We recently launched The Honest Company a family brand focused on diapering, cleaning, and skin/bath care needs of the modern household, and it’s been an absolutely tremendous learning experience getting from dream to fruition (and we’re still learning every day!).  It’s also been really interesting to see how skills we’ve developed as parents have translated into skills for successfully creating a business.

Interested in becoming a parentpreneur? You are probably more equipped than you think! Here are three essential tips we’ve learned:

1. Being a parent means putting your children and their well-being first, and having to put yourself second.   It’s never solely about your interests; it’s about the company and every decision we make is from the point of view of how to best serve Honest.  Therefore, being comfortable putting another’s interest above your own is something all parents and successful entrepreneurs have in common and both do on a daily basis.
2. You have to multitask as a parent to get anything done…from preparing breakfast and lunch at the same time as you’re getting your kids dressed and leaving for school, to giving them baths at the same time you’re preparing for dinner, and more. When you’re starting a new business, you’re doing 50 different things at once and you’re wearing many hats (too many most of the time). Parents can’t stop halfway through making their kids lunch or drop them off half way to school, just like in business you can’t start 50 things and not complete any of them.  Multitasking is key, and doing it well is an art we both dream of doing more effectively one day.
3. Finally, we firmly believe that a huge portion of business is in the particulars of relationships.  How you approach and manage the relationship with your child (with care, honesty, authenticity, grace, patience, fun, and yes professionalism) are all all key attributes in business too.  People will decide if they want to do business with you fairly quickly, and a very large reason they’ll commit to the opportunity is based on you and how you positively manage that relationship.  Good luck…and never give up!

What other parenting skills and experiences do you think translate to running a business or even being successful in any career?

A couple of weeks ago, The New York Times ran an article, “Puberty Before Age 10: A New Normal?” that begins with a story about a young girl hitting puberty at age six. After struggling to understand her daughter’s early development, the mother writes:

It might be the hormones in meat and milk, it might be pesticides, it might be flame retardants, it might be the plastic Playtex insert baby bottles we microwaved when she was a baby, it might be eating more protein than our ancestors, it could be anything. Or it’s possible that it is none of these things.Either way, it is what it is, we’re not likely to stop it, at least not before this crop of girls develop into teenagers. The only thing to do is accept it, and dare I say, even embrace it.

As parents to still very young daughters, all of this has really struck a chord. We’re already doing our best to avoid exposure to toxic chemicals linked to hormone disruption and to live a healthy life in general – but we also know enough about health and biology to know there’s a lot beyond our control.

We got to thinking, what if one of our daughters ends up in the fast-lane of development? Would we have the grace to “embrace it” like the mother in the article recommends?

What would you do?

What do you think of this shift in female development?

(P.S. We only touched on one facet of the NYT’s article – it’s really a great read if you have five minutes!)

What would you do if you had to choose between food or diapers for your child? In the United States, one in three mothers have had to make that choice.

According to The Every Little Bottom: study conducted by Abt SRBI Inc.

• One in three mothers in the U.S. have had to cut back on essentials such as food, basic care products, and utilities like heat and electricity in order to provide diapers for their babies.
• Mothers who cannot afford diapers report having to miss work, since most child care facilities require a day’s worth of diapers – leading to missed wages and continuing the diaper need cycle.
• Mothers without enough diapers attempt to reuse soiled diapers, extend the time the baby is in a dirty diaper, and other measures that affect the health and well-being of the child and the mental and emotional distress of the mother.

If you think cloth diapers are the answer, you must first understand that many child-care facilities won’t deal with them, many laundromats don’t permit them, and that they have a considerably high upfront investment cost.

So, what can we do?

U.S. Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro is trying to address diaper need by introducing the Diaper Investment and Aid to Promote Economic Recovery (DIAPER) Act, which would amend the Child Care and Development Block Grant of 1990 to allow federal funding already granted to states to subsidize child care for low-income working families to be used for diapers and diapering supplies.

This bill requires NO extra money in the federal budget. It simply amends the language to make the purchase of diapers and diapering supplies an acceptable use of the existing funds.

We believe that no child, regardless of his/her family’s socioeconomic status, should ever be without diapers and no parent should have to choose between basic necessities for their child. Each one of us can do something to help.

Here’s what you can do today:

• Support the DIAPER Act by signing this petitionfrom our friends at Help A Mother Out.
• Find a local charity, like Baby2Baby, and donate diapers and other essentials for families in need. (We love Baby2Baby! They help almost 50,000 children annually and donated 200,000 diapers last year!)
• Host a Diaper Drive using this tool kit.

Recently, we heard from a mom who was struggling to learn about what ingredients were used in her daughter’s diaper. She had contacted the major manufacturer and the response was close to this:  “we can’t share the ingredients because it’s a trade secret, but if your doctor sends us a letter outlining your child’s allergies, we can let you know if there’s anything that might trigger a reaction.”

Huh??

With an increasing population of children with conditions like allergies, chemical sensitivities, behavioral disorders, and celiac disease how can this still be the case? If you use a product and your child has a severe reaction and needs immediate medical attention, how can health professionals adequately respond if they don’t know what exactly the child may have been exposed to?

In addition to the potential immediate, acute reactions, what about the growing population of parents trying to avoid toxic chemicals?

We’ve had ingredients labels on food and pharmaceuticals for decades (though even those aren’t always as transparent as we’d like – thus, the need for things like labels to let us know if there’s ‘pink slime’ in our meat  or genetically modified organisms in our food.) But, what about everything else we surround ourselves with?

What do you think? Do you have a right-to-know?

One thing we feel passionately about is United States chemical regulatory reformation.  Right now, please get involved by learning more and signing the petition telling Congress to take action on the Safe Chemicals Act! Please sign & share!

Every generation of parents has its own challenges to grapple with, but doesn’t it seem like parenting today is much more complicated than ever before? If nothing else, there’s just so much more information and it’s hard to know what’s what and how to prioritize it all.  There’s no shortage of opinions about what you should or should not be doing. (On that note – is it just us, or does it seem like parents are getting more critical of one another these days too?)

But, one thing you can be certain has always been true: as a parent, sometimes you have to compromise.

You can have the grandest expectations and intentions, but life has a way of getting in the way. Reality can trip you up in so many different ways: sleep deprivation, illness, long work hours, tight budgets, lack of time  – some days the obstacles may seem endless. And, the to-do list keeps growing.

But, you know what? It’s okay. It’s normal. It’s human. You can stop being critical of yourself – we can’t do everything.

Which leaves us with a few questions that we’d love to hear from you about:

1. What are your secret tricks on how to prioritize and find a nice balance?
2. How do you resolve your flaws, mistakes, and family imperfections?
3. What’s the best ways you’ve discovered to teach this to your children?