Hear our Stories: Voices of Ordinary Parents Navigating Work, Life and Love

I knew the day I went to buy an interview suit . . . which means I was a college senior. Rather than looking harder for a suit, I saw the lack of one as an opportunity to sell them! That response bubbled up from my background. My dad had co-founded a business and worked at it his whole life while the commercial neighborhood I grew up in boasted several boutiques and other interesting small businesses. It was a treat to walk into one of them with my mother and hear someone greet her, "Hello Mrs. Fisher, how are you today?"

 

Communicating with my husband, who joined me in the business full time after 5 years as an attorney, would go through its ups and downs. When we had a very thorny issue, given that all our eggs were in one basket, we would get professional help. That diluted the emotion and allowed us to focus on the real issues and notice patterns of miscommunication. Mostly, however, we were so fully into the business that despite periods of being tired, discouraged, and convinced that the grass was greener as an employee, we concluded that the benefit of autonomy always outweighed the costs of constant reinvention, being employers, managing downturns, and overcoming mistakes.

 

Autonomy also characterized how we worked together. Our different talents allowed us distinct spheres of complementary expertise and we respected the boundaries. I was lucky: nothing beats having a person you fully trust to handle accounting, legal, the tech side of marketing and website, and the warehouse--all of which require meticulous execution to ensure that the operation runs smoothly. My side was creative, managerial, and customer-facing. Each of us thrived in our spheres.

 

Autonomy also allowed us to put the girls first. Lyle shouldered more of the day-to-day responsibilities during their teen years by working early, for example, and always being home after school.

 

We found The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home when we wanted more from the local preschool than they seemed to offer. Lyle and I were both on a post-9/11 reading/listening binge, taking advantage of The Teaching Company's Great Courses' broad and deep history curricula. The goal was to better understand the Western tradition and our nation's history, and we knew we wanted the same for our girls. We spent many many hours in the car together as a family and Wise-Bauer's Story of the World was our constant companion when they were little. Ultimately we were inspired to find a classical school rather than homeschool, and our daughters affirm that their elementary school experience at the Westminster School gave them a solid foundation both in content and writing skills.

 

Our time in business, from 1988 to 2020, spanned the end of women dressing like men in broad-shouldered suits and blouses with floppy bow ties to the flourishing of contemporary lines including those of Nanette Lepore and Nicole Miller. It also, sadly, was marked by the AIDS scourge which took so many talented designers, the scandal of 18" skirt suits for lawyers, the emergence of the internet, and the shifts to casual dressing and online shopping.

 

Perhaps the biggest change in corporate life was sartorial! That may be because I never experienced day-to-day life or a work environment where being a woman was a disadvantage. Despite some horror stories from clients, they were climbing the ranks in law firms, news organizations, and won the highest political appointments. Our doctors and kids' coaches were mostly women, and women owned many of the showrooms I shopped or designed the lines we carried.

 

My mentor, however, was the first woman VP for shoes at Neiman Marcus, and my older sister was one of the first women to trade government CDs for Prudential Bache. They have stories to tell, and truly what's remarkable is how fast the changes occurred that made the female/male balanced world we brought our daughters into so unremarkable.

 

I don't think it is as much to do with gender as just enabling business in general. What would be most helpful would be less red-tape, less onerous compliance, and fewer licensing requirements for every person who wants to start a business and hire an employee. We now live in a world in which every transaction between humans must be permitted and accounted for. The COVID policies are a massive disincentive to go back into a business with a physical presence.

 

During the store life, balance was not part of the equation. As the idea of balance became a “should”, it became another marker to miss! Having a business that did better when I was present created tremendous pressure to be there. I chose working more hours over hobbies, but sanity required staying fit and keeping up with ideas in economics and ethics. In the post-bricks-and-mortar life, I am getting reacquainted with the religion I was raised in, and I believe that integrating some of those precepts early would have made balance easier to achieve. As I head back into work, the old habits that push those precepts aside emerge, and I work more consciously to prioritize values, family, friends, and community.

 

Perfect day: getting up early enough to see the grey skies turn blue with a chai tea at hand, making a great breakfast for Lyle, getting enough hours in at building an online business, a workout and a walk, time with a friend, a few moments to read, a post-dinner sprawl in front of the tv. Luckily, that's most days here in CO!

 

Every day requires trying - trying to do more, to learn more, to appreciate more.