At what point should a parent step in to save a child? When is it good for them to learn how to fail? Gosh, it would be so much easier if kids came with a set of instructions.
“What are you going to do?”, I queried. “We’re gonna sell tires to Mr. Dunlop. We think we can get $5/piece for them. Some of ’em, might even be worth $7.50.”, said the boys. They were all dressed up, navy blazers, white starched shirts, and ready to go and make their sales pitch. I was all ears… , “How about practicing your sales pitch on me, first?”
My stepson and his best buddy were about 14-15yrs old, when I came home one day to find 30-40 old tires at the end of the driveway. Because we are a B&B, we’re fairly self-conscious of the appearance of our grounds and gardens. A stack of old tires made us look more like the “Sanford and Sons Garage”. Not exactly the ambiance I was going for. All I could think about was the tires catching fire, black smoke for two days, fire engines, neighbors complaining, and our B&B being designated as the “Little Somalia” of the south. The boys assured me, they had a plan…… They were going to make their fortune on retreads.
A little bit of background…
My stepson was an odd duck. We never knew if he would turn out to be a CEO or the next Unibomber, scathing IQ but kind of scary. His heart was not in the right place and he was a manipulative kid. When coupled with his best buddy, we’ll call him Eric, the two of them presented a challenge to teachers, ministers, and parents. Eric was sharp, naturally intelligent, so handsome the girls swooned, and his grandfather was a millionaire farmer who spoiled him. By age 14, Eric drove a truck to school, could fix equipment, ride a horse, shoot well, and fly a crop duster. My husband owned a construction company. Between the two boys, they had access to, and were comfortable with, all kinds of heavy equipment…. and they had no fear.
Eric’s mom, we’ll call her Susan, was a girlfriend to me but I was in awe of her. She was a former barrel horse racer, wild as any mustang. She was the most fearless person I’ve ever known and the kind of woman who would scare most men. Coming from bubble-wrapped suburbia, I had never met anyone like her. Susan’s mother was a friend to my grandmother, and in my Culture Club. The mother had a silver closet in her home – an entire ROOM filled with fine sterling serving pieces and flatware. The mother was a fine southern woman, but Susan broke the mold. I can’t remember ever seeing Susan in a dress or wearing makeup, but she started a business for home decor and building supplies, the most exquisite pieces for western homes/lodges, etc. Her business thrived and was around the corner from our B&B….. which put the boys together, every afternoon and most weekends.
When the boys were little, I caught them with BB Guns, shooting a skunk in the backyard. The staff loved that skunk, who visited out yard every afternoon with her babies. I broke the butt of the BB Gun across the brick column of the porte cochere, “Don’t shoot our animals.” During their middle school years, the oak trees were particularly prolific and hundreds of oak seedlings sprouted in our gardens. I was pulled saplings every afternoon and the boys were not helping as I thought they should. So, I told them they should pull the saplings, pot them up, and sell them for $1.00 each. They liked the idea, pulled almost all the saplings, and the boys made about $75 selling little oak trees all over town.
Then, Eric ran away from home. I thought the whole thing was settled and he was back home, but my stepson came to me, begging for an intervention. Apparently, Eric, who was about 14 at the time, had run away, three states, and was working on a farm in Missouri. He had been there for 3 weeks and had been in contact with my stepson. Eric was sleeping in the farmer’s barn and fall was approaching. It was getting cold. As my stepson explained, he was ready to come home, but his mom, my girlfriend Susan, was adamant. She would not go and get him. “His parents abandoned him!”, my stepson said, imploring me to “fix it”. I stared at my stepson in disbelief, trying to think of what mountain I would not climb to get to him. Sleeping in a barn? Three states away? What? I talked to Susan the next day. Her response, “He found his way there; he can find his way home.” Wow, tough love.
I recalled the time my stepson ran away from home. I helped him pack his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle suitcase and waved goodbye to him as he took off across the school parking lot. I went into the house, called the local police, had them pick him up, handcuff him, and bring him back home. He wasn’t gone 20 minutes and he was terrified. Point made. The problem with Eric was infinitely worse. Three states away?
My husband was non-committal on intervention. “None of our business”, he said. A few days went by and my step son was increasingly agitated. About the time I made arrangements with the farmer to pick up Eric, halfway, in Arkansas, he showed up, worse for wear, at our back door. He lived with us for about a month…. then found his way home. The following summer, they hatched the tire retread plan.
That morning in the driveway, I sat down on the car bumper to listen to the boys’ sales pitch to Dunlop. They talked about the material cost of re-treads, the ready market for less expensive tires (they had customers lined up and had visited several full serve gas stations), the amount of money they thought they could make, and the estimated profit for Dunlop. They wanted to approach Mr. Dunlop with the idea. The Dunlop plant was fairly close to us, about 30 minutes. The boys were innocent, had no frame of reference for time/schedules/proper business etiquette, and had no concern about the meeting. I had visions of them being kicked out of the office, with adults laughing and mocking them. The defeat would be crushing. At no time did I ever think they would get to see Mr. Dunlop. The factory was huge. I wondered if they would get past the guard gate, and felt badly for them. Their first real effort to enter the business world needed to go well.  Nonetheless, they took off in the old red truck, with “sample tires” bouncing in the back bed.
Walking back to the kitchen, I shook my head. It was a few minutes after 11:00am and I wondered if the bosses would be gone for lunch if the boys dawdled. I knew Bill, or “Mr. D”, but only vaguely for some charity stuff – more like we knew OF each other. On a whim, I called his office, spoke to his secretary, and told her about the boys’ plan, profitability, etc. She put me on hold. A few minutes later, Bill or Robert came on the phone, laughing. I started to explain, but he cut me off, “Don’t worry mom, I got this one. I can’t wait to meet these two.” The way he said it…., I wasn’t sure if it was good or bad.
Their meeting went quite well. The boys ended up going to lunch at the local country club with several other bosses. They were introduced as a “new business opportunity”. Of course, the boys felt very important. In the end, they were hired to work in the plant for the summer, on the loading docks, but still a favorite of the big bosses. Not exactly what they envisioned, but they did land a job. For the next week, I acted as a broker, selling used tires out of the end of the driveway. I took a commission, $1/tire.
Today, I look back on the episode and still try to figure out what was the right call to make? Was Susan right in letting Eric perish? Was I right in calling the Dunlop plant? Would it have been better to let them fail all the way round? It’s hard, especially for a mom to let the kids fail, but sometimes, failing teaches them so much more. Dads are much better at making these decisions.