Money professional says she’s missed her twins’ sports activities days to earn money

I’m Lisa Johnson – a global business strategist running That Strategy Co, helping ambitious people to create passive and semi-passive income streams – ie. regular earnings from a source other than your employer.

I’m a Sunday Times-bestselling author and a 46-year-old mother-of-twins who went from being £35,000 in debt to earning £16m over just six years – and I teach others how to do it too.

In so many circles I’m in there’s talk about ‘putting your kids first’. I hear this all the time, like there is only one version of what this means. 

For example, I have clients who won’t do the work that’s needed to make money in their business because they’re ‘putting their children first’.

There are women I know whose not-so-little-ones are now in their 20s now who feel bereft and have no idea who they are any more because they spent 20 years at home ‘putting their kids first’.

I remember clearly the mix of sympathy, pity and shock from the mothers at my twins’ school when I talked about working away for a few days and commiserated with me telling me insincerely that it must be hard not to be able ‘to put the kids first’.

And I won’t even go into the amount of women I know in loveless marriages that are staying because they’re ‘putting the kids first’.

It’s time we stopped defining ‘putting the children first’ in just one way. The world I grew up in was traditional in many ways, but when I look back with an objective view, I have come to realise it wasn’t quite as traditional as I would have thought.

I was surrounded by powerful, confident women in my family. Women who did not fit neatly into traditionally defined gender roles. Women who, to use an outdated reference, most definitely ‘wore the trousers.’

And yet, whilst these were working women, women who fully understood the need to provide for their families, they were also mums. Mums who wanted to set a good example to their kids as well as loving them, caring for them and nurturing them, and I feel this ethic has rubbed off on me, perhaps subconsciously, but it is there all the same.

I know for sure that doing the school run every day for 10 years is not the only way to put your children first.

Sharing the childcare with others while enabling your children to become more adaptable is putting the kids first.

So much of what I want my twins to learn is not taught at school. The values I want to instill in them do not come from a textbook.

If I have to work on a business or project on a weekend every now and again, I see this as positive as I am instilling in them what work ethic looks like. To me, this is putting them first.

Working harder for a couple of years while they’re toddlers and missing out on play groups so that you make passive income later on and can spend more time with them for many more years is putting them first.

Missing one primary school sports day because you’re getting a business off the ground to pay for their five-star secondary education is putting the kids first.

Working away so that you stop generational poverty in their lineage is putting the kids first.

Taking your children to a business event, where they are actively involved, learning communication skills, business ideas and ethical behaviour is putting them first.

It is educating them and preparing them for the ever-changing world ahead when they are no longer judged by percentages and exam grades.

Let’s stop pretending that the only way to put your kids first is for them to see that you’re home to chop their vegetables for their packed lunch. I don’t see the world applauding fathers for making sure they were able to do the school drop off every day instead of having great careers.

This world is constantly evolving, and in the online world I work in is perhaps a bit of an echo chamber, by which I mean these changes are happening faster here, where there are plenty of relationships where the father’s skills are more suited to the traditional ‘children focused tasks’.

And while it is in essence as simple as that, simply utilising skills in the most effective way, when I steer away from this space, I still hear the same complaints from so many mums. ‘I can’t focus on my business, or even make steps to get started, because my husband won’t do anything around the house.’

Well, to be blunt, how will we ever change this if we continue to accept the status quo? To start to make the change we have to be the change. We have to stop blindly accepting outdated and unrealistic perceptions of roles and responsibilities in relationships.

Let’s not forget the single parent families who cover every element of the parenting/work roles. And what about same sex couples? Is there an automatic assumption that one would be the ‘child carer’ and one should be the ‘bread winner?’

Of course not. We go back to making the most of the skillsets that each person possesses.

We don’t need a revolution, it doesn’t have to be as dramatic as that. We just need a shift in perception and, most importantly in my opinion, a shift in judgement.

There is no one size fits all. There is no right or wrong. Our children learn in thousands of ways. My kids learn from me, from their stepdad, from their father. We each provide for them in numerous ways, without being slotted into specific, outdated and unnecessary roles.

I see so many amazing women that aren’t in that traditional role putting their kids first in brilliant ways. Let’s start applauding them too.

Make the change, lose the guilt and see the difference.

Lisa Johnson is a global business strategist running That Strategy Co, helping ambitious people to create passive and semi-passive income streams.