Raising a Teen while growing a business

I laugh as I think back to when I opened my business with littles (10 and under) that this work life balance thing would get easier when they became teenagers.  HA! I guess laughter is the best medicine after all.

As a business owner, you know there is a constant ebb and flow to your intention and attention, and the demands required of you present themselves in a variety of ways from a variety of people. Now toss a few teenage kids into the mix of your work/life responsibility and it is not the same as it was when they were little. 

There is so much content, support and information on the forefront of the google search and personal brand positioning by successful mothers (and a few cool dads) that express, support and nurture the idea and possibility of building a successful business (often from home) while raising infants, toddlers and what I call littles (under the age of 12). There are so many tips, tricks, systems to try out and follow to guide the path. But what gets me is the miss on how real the game actually gets when the kids turn into teenagers.

I am a Gen Xer, growing up as a teenager in the 90s. Many of my friends’ parents worked, or owned businesses and thinking back, we were often left to our volition. We got ourselves to and from programs, events, friends, social life, and were limited by the telephone, call waiting, hanging around afterschool and the occasional payphone (bum a quarter anyone?). Some friends had total jalopies with no power steering and others the two-shoe cadillac, (oh I have some miles on these legs…). 

Our parents were not really involved in our lives. Our parents would advocate for us at school (only if we really needed it), come to our games and performances and check in on whether or not we were respecting the rules. Looking back and talking with friends, it is few and far between where we remember our moms, even less our dads, helping us navigate life, emotions, hormones, failures, friends, grades, you name it. We did that with our friends! With no more life experience, we coached each other through life’s dramas, challenges and mishaps. We laugh at what we “handled” alone.

Now, here we are today. This generation is full of high performing moms that are leading organizations, growing businesses, developing brands, and bringing in half, if not most of the household income.  She’s the household manager, logistics coordinator, personal development and family lifestyle coach, volunteer and and and…And we are the majority group that is now navigating raising teenagers.

I believe we are also of the conscious parenting generation, where we are actively in our 30s and 40s, unpacking our life drama and trying to intentionally heal old trauma and wounds to change old patterns, breakdown generational trauma, show up and be present for our kids, engage with their lives, guide them into emotional stability and just simply do it better than what we thought was offered to us. The thing is, there is no one that has walked before us. So, we are navigating it blind and with the expectations of the world in our arms. We take this very seriously.

So, how do we do this? We don’t have a clue what today’s teens are navigating. They grew up on social media with new forms of being outcasted, bullied, one upped, and outlandishly leveraged for competition, all added onto what we struggled with, without technology. The pressures I witness my kids go through is shocking sometimes. Then add social distancing, erratic school schedule and quarantining, and wearing masks for 7 hours a day, even while playing a sport.

However, as a conscious parent, I personally work to normalize mental health by giving my kids a therapist to heal today’s traumas and walk through life lighter and with more tools. 

I ask the hard questions and give grace to their honesty (even when I am like, WHAT?!).  I invite possibility to do it differently then what I think it should be, encourage emotional outpours, swearing if that feels good, and space beside or at a distance so they can use their skills, coping mechanisms and decision-making skills individually. They thrive and they fail and I walk beside them, but I don’t always fix it because they need practice. I don’t think I am alone in this, from the friends in the teen arena I often hear this is the case for many of us as high performing women in the room.

So, this brings me back to our leadership and positions as business owners. We have got to ebb and flow more than ever. When they were littles, we handled the schedule, the system, the naps, the food, and mostly could pre-determine the emotional temperature of each day in advance and run our days around that with structure.  Well, as the teen years enter, the ease of all that we could handle, manage and predict with our kids, goes right out the window. Yes, we thought we were free. They are independent, can possibly drive, definitely help with chores, feed themselves, get their homework done without us sitting in the chair next to them…but what we didn’t see coming was the daily disruption that comes with teens in today’s world.  

The ebb and flow is unpredictable and our immediate need to pivot in real time while not dropping the quality of work is unprecedented. So, we are forced to really level up our management and delegation, our communication, and our intentions each day to create the harmony between work and home, leader and mother, structure and chaos, grounded and emotional.

If nothing more, let this be a shout out to the Gen X High performing conscious moms and dads out there doing it all in this uncharted territory. Know you are not alone. Know that you are doing hard things the best you can. And if nothing more, remember we are doing this first, so if it is messy, that is okay! We have nothing to measure this against, follow, or compete with (I know as high performers this can be a challenge). So embrace the messy, scale back when you need to, ask for help more than before and trust each day you are doing the best you can.