So yeah, this avant-blog has the word “mom” in it, which probably makes you think that somehow it’s going to be all beautiful beige housekeeping tips, photos of colorful salads or floral arrangements, or an ode to my parenting as somehow superior (with a suitable amount of glassy-eyed, well manicured false humility).
Yeah, No.
What I am going to tell you when you have kids, your ability to fight goes way up. Way up. And your killer instinct does too.
Yeah, when you have children, your protective instinct, grab whatever’s needed to keep your offspring happy, healthy and whole, becomes a thing. If you didn’t have killer instinct before (you know, when you were a nice girl trying to be appealing or a good boy trying to win a mate), you will once you have kids.
What I noticed is that having kids made me have eyes for survival and opportunities for thriving. But mostly for theirs, not always for mine. That’s not sustainable.
See, I never really did that before. And, ahem, it is refreshing to fight. Kind of like it. Of course, I am still pretty new to fighting like a civilized adult with folks who have no idea what I do or what motivates me (nor bother to ask), so not graceful at it.
Before I had kids, I was too busy pleasing people in my business, auditioning for adulation and praise, measuring big ole sales metrics (people love stats), and jockeying for self-importance, to actually give a crap about how work compensation shook out. And lots of folks would dole out tidbits of praise and rewards to keep me on board, and it would work.
Then I had kids.
Now, it seems, I need to care about procuring this green stuff called money. Or at least societal support that will lead to opportunities to draw it in later. And I’ll even fight the flow of it to keep my people safe and growing, with opportunities that I didn’t have. Yeah, that’s the American way people– and I refuse to go backwards even with oligarchs playing “superiority,” and dumb-ass politicians breaking good institutions and stealing the value of the independent middle class for sport.
Here’s an example of someone getting the perspective a tad bit backwards: I once knew a couple with a smart-but-challenging kid. They owned their own business, and were kind of stressed, trying to raise him. So they brought in loads of experts and helpers to do it all “right,” and ease their burden of work.
The kid was just doing his thing, socializing slowly, but smart as a whip. He figured out how to make teams of adults kowtow to him.
So this couple hires person after person to help them with their family AND business. Including people who’d just had babies. One such consulting hire they introduced as “and he just had a baby, so will be busy, so coming on board slowly.” They didn’t like people working too much.
I remember thinking, this guy won’t last. And he certainly won’t modulate his work. You know why? The guy they hired now had killer instinct to make money to pay for HIS kid. That’s what makes some of us blow up entire businesses into huge money-making machines. It’s not for our own egos, it’s for our desire to take care of people. To generate resources that support multiple families and communities.
That’s what marketing does anyway, and truly valuable services.
And these folks were trying to put the breaks on business growth by letting go of creators in favor of managers. They missed the fact: creative people with kids work hard to “make money” and the money they make raises all ships. That’s what they do and everyone wins.
Taking care of your family does not make you less interested in business, it can actually make you more shark-like IN business, because you have a bigger grouping of humanity to provide for.
