This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with John Caudwell, the British billionaire founder of mobile phone businesses Phones 4u and Singlepoint, both of which he sold. Caudwell is raising three children with his partner, former Olympian Modesta Vžesniauskaitė, and now focuses on his childrens’ charities and real estate investing. The following has been edited for length and clarity.
My family life is very dynamic. I have eight children, one of whom I’m the stepfather to. My youngest kids are 2 and 5 years old, and my oldest is 47.
I grew up in a little terraced house in the middle of Stoke-on-Trent, and I had next to nothing. I don’t want my kids to have next to nothing, but I don’t want to overcorrect the way that some rich people do.
For my older kids, when I was building my businesses, there was less time on a day-to-day basis, but it was quality time. I’ve always made quality time an absolute priority: almost never missing a sports day or prize-giving, things that were important.
Now, we do most of the parenting and don’t have nannies. I have two housekeepers who help out, but school is the real answer, from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. That gives them discipline, entertainment, interest, and education.
Flying economy and shopping at Primark
Everybody wants to be spoiled, but it’s very important that we keep our kids’ feet on the ground, so we are very controlled about how we approach luxury.
For instance, when we go on the superyacht for a family holiday, that’s mainly a treat for me. The adult children have to make their own way to the boat. The younger ones travel in economy with Modesta — I’ll take business class most of the time — and we take the budget airline easyJet. We have to demonstrate to them what normal life is like.
They have virtually no designer clothes — maybe some that they got as presents, but we buy them clothes from Zara and Primark. If you go to Gucci and pay a thousand pounds, are the kids any happier? No, they’re not. Do they end up having a very spoiled attitude? Yeah, they probably do.
When we take them to a restaurant, they’ll have chicken nuggets and chips, and the younger ones share a plate. I hate wasting food. I always remember, when one of my daughters was young, we went to a restaurant, and she asked, “Daddy, would you really mind on this occasion if I had steak and chips?” You see kids out there just ordering lobster, and my kids would never dream of it.
When it comes to spoiling, one early mistake we made was buying them too much at Christmas. Not expensive gifts, but too many of them. They’d scramble through all the boxes and end up playing with a cardboard box. Now, we take a much more frugal approach; two or three Christmas presents are more than enough.
Our financial support is a very frugal help line that encourages them to achieve their own success. It supports them while they’re in school so they can focus on being good students. It doesn’t pay for them to go out to nightclubs or have expensive meals. My support is very much related to the effort they put into their lives.
My adult children are all busy making their own careers. One of my daughters is a psychotherapist, one works in real estate, and another works at a bank. One of my sons is a musician, writing and producing songs, and another is getting his real estate license.
The golden rule
The one thing I always do is that no matter what happens in your child’s life, you’re constantly telling them you love them.
No matter how much I have to punish them, it’s always followed by, “Well, of course, I love you, darling. I love you very much, but I have to discipline you because you have to grow up to be meaningful, good people.”
That’s been consistent: I don’t really want anything from them in life other than for them to be happy and leave the world a better place than they found it.
What does it matter if they’re rich, if they’re unhappy? What does it matter if they’re an Olympian, if they’re unhappy?
If every kid could grow up to aspire to those goals, which of course is very difficult to achieve, what a wonderful life for our children, but also what a wonderful place for the world to be.
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