Saga of a Small Business Owner

By Rebecca Angel Maxwell

Honest Weight’s shelves are filled with products from our community. I have the utmost respect for local businesses due to my own experiences. I’ve dreamed of, attempted to, and run my own businesses, throughout my life with varying success. As a result of my many failures and knowledge of how many “hats” one has to wear to be a small business owner, I do my best to patronize them. It takes the support of a community to be a successful small business owner.

At fourteen I read Clan of the Cave Bear and my takeaway was that herbalism was my calling. Fortunately, my father had an extensive library that included many books on nutrition, health, herbs, and natural healing. Unfortunately, he was in a Brooklyn apartment and I had zero clue how to grow anything. I ran an  herbal consultation business for my family that summer, and I remember making some phenomenal business cards “laminated” with tape. My father suggested I could do this as a future career path- getting a degree as a holistic doctor. That was overwhelming to me. I just wanted to make herbal teas. I started high school with the linear goal of college for a career I could not envision but surely would bring “success.” No one ever suggested starting my own business or varying from that linear path.

A few years later I was a young mother trying to find gentle and effective healing remedies for my baby girl. I asked my dad for some of those natural healing books, bought my own, and got into essential oils. For Christmas presents, I made perfumes, body oils, and medicinal “rubs” for everyone. The spark of wanting to start a business went off, especially as I was an at-home mom, but what did I know about running a business? I went so far as to shyly ask a local natural food shop if they would sell essential oil blends I made. The owner said, “Yes.” I crafted several blends, made labels…and never returned. It stayed as a way to care for my family and friends.

As I continued to stay home with my, now two, kids, but without a college degree, the choices of jobs were limited to minimum wage, which would not cover the cost of childcare. With a husband as a graduate student, we were quickly going into debt. I attended a workshop at the local community college: How to Make Money and Still Stay Home with Your Kids. Luckily, it wasn’t a scam (those would come later), but one helpful woman’s tips. Many involved some start-up costs, which we didn’t have, and others involved being on the phone a lot, which I hated. Starting a retail business was not recommended- this was before a robust internet with the ease of selling online. 

In the next few years, I ran a part-time daycare out of my home, joined an MLM (multi-level marketing) company, wrote and submitted articles and short stories, started teaching music lessons, and began a music performance career. That last one involved me going out a couple of nights a week, but the main hours of composing, rehearsing, and communicating were at home. 

The MLM was a scam, and the music performance cost my family money, including being duped by a “manager”. The daycare should have made money but my clientele was poor and often couldn’t pay me even minimum wage. Writing cost me time if not money, and didn’t make enough to be considered anything but a hobby. Teaching was the only financial winner- to an extent. With my decision to homeschool my kids, teaching part-time continued as my main way of supplementing my husband’s income. 

By the time my children were in high school, I had a college degree in Music and an official creative arts teaching business with a partner called Out of the Box Creative Learning. We led classes, camps, and workshops all over the capital region. While we did get paid for our work, the amount of unpaid hours involved in teaching and running a business made the whole enterprise come out a wash. We closed after several years.

At the same time, my daughter was running her own art and body care businesses in shops, craft fairs, and online. She had no anxiety about this and bounced back from failures to learn and grow as a successful small business owner. My son started selling antique pewter and crystal figurines online bequeathed to him by his grandfather. Inspired to try retail, I tried to sell knit and crochet items. I did not find success in this venture because I used local beautiful yarn and my price to cover that cost was too high for the average buyer.  I wound up giving them all away for presents instead. .

I recently heard about something called the Passion Tax. This is when you “pay” to have a career in something you love. While there are many historical reasons for this, one notable example is Florence Nightingale, the mother of the nursing field. As forward-thinking as she was about medical safety (washing hands!) she was against women getting paid for their work. She believed it should be a “calling.” Not surprisingly she came from a wealthy family who supported her basic needs.

The double whammy is being a woman. Recent studies of wage and education (Pew Research and Census Bureau) found that traditional male jobs without a college degree or certificate ( manual  labor for example) pay more than the work women tend to do without a college degree (organizing and  caretaking for example). In order for women to make an equal amount in the workforce, they have to pay for more education. 

Now, here I am specifically talking about financial measures of success. I continued to perform my music for many years because it filled my soul. I still write because I love to tell stories. Teaching music and other creative arts is the lowest respected and paid teaching in this country. But the joy I receive from my students is immensely rewarding. The member work I do for Honest-Weight is more about believing in the community than the discount. I volunteer for my church for something other than financial measure. Even my failed craft business was still gratifying to spend time with my teenage daughter at fairs, or helping my son with his online shop. I can enjoy different measures of success because I am in a partnership with a spouse that has provided money to pay for housing, food, and health care.

While my husband has always been able to provide our basic needs, his career was not always stable either.  His was supposed to be the steady road: continue as far as you can with your education, be diligent, and get your secure-for-life job. But him following the status quo, and me forging my own way, were both full of challenges, twists, and heart-breaks. We have both been through times of unemployment and shared financial uncertainty. 

Our children have now graduated college with degrees in creative arts, but have chosen non-creative, financially stable jobs.  They continue passion projects as hobbies. My husband has stayed in his field despite no job security as of yet. 

All of my career choices were based on personal satisfaction and helping my family. 

That’s the Passion Tax and the gender equality problem. Add being a mother and I see now how limited I was. Is it possible to be a small financially successful business owner, love what you do, take care of your family, and be healthy? Not all alone. 

I am now teaching music part-time at a school. My first “job-job” as a friend calls it, with a steady paycheck. It’s the first time I only have to spend my time teaching, not running a business as well. While my children are independent adults, my disabled mother lives with us for caretaking. I, myself, have developed a chronic illness, but having stayed home with my kids and doing all those small businesses, I am not qualified for disability (I didn’t pay into the system). I still rely on my husband for financial security.

Do I regret not choosing more financially successful careers? At this point in my life, no. I’ve reaped the rewards of building community through music, teaching, helping my church and co-op, and spending the majority of my time with family and friends. I do wish I had been brave enough to launch my own essential oil business all those years ago. It seemed the riskiest move but I see the odds were so stacked against me no matter what I did, I may as well have taken a leap of faith and had fun along the way. I currently have a thriving herb and flower garden and make all sorts of teas, tonics, and healing oils for my family, friends, and colleagues. Who knows what I may try in the future.

While our general culture and institutions are not the foundations they advertise, we can always help each other through our purchases at Honest Weight.  I’ll keep looking for those “Local!” signs and support my small business neighbors and friends. They are brave and passionate and talented. Together we can be a community that both survives and thrives.

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