Through My Son’s Eyes

For years, there has been a vision board in our home that my beautiful boys have grown up around. They helped create it, drawing detailed pictures of some of the things we wanted to do and places we wanted to go, and pinning them onto the board.

They have heard me talk about the life I want us to have, and in return, I have listened to them talk about the things they want in life and the places they would like to go. They know there is a vision, but they don't carry it around with them the way I do. They don't sit at breakfast thinking about the next goal or wondering how we're going to get there. They trust that Mum has got that part covered.

Which is why, when I decided to ask them what they actually think about having a mum who runs her own business, I wasn't really sure what I would get back. No right or wrong answers, simply their perspective. They have grown up with it, after all, and don't know life any other way.

They have watched me work from home, sit on my laptop, make calls, join Zoom meetings, create content and travel for events. They've heard personal development products playing in the background and, at times, even sat on my lap during Zoom meetings. So I thought, surely after all these years, they would have some interesting observations to offer.

They didn't. At least, not in the way I expected.

My youngest, H, who is eight, told me I spend my working days “typing, pressing random letters on the keyboard.” My eldest, L, who is twelve, simply said, “I don't know. You work from home.” This is particularly funny given L has actually helped me input data for the business and edits my reels before I post them onto socials. Maybe it's his age right now, or perhaps on this particular day he didn't feel like elaborating, or maybe he simply supports me while focusing more on his own interests. And that's ok.

The more I read their answers, the more I realised that perhaps their lack of interest in what I actually do is the point. They know I have a business. They know I work. They know I am building something. They know the vision because they have helped create it and lived alongside it for years, but they don't carry it around with them like I do.

They don't spend their days wondering whether I am on track or thinking about what comes next. They trust that I've got it, and I actually love that. What I want most for them is to just be kids in a world designing robots.

They don't need to carry my vision. They get to live in it.

They have placed an order for what they would like, and supporting Mum helps deliver the goods.

From where they sit, the business is so much simpler than it is from where I sit. H thinks I “sell stuff”. He knows I work at home and post things online. He thinks I am happy, although also very busy, and he has noticed that I am on my phone a lot.

When I asked him what he doesn't like about having a mum who works for herself, he didn't hesitate. “There is less family time because you are on your phone.” There wasn't much I could say to that. The phone is the tool that allows me to build the business from almost anywhere, but if I'm not careful, the same phone can take my attention away from the people I wanted that freedom for in the first place.

I am completely comfortable with my boys seeing me work, particularly when I am working towards something I believe in and am passionate about. I want them to understand that meaningful things take effort and that you don't just decide you want a different life and wait for it to happen. But there is a difference between demonstrating consistency and allowing work to become the thing that always gets the last piece of your attention. My eight-year-old holds me to that.

Of an evening, he will hold me accountable for family time and I thank him for this. We all sit together when we eat. Family movie night means no phones allowed, and popcorn or ice cream is a must. These aren't rules I created to prove that I have the perfect balance. They are simply little things we have worked out as a family so that the life we're creating still feels like ours.

When I asked H what he does like about having a mum who works for herself, his answer made me smile because it was so uncomplicated. He likes that I am there for school pick-up, and he likes that we get to go on holidays. When I asked what he thought was cool about my work, he said, “The holidays. I love the holidays.” I do too.

He also connected my work with having our pets, going to a good school and the afternoons when we used to go bike riding, although we haven't done that lately because my dress got caught in the gears. I had to cut myself loose and we still haven't fixed it. While reminding me of this, he asked me to put some time into my calendar to get it fixed so we can start riding again. None of this is particularly profound, but it made me realise how differently my children experience the things I have deliberately built into our life.

I think about income, growth, goals, strategy and what I want the next few years to look like. H thinks about holidays, school pick-up, playing tennis, swimming carnivals, camping, pets and whether Mum can be there.

He isn't looking at the business model; he is looking at the life on the other side of it.

And I like that he sees work as something that can sit alongside life, rather than something that has to replace it.

L sees more of the machinery, although right now he is completely uninterested in how it works. He notices that I am working and that I spend time making calls, leaving messages, joining Zoom meetings and creating videos and pictures for social media because he does help me with the marketing. He knows I enjoy my clients and my followers, and he sees that I am happy doing what I do.

What surprised me was his answer when I asked what he thought was the hardest part of running the business.

“You don't have a partner to help.”

I wasn't expecting that.

There was no sadness in the answer and no attempt to make it more significant than it was. It was simply a twelve-year-old observing his mother doing a lot of things on her own. When I asked L what he admired about me, he said I was independent. I don't think independence was ever the lesson I consciously set out to teach my children, but perhaps that's how the best lessons work.

I started this business because of the life I wanted for us. I wanted to be a stay-at-home mum. I wanted to be available for school pick-up and sport. I wanted to travel with my boys and have more choice over how we spent our time. I wanted to build something of my own that could support that life. The business didn't create the vision; the vision came first. The business became the vehicle.

That became even clearer when I asked what they thought I was trying to create for our family. H talked about holidays, pets, sport, school and time together. L said money to take more holidays and buy other things. They weren't trying to give me some profound answer about financial freedom or entrepreneurship. They were simply describing what they experience as a result of the choices I made.

My boys have simply grown up inside that decision. They experience the holidays and the flexibility and the things we get to do together, while also seeing the consistency it takes to follow through with the things we decide we want. They help around the house and in the garden so I can sometimes grab a power hour of work here and there. For them, that's simply part of living together in our home. Through their eyes, Mum's got that covered for us.

Perhaps that's what happens when children grow up inside something. They don't necessarily learn it through instruction.

They absorb it through repetition, through watching, through the ordinary rhythm of family life.

They see what you do when you say you want something, and eventually they begin to understand the relationship between vision, belief and action.

Then L gave me an answer that made me stop and read it twice. I asked him what he had learned from watching me build my business, and he said, “You can't just say you're going to do something, you have to work towards it.” He has watched the consistency that happens when nobody is applauding, the days when things need to be figured out, the travel, the events, the computer, the phone and all the ordinary things that sit underneath whatever success people happen to see from the outside.

Children don't do what we say; they do as they see. And perhaps that is why his answer meant so much to me.

The answer that really got me, though, came when I asked them what it is like being my son while I am building the business.

H said, “I feel loved. You make time, but can't always.”

Then he told me he reminds me to put things in my calendar so nobody else books something in while we are supposed to be spending time together. I had to laugh at the idea of my eight-year-old managing my calendar boundaries, but there was something underneath it that I didn't want to miss. He knows the work has to happen. He knows I am building something. He knows I don't always get it right. But he also knows he is important to me and that I make time for him, and he wants that time protected for both of us.

He also often reminds me of how “Rich” we are.

Rich in family, love, happiness, pets and holidays.

There is something about hearing an eight-year-old define wealth that makes you stop and listen. He isn't using a bank's definition of rich. He is simply describing the things that make our life feel full to him.

L's answer was even simpler: “I feel loved, normal.”

Of everything they could have said about having an entrepreneur for a mum, those are the words I'm most grateful to hear.

I don't want my boys to grow up carrying my ambitions. I want them to create their own with joy. I don't need them to understand my business, and I don't need them to be impressed by it. They don't have to understand the strategy behind the vision board or know what the next goal is. They are allowed to be eight and twelve, to care about holidays and sport and pets and school and whatever game is currently occupying their attention.

My job is to build the life I believe in. They are the why behind the decision I made to build it this way. They will see me work, and they will sometimes see me on my phone when I should probably put it down. They will see the ambition, the passion, the consistency and the responsibility that comes with building something of your own, but they will also see that work can co-exist with all the beautiful things we get to do together as a family. I'm raising two young men who won't grow up believing there is only one way to live. They will have options, decisions to make and the opportunity to create a life on their terms rather than simply accept the one that is handed to them.

I asked to see our life through the eyes of my children, and what I found was a reminder of the woman I was when I first made the decision to change the way we lived. Before the business, there was the vision. I wanted to be a stay-at-home mum. I wanted to be available. I wanted to travel. I wanted choice over our time. I wanted to create something of my own. I found the vehicle that could make all of that possible.

My boys don't know all of that history in the way I do. They just know the life they have grown up in. They see Mum at home. They also see Mum working. They see the consistency behind the choices we make. They know I am happy. They know I make time for them. They know what they want in life matters too. They know we go on holidays, that I can get to their sport and that there are things in our lives now that once existed only on a vision board. Most importantly, they feel loved, heard and seen.

And perhaps that's what I was really asking when I asked them to see our life through their eyes. Not whether they understand my business, but what they have absorbed from growing up inside the life it was built to create.

They have their own ideas now. Their own places they want to go. Their own things they want to experience. Their own pictures they are starting to put on their own vision board.

The vision was mine.

They are growing up inside it.

And the greatest gift wasn't that they learned my vision.

It was that they learned they can have one of their own and that I have the freedom and flexibility to support that too.

xx

This online business became my way of building the life I had envisioned for my family.

Have a vision of your own? Explore what this online vehicle could do for you.