stir­ring grad­u­a­tion speech and the day af­ter her grad­u­a­tion, the then-26-year-old was of­fered an op­por­tu­ni­ty to be part of a po­lit­i­cal par­ty.

“Even that I some­times won­der about; what would have hap­pened...but I re­al­ly want­ed to start a fam­i­ly,” she re­flect­ed.

A few months ear­li­er–in Au­gust–she had re­ceived a bet­ter propo­si­tion from An­gus.

“An­gus pro­posed to me on the night of my last ex­am. I came home ex­haust­ed and I want­ed Chi­nese food. We all ate. It was at home with my par­ents and my sis­ter, and I was just ly­ing on the couch, watch­ing TV. He got down on his knee and he pro­posed. I wasn't ex­pect­ing it. I wasn't dressed prop­er­ly or any­thing...I was just hop­ing for some ice cream,” she laughed.

Four months lat­er, they were mar­ried and with­in five years, the cou­ple had three girls. Young start­ed a chil­dren's bou­tique in West­mall af­ter hav­ing a hard time find­ing good clothes for her el­dest. She jug­gled be­ing a wife, home­mak­er and mum who of­ten vol­un­teered for school ac­tiv­i­ties, with run­ning a store. Even­tu­al­ly, she had to give up her busi­ness.

“I opened in 2009 and even­tu­al­ly added a pho­to stu­dio with the knowl­edge from my par­ents, to try and di­ver­si­fy, and that re­al­ly helped, but I was hav­ing my third child and the rental charges at West­mall con­tin­ued to in­crease, so I thought my time could be bet­ter used else­where. I even­tu­al­ly closed in 2013.

“It was very emo­tion­al clos­ing down, but when one chap­ter ends, an­oth­er one starts,” she said.

Her hus­band who had op­er­at­ed his own fi­nan­cial ad­vi­so­ry firm, soon changed ca­reer di­rec­tion and was of­fered the CEO po­si­tion at a Mer­chant bank at age 35 and she was con­tent­ed to look af­ter her fam­i­ly.

Be­cause of their re­la­tion to a promi­nent politi­cian, how­ev­er, Young said she and her fam­i­ly have had to deal with in­tense pub­lic scruti­ny and the ug­ly side of pol­i­tics, par­tic­u­lar­ly dur­ing the pan­dem­ic.

She chose the song, “I Want to Break Free” for her first cov­er video as it sym­bol­ised some of the changes that she want­ed to see in her own life.

“If you play a song for a mil­lion peo­ple, each would in­ter­pret it dif­fer­ent­ly based on their life ex­pe­ri­ences. For me, it was break­ing free from the chains that pre­vent­ed me from do­ing what I want­ed to do and be­com­ing what I want­ed to be­come; which is the best ver­sion of my­self.

“You kin­da think I'm a mum, I'm a wife, I can't make this mu­sic video and 'Break Free' re­al­ly ex­plored the dif­fer­ent roles of women...There must be room some­where for you to be your true self. I saw that the mul­ti­ple roles I have as a woman do not lim­it me, they em­pow­er me.”

She said, for her, the lyrics of the song: I've fall­en in love, I've fall­en in love for the first time, meant falling in love with her­self and help­ing to in­spire women to de­vel­op self-love and nev­er give up on their pas­sions.

“Be your biggest fan, clap for your­self and don't wait for oth­er peo­ple to do that,” she said.

She said even get­ting all glammed up for the video taught her about self-love as women tend to ne­glect their own needs. Her el­dest daugh­ter, Lay­la, was her styl­ist, pick­ing out her mum's wardrobe and even lent her own clothes for a par­tic­u­lar scene.

Young's more re­flec­tive cov­er video, “Shal­low”, with key­boards by Chad Pi­men­to, rep­re­sents weath­er­ing life's storms that some­times take you far from your safe place in the shal­lows, she felt.

“You have to find a way to deal with all the chal­lenges that life throws your way. You can't al­low your­self to drown, you can't swim back to where you were be­fore. I can nev­er go back to be­ing that old girl. You com­plete­ly evolve to be­come a bet­ter ver­sion of your­self. I saw it as a re­birth, an awak­en­ing to em­brace my true, au­then­tic self when I sang that song,” Young ex­plained.

Cov­er video re­leas­es and all, Young prefers the thrill of singing live.

“When you sing live, you can con­nect with your au­di­ence. Peo­ple see the emo­tion on your face, they see you as you are with all your flaws, im­per­fec­tions. To me, that is beau­ti­ful be­cause no one is per­fect. This is me at my point in my jour­ney, just as I am,” she said.

Since her de­but in 2019, she has worked along­side oth­er cre­atives, in­clud­ing vi­su­al artist Fitzroy Hoyte who found­ed the Thinkart­work­tt Stu­dio which of­fers cre­atives a con­tem­po­rary space in art, mu­sic and oth­er forms of ex­pres­sion.

For Thinkart­work­tt's Christ­mas col­lab­o­ra­tion in 2020, she was in­vit­ed to sing. Her girls spon­ta­neous­ly joined her and when Christ­mas 2021 rolled around, the girls were ready with their own lit­tle per­for­mance, as well, their proud moth­er said.

“It's re­al­ly good ex­po­sure for them. It re­al­ly helps chil­dren to build con­fi­dence.”

The year 2020 al­so pushed Young to start test­ing out her skills at kick­box­ing with in­struc­tor Mic­ah Es­pinet, an ex­pe­ri­ence she de­scribes as “em­pow­er­ing”.

A cat she named Lu­na crawled in­to her gar­den to­wards the end of 2020 and brought laugh­ter and com­fort to her and the girls dur­ing the pan­dem­ic. Lu­na has al­so in­spired her to write a song. She al­so wants to add oth­er pieces to a paint­ing of a land­scape she com­plet­ed as a teen which hangs in her din­ing room and has ac­com­pa­nied her every time she moved house.

The girls, too, have adopt­ed a pas­sion for art, lin­ing their porch area with their own art­work, mak­ing re­fresh­ments and do­ing a per­for­mance for her on Moth­er's Day dur­ing the first lock­down, Young re­called, adding that Leah now en­joys writ­ing po­ems.

And An­gus? He has been her great­est sup­port­er, she said.

“There are times when I've said: what are you do­ing? Teneille are you crazy? And my hus­band has been my biggest sup­port­er. He is like: don't give up on your dreams. Be­cause he knows I didn't take up my schol­ar­ship, he al­ways says to me: get on that plane.”

Q&A with Teneille Young

You said you em­braced your au­then­tic self when you sang the cov­er of “Shal­low” and “Break Free”. Who is Teneille Young ex­act­ly at age 42?

I think that's a life­long jour­ney and I think we al­ways re­dis­cov­er our­selves. At 42, I am a home­mak­er who can do any­thing; a woman who can be a rock star, own my own busi­ness, be a mum. Women can do any­thing. I am em­brac­ing the pow­er of be­ing a woman and lov­ing it.”

Why the choice to turn down the schol­ar­ship?

I think about that now. I was 19 at the time. I think I just thought I had my whole life ahead of me. I grew up in a fam­i­ly of en­tre­pre­neurs. My moth­er's fam­i­ly's busi­ness was Sun­day Bas­ket (fast food restau­rant), so I grew up be­hind the counter with my mum, help­ing her cash and swip­ing fries. The staff were like fam­i­ly. I was al­ways in­volved in it. It was al­ways my dream to own a busi­ness, so I was mo­ti­vat­ed to take over and do things my way...just a young girl with big dreams.

So no re­grets about not tak­ing it up?

No re­grets!

What do you think ac­counts for your so­cial me­dia fol­low­ing?

Let me ex­plain that. Face­book is ap­par­ent­ly the granny of all so­cial me­dia as I was told by my chil­dren, so I got on In­sta­gram. I just start­ed with no ex­pe­ri­ence and then I heard I need to get with it on Tik­Tok and Lay­la helped me. It's all rel­a­tive right, be­cause some peo­ple have thou­sands of fol­low­ers. I guess peo­ple are in­ter­est­ed. A lot, I think, are oth­er mu­si­cians, mum­mies and women. Friends mes­saged me af­ter “Break Free” and said it was in­spir­ing and en­cour­aged me.

Your list has been con­sid­er­able, but any oth­er plans for 2022?

On Sun­day (Jan­u­ary) 16, I'm re­leas­ing my lat­est cov­er, “The Show Must Go On”, al­so a song by Queen. It re­al­ly hits home I think for every­body be­cause peo­ple have been through so much with COVID with chil­dren hav­ing to be on­line for two years. I feel like my chil­dren have been robbed; my daugh­ter did SEA in 2020 and she couldn't have a grad­u­a­tion. She still talks about that, the Christ­mas con­certs, not be­ing able to in­ter­act, make new friends, and there are the moth­ers hav­ing to be at home help­ing and hav­ing to work at the same time...fa­thers too, busi­ness­es clos­ing, peo­ple los­ing loved ones. But through it all, the show must go on. Life has to con­tin­ue. I like to write po­ems, so I al­so want to start mak­ing my po­ems in­to songs and do an orig­i­nal.

Fol­low Young's jour­ney on YouTube, In­sta­gram, Face­book and Tik­Tok @teneille­my­oung