My parents had a startup when I was a child. My mom was adventurous and worked with my dad in the business. As a little kid, I had no awareness that we were rich or poor, though we must have struggled because I remember different living situations were not as nice as others. Our family life was happiest during the building phase of the company - before success was surely won.
One thing I'm sure of is that my dad would have been miserable if he had a straight job and that would have affected our family a lot more than material instability.
There are many lessons that you can teach a child about resilience - about fortune's ups and downs and how to handle risk that are unavailable to those who put their lives on hold to rear a child. I wouldn't have had any other childhood. We had extreme fortune upheavals. At one point, the family lost everything. But dad started again and made a success. I still wound up attending an Ivy League school and hope to apply the lessons I've learned growing up to the startups I'll start.
Great life story, lee. My husband and I are bringing our children along for the journey as we work on our start-up.
We went through the start-up stage with another business before we had children, but we won't think of postponing this start-up because of our kids. It is hard work to combine starting up and parenting, but being parents while working a traditional 9-to-5 is hard work, too.
We have found that we are happier when we are being creative on our own, regardless of income level. When we're happy, the kids are happy, too.
They have adapted well to everything we've thrown at them so far. And we are encouraged by their go-with-the-flow attitude.
In the end we want them to understand that you make your own life. The best way we can teach them this is to actually do so ourselves....and that's what we are doing.
One thing I'm sure of is that my dad would have been miserable if he had a straight job and that would have affected our family a lot more than material instability.
There are many lessons that you can teach a child about resilience - about fortune's ups and downs and how to handle risk that are unavailable to those who put their lives on hold to rear a child. I wouldn't have had any other childhood. We had extreme fortune upheavals. At one point, the family lost everything. But dad started again and made a success. I still wound up attending an Ivy League school and hope to apply the lessons I've learned growing up to the startups I'll start.