The Things You Hear Through the Baby Monitor…

My family life and business are closely intertwined, therefore my young children are continually exposed to many aspects of our company. My six year old daughter is into playing pretend and enjoys various different scenarios, such as school, store, restaurant, and the usual kindergarten variety. Yesterday afternoon however, she was deeply involved in one of her pretend games and as I realized what she was doing, I was surprised and proud.

Bustling about the house gathering various items, my daughter was busily preparing her materials for her pretend scenario. I didn’t pay much attention as she pranced in the room wearing high heels and asking for various items from my office; paper, pens, notebook, bags, clipboard, string, etc. She encouraged her 3 yr old brother to come upstairs to her room and participate in the latest game. He was excited of course to be included, and happily agreed.

Through the monitor, I could hear clearly what they were talking about and I began to listen with interest. Today, instead of playing house or store, my 6 year old daughter was playing busy entrepreneur! She was explaining to my son what she needed to do for the day. It included tasks such as conducting a conference call, checking her email, getting dressed up because she was going to a meeting with important people, and going to the post office to drop off shipments. Apparently she decided the job of my 3 yr old was to make phone calls for her and schedule appointments, because when I went up to check on them, he had the old cell phone to his ear and was pretending to take notes in her notebook with his green magic marker. My daughter was dressed up in her ‘business clothes’ with her little briefcase and purse ready to go on her appointments. When I asked her where she was going, she informed me that, “she had a busy day because important people wanted to talk to her because she was in charge of a business”.

It was so funny to watch her emulate and act out her version of what she has experienced just being around our family and business. Although my company deals with language education, my daughter was not pretending to be a Spanish teacher like me, she had her own special business. When I asked her what kind of business she had, she told me the ‘important kind’ because she is ‘in charge of things”. I am so proud that my kindergartener has been exposed to these situations and that she is beginning to understand the opportunities that she will one day have. I have always hoped to instill in her that she can be and do anything she wants. It was such a wonderful surprise to see her playing the make believe game of ‘entrepreneur’.

It wasn’t long however, until the normal battles between a 3 yr old and 6 yr old resumed. My daydream of my daughter being a successful businesswomen was interrupted by the cries of “ give that back”, “ it’s mine”, “ get out of my room!” permeated through that wonderful monitor.