There I was, explaining the business plan and sales strategy for a thriving cocaine enterprise to my 7-year-old daughter. I feel like sourcing and partner alignment is key, I tell her. You’ll want to make sure you have good supply chain management with customer service in mind!
Watching television well past bedtime, my daughter Saoirse and I got caught up in Johnny Depp’s 2001 classic Blow. As you could imply from the name, viewers are taken on a based-on-true-events journey of an American drug kingpin who partners with the Colombian cartel in the late 1970s. Kind of like a mix between Bluey and Ms. Rachel.
Anyway, I can see that Saoirse has started taking an interest in the entrepreneurial spirit of our pro(an?)tagonist. One scene in particular grabs her attention. “That house is FULL of money,” she says (probably thinking about her recent education on U.S. bills and coin currency). “That’s a lot of George Washingtons!” I provide a short explainer on Benjamin Franklin, but she doesn’t care.
Then the onslaught of questions. How are they making so much money? Can you go to college for this career? What kind of benefit packages do they offer? She’s very money-motivated right now, and apparently leaving all options open. Of course, this is when I—the most responsible father in the world—conveyed the numerous reasons why this is not an optimal occupational path.
It’s illegal.
It’s dangerous.
I feel like the pay would be inconsistent. Maybe big deals every few months?
Most of the job seems remote. And working in office environments have shown to be good for younger, inexperienced employees.
Guns are often involved in your day-to-day work environment.
Team building might be lacking. There probably aren’t many breakroom birthday cakes or team outings to the bowling alley. Plus, you’d think the turnover would be high (pun intended).
And I reiterated the first point and tried closing the discussion, as I realized the other recommend parental steps here would be a) to have changed the channel when she entered the room or b) deferred the topic to a later age. But alas, I am nothing if not filterless, and I chose a more authentic route. And to my credit, we were watching a highly fricking edited version that didn’t show anything too darn graphic. But the themes are difficult to hide in a film entitled Blow set partly in Medellin in the 70s.
If you were to ask my wife, I think she feels I’m too uncensored around the kids. Not necessarily in the words I use, but more around heavy and complex topics. I suppose I’m of the mindset that clarity and understanding is paramount. But of course I do this without any conception or regard of knowledge development in human child brain, or how most of the bad stuff in this world could fuel nightmares for quite a while. That’s when I take a step back and let the experts (read: moms) take over.
But mom wasn’t around. And I did my best to tightwalk the finer points. I sensed she understood the main takeaways. But it wasn’t until the scene in which Depp’s character is separated from his young daughter in a DEA raid that I saw it click. There is a morale to this story and unfortunately a big sopping wet blanket on this career path option.
I give her a big hug on the couch, and I assess how I handled this situation. A C+ maybe. I’m nowhere close to perfect, but I hope she and all her sisters understand I tried my best in the moment.
I hope tomorrow’s classroom writing assignment is anything other than, “What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?”