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Oct 10Liked by Yelena Sheremeta

I love this! Iā€™m here for this sort of vision for family business and life šŸ’—

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Yes! Wish more people would talk about the mechanics / logistics of working on a vision like this - it looks different for each family tho!

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I really appreciate this perspective!

We've had the unique opportunity for my husband to be a full time substitute teacher at our kids' elementary school for the second year in a row. It's a super special arrangement! (He also works as a youth pastor part time.) He drives them to school and back home. He sometimes is in their classrooms. He knows their friends and the staff at the school. It's really neat. It's not long-long term, which in some ways makes me sad because I personally love this arrangement (and having him home usually by 3pm unless he has church work after school).

I know long term, we probably need an entrepreneurship arrangement that will give us margin to do ministry while still being able to afford having 5+ kids. It's hard though putting the time into the start up process when there's so much else happening in our lives!

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That's an awesome arrangement! To everything there is a season. My dad took a lower paying job when we were elementary school aged (he was an over the road truck driver so he'd be gone a week at a time and took a job doing local deliveries during a night shift instead) so that he could be home with us when we came home from school and in the evenings before he started his shift. It was a financial sacrifice for a few years, and once we were a bit older, he went back to over the road truck driving. He once told me: "I know you kids didn't have a lot growing up and we don't live in a nice house like your cousins and friends, but I made the decision to be there for you in person over giving you fancy things" and I really respect that choice.

But it's also wise to slowly sow seeds and prepare for the next season too - so I hope y'all are able to start planning ahead for a family business too, even if it's a few years down the road (took us 3 years of saving and praying and planning to make the jump). Highly recommend looking into doing seller financing and buying a business from someone looking to sell out and retire. The success rate on that is like 80% higher than starting your own business from scratch.

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We had an arrangement where I worked away as my wife raised and homeschooled our 8 kids. While in some ways this might seem idyllic, and people say, "it must have been nice to make so much money that you could do that," that wasn't the case. For one entire week we ate nothing but potatoes from our garden for each meal. Though it was not the season for potatoes, I simply dug up whatever happened to be there. Another time we cut down a tree in the yard to sell at a sawmill. So it was no picnic.

This is my point: sometimes life is simply tough. Maybe it wasn't exactly ideal for me to be gone when I was, but then life isn't ideal.

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Yes! Agreed! My family went through that growing up too. My parents were first generation immigrants with 10 kids so they didnā€™t have many options and did the best they could with what they had. My dad took a low paying job for a few years in order to stay local and worked as a delivery driver (he was an over the road truck driver for most of his life and that took him away for a week at a time) because he wanted to be home more to be a dad to us even though it meant a financial sacrifice for a few years. But my parents also made those sacrifices so that my siblings and I could have more Opportunities than they didnā€™t have. So to those who can do better, should. We are called to do the best with what we have in each season.

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Iā€™ve noticed that in the online tradwife discourse, men are treated like ATMs rather than part of a family and thatā€™s become synonymous with ā€œprovider.ā€ Itā€™s a strange vibe.

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Thatā€™s such a good analogy. Like help me make the babies and give me money and I got the rest. Yet, itā€™s such powerful and popular movement right now, especially in evengelical Christian circles that make this seem like a Biblical mandate / Christian idea.

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Iā€™ve even read some women argue that as along as he ā€œprovides,ā€ that should be good enough and other emotional needs arenā€™t necessary. The discourse is wild.

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Thatā€™s INSANE.

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Oct 23Liked by Yelena Sheremeta

And that atm-like focus makes everything transactional which is just weird and gross.

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Right?! It demeans marriage to a transaction of you do your part, I do mine.

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