New Venture Lab: Equipping Christian Entrepreneurs

I came across this quote today, which was plastered all over the home page of a very popular business magazine website:

"When you make the choice to have a child, you're deciding to slow down your career for 5 or 10 years. "

– Inspired by Suzy Welch (former chief of the Harvard Business Review and wife of Jack Welch, former CEO of GE)

How sad that the normal state of affairs for women today is that they have to bear the double curse - the curse of a woman as well as the curse as a man when they take on the role of providing and give up or diminish their role of raising a family.

As Christians, we need to view children as God views them: as blessings.  And for family-based businesses, those same blessings can contribute to the family economy and family weath.  Adam Smith argued in his eighteen century tome, "The Wealth of Nations," that the wealth of a family was directory proportional to the size of the family because of the economic power of population.  Of course, we were very much an agrarian economy at the time, but this still holds true in family business if we view the children as economic assets (by expecting them to work and contribute to the family economy) rather than economic liabilities (by expecting them to play and be consumers of the family economy.)

May the Lord richly bless all of us with many children for His purposes.

Psalm 128: Blessed is every one that feareth the LORD; that walketh in his ways.  For thou shalt eat the labour of thine hands: happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee.  Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house: thy children like olive plants round about thy table.  Behold, that thus shall the man be blessed that feareth the LORD.  The LORD shall bless thee out of Zion: and thou shalt see the good of Jerusalem all the days of thy life.  Yea, thou shalt see thy children's children, and peace upon Israel.