My daughter revealed highly personal info about our business.

[Batya33]

18 minutes ago, DragonFlute said:

1) I simply do not see how I overreacted.

2) It may not be a profitable business--yet--but it is viable. My wife and I are new to entrepreneuriship and we are still learning.

3) My children help, yes, but 1) We clearly don't make enough in revenue to pay anyone, including ourselves, and 2) If we began making money, we would pay our children, but it would be part-time pay, which exceeds the amount of work they do in the first place.

OK I see that we are not on the same wavelength.  Obviously you're ignoring that if you don't make enough money to pay anyone after all this time stop using your kids as unpaid labor.  Among other things you're in denial about. 

It's a shame -you seem intelligent/educated and with the motivation anyway to work really hard and you've likely worked very hard at various things including parenting for many years.  But you're lacking the ability to have some humility, to be measured in your response to this incident, to delve deeper even if it means realizing your part in this unfortunate situation.  Your rigidity and black/white responses and setting up of strawmen arguments isn't consistent with being the parent and role models for their kids they really need. 

I'm actually making my son do unpaid labor for the next few weeks -he's 14 and paying jobs are hard to come by/he doesn't need the $/plus the ones available aren't really appropriate for him given his age etc.  So he's again a counselor in training at a camp which he did at another camp last summer. 

But I am doing it "for" his benefit even though there is no $$ benefit and I've told him the benefits: being outdoors and active and among his peers in this leadership program, building his resume with consistent summer gigs which will help him get either paying jobs or internships in high school (counselor is not his favorite but he works hard and does a good job), and I was honest that we have work to do and we don't want him sitting around looking at screens too much.

And I told him it's only 3 weeks not the whole summer.  What benefits is your 18 year old getting? No money.  Putting this on a resume is iffy since if they delve deeper the fact that she worked all those hours for basically a hobby won't really look great and references from a parent already are biased. 

And if she's asking for advice of this sort she knows she's involved in a sinking ship and if it wasn't that she is your daughter my sense is she would have quit a long time ago -understandably! I've been asked a number of times to "invest" in the sort of business venture you have - or to act as an unpaid consultant - um - nope.  I'm happy to chat by phone and give advice, happy to refer potential clients or customers if I feel the business is viable and worthwhile - but why would I do volunteer work for an individual entrepreneur in my "free" time let alone give money?

Your daughter could be working at a local retail establishment or store making an hourly wage at least.  At 18 I believe I did summer temping as a receptionist and prior to that worked at a famous doughnut chain part time during high school.  My older sister actually did do some work for my dad - it was paid.  And she wanted to.  

I can sleep at night knowing that at 14 this is a good opportunity for him even though taking care of kids is not his favorite.  And he knows from the past that if he is mistreated at this camp I have his back totally (hasn't ever happened but he knows).  Your employment of your kids is far too selfish/self-absorbed in my opinion and it's really over the top that after your daughter made these sacrifices for  you she gets raked over the coals for what she posted.  Really???

[Wiseman2]

13 hours ago, DragonFlute said:

A few months ago, my daughter (18F) went on a t-shirt merchant forum and wrote a post about our business, asking people to take a look and give advice. 

What advice did they offer? Sounds like your daughter did the right thing asking for  outside help to see if chronically losing money on this venture is normal after 3 years.

[Seraphim]

This isn’t a business venture . I have had my business since Sept 2018 and I have made six figures before deductions. 
 

What you said to your daughter is disgusting. 

[Lambert]

13 hours ago, DragonFlute said:

Was that too harsh? The worst thing is, we can't even erase the post as posts made after a few days are permanent on the website. My wife and I are seriously considering closing up shop because the brand name is tarnished––anyone can easily look it up and find that humiliating info.

I think to say you lost respect for her was over the line. Yes, she used poor judgment but she did have good intentions. 

You're the adult. you should be able to control yourself and your words better. She embarrassed you, so you hurt her back.  How was that helpful? 

I think its a little dramatic to say your brand is tarnished. The fact is $100 in two years, it's not an established brand. 

I think the better way to look at this is- did anyone provide some advice that you can use? 

I would focus more on repairing your relationship with your daughter than your hobby. 

[Lambert]

13 hours ago, DragonFlute said:

This shows me I can't trust her and it calls into question her judgment, thus the "respect" comment. 

You are the parent. if she shows poor judgment, you have to look at what you've taught her and shown her about using good judgment.

[Batya33]

9 minutes ago, Lambert said:

You are the parent. if she shows poor judgment, you have to look at what you've taught her and shown her about using good judgment.

Yes I am a fan of that too from a balanced perspective -as a parent I refuse to take all blame or all credit -with rare exceptions.  In this situation I agree with all posters that say -it was a mistake, it did show some poor judgment balanced against -it's likely a "cry for help", it was done with good intentions, it was done because the parent burdened the child with too much sensitive financial info.

 

[HeritageDad]

1 hour ago, Wiseman2 said:

What advice did they offer? Sounds like your daughter did the right thing asking for  outside help to see if chronically losing money on this venture is normal after 3 years.

They said our brand is all over the place. (We have many different ideas, so we split our t-shirts into various categories so people can quickly find the themes that they want.)

They said our visual content looked outdated. 

My daughter explained in the post that we can't do away with designs/t-shirts because we spent so much money on them from illustrators (some of them up to $300-400 to pay for an illustration), but people ignored that and said do away with them anyway because "no one wants them", despite the obvious of my daughter asking for marketing advice, so we don't even know if anyone wants them yet.

Other marketing advice...online ads, which we've tried before. Trade shows, which we can't do, because we rely on a print-on-demand printer, not an at-home press.

[Jibralta]

14 hours ago, DragonFlute said:

We tell our children practically everything about the ins and outs of our business. I would expect her to have more discretion on what she reveals to the public about our business. This shows me I can't trust her and it calls into question her judgment, thus the "respect" comment. I don't know if she was angry or resentful while making her post, but it's so unnecessary and humiliating. 

It's unrealistic and naïve of you to expect a child to exercise adult discretion, even if she's been homeschooled by you personally. Children are inexperienced and untried. Even more so when they've been homeschooled. 

You disclosed business information to her in an attempt to teach her, which is great. But it blurred the lines of her role vs your role. Also, I suspect that while talking to her about the business you also expressed your disappointment with its poor performance. I am sure your daughter was only trying to help you when she reached out to others for help. Given her degree of involvement in the business, she probably felt that this was as much her company as it was yours, and that it was her responsibility to help.

You really sound like a sore loser, criticizing her when your own plans have backfired on you. I'm sure this unfairness is not lost on your children. I think it would be best for you to swallow your hurt pride, learn from these mistakes, and do better next time. Don't be a sore loser. Set a good example for your kids.

[Crawfords Wine]

14 hours ago, DragonFlute said:

 

That she disclosed that the business isn't doing well. We pay designers out of pocket from our day job earnings. Aside from that, we can't afford to pay ourselves, including our children.

 

You do not have 'a business'. You have an expensive hobby, at best.

 

[Jaunty]

11 hours ago, Kwothe28 said:

What business? People earn more on daily basis then you earned in 2 years.

In some states in the USA, people with minimum wage earn more than $100 in ONE DAY.