jen briggs

My children and I have very parallel lives. One is an entrepreneur, one is a corporate employee, one is an elementary school teacher. Education, entrepreneurship, and corporate resourcing and commerce. Toward the end of the 2018 school year, I was able to accompany my teacher-adult-child to her class. She happens to teach in an area of Colorado, USA, that has one of the highest poverty rates at nearly 40% according to datausa.

In comparison, according to the same database, the US has a poverty rate of 14%; San Francisco, CA at 10.1%; and Birmingham, AL at 20.4% (data reported on August 7, 2018). This location also has about a quarter of the population as non-English primary language and a non-white majority of about 51%. The median household income is about $28,000. In full disclosure, my children are all now adults and are mixed culture white (European) and Hispanic (Spanish, El Salvadoran, Mexican, and Native American).

Why am I sharing this? Because it is crucial – many of us are now world families, and regardless of the news reports from Wall Street, we have American areas that have opportunities to emerge from poverty. Depending on where you live, you may or may not see experience this economic divide, but understanding it is vital for our collective future economic success as a nation and beyond.

Most of the children don’t have the opportunity to travel and due to the rural nature of this school, their view of the rest of the world is relatively filtered through whatever media comes through their homes. I’ve intentionally tried to bring some of my experiences to their lives. I believe that travel, diverse interests, and diverse relationships bring us to a fuller life. During this particular visit, they were able to ask me questions about how I work, where I work, and how I came to do what I do. But, my interest was in them. Our public education system is critical to the future success of our businesses and the economic system in general. My question to them was, “If adults could do one thing differently, what would it be?” Here is their advice to all of us:

• Talk better than other people
• Be more of a leader and not a follower as they [adults] spend money for stuff
• I think teachers could teach a little harder stuff
• Make adults think really, really hard and make up better rules
• Make being a scientist better
• Stop giving us stuff, so we can do something that will matter
• Spend time with kids because they won’t be with you all your life because time flys
• Be happy, not mad
• To never be mean because you will lose your job
• To not stress so much
• To spend more time with your family
• Read to children every night until they get into 6th grade
• Take electronics away from kids
• Make cigarettes less addictive
• Spend time being better parents
• Listen better

At a time where displaying strong, healthy, daily character is no longer en vogue, our kids want it. They crave it. Each of these things could be broadly classified as being a positive self-leader. Regardless of our jobs, titles in business, and roles in commerce – we, adults, are always leaders. Their eyes are on us. We each have an obligation to display great character. What we all want from our future will be manifested through our children. These kids inspired me and continue to inspire me today through their strength, will, and desire for better. I hope they inspire you too. One goal for helping our democracy be better? Be responsible, high-character people. Our rights only come to us through our responsibilities. The long-term sustainably of our businesses depend on a supply chain of knowledge and talented people and our children matter to our future economic progress. We are, indeed, each other’s keeper.