Why Being a Kid-Friendly Business is Important to Me!

My husband and I are self-proclaimed DINKs (Dual Income No Kids) at this point in our lives. We have money, freedom, and great careers. This freedom includes travel and during my husband’s last deployment I was able to meet up with him on three port calls. One of these places was Bahrain where I was able to stay for an entire week!

During his deployment we were also excited to be able to afford purchasing two new houses. This was done while also feeding my Starbucks addiction. While the point here isn’t to brag, I hope to show that during this time in our lives we have been able to afford many freedoms.

Unfortunately, with all these wonderful benefits come long hours, inflexibility, and lost family time. When my husband had two weeks off after his deployment, I was only able to take three days off even though ten was originally granted. I have missed squadron family days, three-day weekends with my husband, and flew home for only 30 hours over Easter to see my grandmother who was 92 years old and declining in health because I had already used up all my vacation.

My husband and I started investing in houses almost four years ago because I wanted a work-from-home job and we knew that kind of work would be hard to find in my industry. As an expert in turning lemons into lemonade, some wonderful gifts and experiences have been dropped into my lap over the years. One of those wonderful things was this blog, my e-books, and meeting all the wonderful people that helped over the years.

Something unexpected happened over the past year though. I realized how much I didn’t want a job that I couldn’t do with kids, I wanted a job I could do WITH my kids! I have enjoyed seeing the cute little faces on Skype or hearing my friend’s kids on the phone and the, “Wait a second JOHN, Put that down!”

During my husband’s deployment, I had a best friend who let me “practice” on her kids and spoil them like crazy! One of these kids were able to come on a showing with me this past week and last year another of her two kids played with an applicant’s kids while we signed papers.

Yes, there is a time and place for kids and they won’t always be invited. I do plan on having  a babysitter for all those moments, as I am sure when I ask a bank for a 20 million dollar loan to build my first apartment complex, they wouldn’t appreciate my children in the room. Yet, I hope that even more of these moments become kid-friendly. I want my kids to not only to see what mommy does for work, but I want them to learn from me too!

I think we have live in a great world and I am proud to be a Twenty First Century girl, but I  do wish it was a bit more hands-on regarding bringing your kids to work. I am a huge believer that children should be children, I also believe that while letting them get messy sometimes, it’s important to learn and learn with me. So here’s my promise to my children:

To My Future Children,

While there will be plenty of times where you will get to be a kid, I also want to promise that you will be learning about my business. Here are just a few ways I plan on doing that:

I want to start out by teaching you to advertise, and how to read and write a lease. I want to teach you how to properly interact with tenants, and how to do a move out. And eventually, before you are 18, I want you be able to step in and run all my businesses for me.

For my last promise: I know that I will be teaching you about the family business and while I have groomed you to understand and be an expert, I promise that no matter what, you can still be whatever you want to be!

Love,

Your Mom

How do you incorporate your children in your business? What are your plans? Where do you think kids should be in regards to family business?