I was born Tammy Roberts on March 16, 1961, in Fairview, Alberta. I grew up in a Protestant household in a tight-knit prairie community where the world felt small and very large at the same time.
I met Jordan when I was eight years old. We were children when our lives first crossed, and we have been together, in one way or another, ever since. We were married in 1989. We have two children, Mikhaila and Julian.
After graduating from Fairview High School in 1979, I went on to study at the University of Ottawa, where I earned a Bachelor of Science in 1987. Years later, in 2007, I trained at the Sutherland-Chan School in Toronto and became a registered massage therapist.
Jordan and I have been married since 1989. Our daughter Mikhaila was born in 1992. She is the CEO of Peterson Academy, a podcaster, and the founder of the Fuller Research Foundation and the Lion Diet. Our son Julian was born in 1993. He is the CEO of Essay.app, a musician, and a developer. We lived in Boston in the 1990s while Jordan was at Harvard. We have walked through a number of difficult seasons together, including Mikhaila's childhood arthritis, Jordan's health struggles, and, eventually, my own.
I practiced massage therapy in Toronto and Montreal. For many years I also served as Jordan's personal advisor and helped support his work as a psychologist and author. I studied art at the Ontario College of Art, and I have exhibited charcoal pieces at Harvard. I teach yoga. I have spent a long time learning what it means to live in a body, and what it means to live in a marriage and a household and a family.
In 2019 I was diagnosed with renal cell carcinoma. The pathology came back as an extremely rare and aggressive Bellini collecting duct tumor, and I was given a prognosis of ten months. I had one successful surgery that removed a kidney and lymph, and it resulted in a life-threatening surgical complication. I traveled out of the country to do an experimental treatment to solve the surgical complication and it didn't work. Much to everyone's amazement, I was healed on August 19, 2019, Jordan and my wedding anniversary, seemingly out of the blue. I am not sure I will ever stop being grateful for that date.
The cancer changed many things. The most important thing it changed was my prayer life. I began praying the Rosary while I was sick, and I kept praying it after I was well. That rope of beads opened a door, and I walked through it, step by step, toward the Catholic Church. I went through RCIA in 2023. On Easter Sunday 2024 I was received into the Church. I am writing a book about that journey. It is a strange and beautiful thing to have your life rearranged at sixty.
In 2022 I started The Tammy Peterson Podcast. It has become a place where I sit with thoughtful people and ask the questions worth asking, about faith, motherhood, marriage, suffering, and the long work of becoming. The audience has been generous. We are now past one hundred thousand subscribers on YouTube. I co-host with Jordan from time to time as well.
Since 2022 I have been on the road with Jordan. I have opened hundreds of his speaking events with brief reflections on faith, family, and resilience. We are still touring together.
Jordan and I have spent years collecting Soviet-era paintings. I make art when I can. I keep a garden when I can. I read, and I pray, and I try to pay attention. The work of the rest of my life, as I see it, is to keep asking these questions out loud, and to keep listening.