Your Child Is Not Your Second Startup

Read time: 2 minutes

Welcome to issue #047 of Unicorn Parents. Each week, I share practical insights and reflections to help you build a profitable business without missing the magic at home. If you’re serious about winning at work while raising great kids, you’ve come to the right place. This is a community built for ambitious parents who want both.

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Juggling ain’t easy.
It’s stressful.

Especially switching from founder mode to parent mode, and back again.

I’ve been juggling and switching, back and forth, my whole life:

• Korean and English

• Sacred and secular

• Investor and founder

Switching identities is exhausting.
It creates inefficiencies.
You’re constantly fighting inertia.

So most people will tell you not to juggle at all.
Not roles,
not identities,
not priorities.

“Just focus on one thing.”

But as Unicorn Parents…
what choice do we have?

We’re building companies and raising humans.
We’re holding ambition in one hand and responsibility in the other.
There’s no pause or opt-out button.

So…we juggle.

Founder mode is incredibly effective.
It’s analytical.
Goal-driven.
Outcome-oriented.

It works beautifully in business.

But when founder mode bleeds into parenting, something ugly happens.

Your child becomes a roadmap.
A trajectory.
A set of milestones to hit.

You start asking questions that sound loving YET feel like pressure:

• Are we maximizing their potential?

• Are we early enough?

• Are they falling behind?

That’s when a child stops being a person…
and slowly becomes a project.

Not because you don’t love them.
But because optimization is the language you’re fluent in.

I’ve seen this pattern up close.

Years ago, I worked with LSAT students.
My “best” clients (on paper) were the ones whose parents were lawyers and wanted their kids to also become lawyers.

Not because the kids loved the law.
But because the family did.

Law firm.
Legacy.
Continuity.

The parents were generous.
Supportive.
Involved.

And almost always, they “knew” what was best.

But it quietly broke my heart.

The more the path was predetermined, the less alive the student became.

Motivation thinned.
Curiosity faded.
Anxiety crept in.
Not from difficulty, but from lack of ownership.

Kids weren’t choosing anymore.
They were complying.

That’s when it dawned on me:

Parents don’t usually crush their children’s freedom through control.
They do it through certainty.

We think we know what’s best.
So we stop listening.

And the moment we stop listening,
we stop parenting and start directing.

Which brings us to the hardest truth of all:

Our children are not ours.

We don’t own their futures.
We don’t get to script their calling.
We are stewards, temporarily entrusted with nurturing them.

They are unique souls.
With agency.
With desire.
With free will.

And free will is fragile.

It doesn’t need to be shattered to be corrupted.
It only needs to be overmanaged.

Your child doesn’t need a CEO.
They need a parent.

Startups are built forward.
Children are discovered.

One rewards acceleration.
The other requires presence.

And unlike companies, children don’t scale.
They respond.

So yes, juggling is unavoidable.

But let’s not treat our children as our second startup.

When we stop trying to manage them…
they (and we) begin to grow.

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