I came home last Tuesday to the news that my wife had dismissed our nanny. I was not aware this was about to happen. There was no replacement, save her and me for at least two weeks. Oh.
A scheduled short vacation to our family condo in Clearwater Beach consumed some of these two weeks. And then came this Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. I was the nanny.
Life is a series of learning opportunities. Oh son did I learn over these past three days. Here’s what:
1) You can very easily go two days without noticing you have not showered, caring for your child.
2) Eating out with just your child and you is not much fun as you must juggle feeding him with one hand, wiping his slober, apologizing to the waitstaff for whatever he throws on the floor, soaking up the water he will inevitably knock over, and then eating your now cold food as quickly as you can to intercept his next mischievous act.
3) The playground is the greatest place in the world!
- Lucas brawled my son Luke MMA style on the play swing.
- Jackson taught me that it takes 7 days to fly to Vietnam and 5 to Ireland.
- You can buy homemade chocolate chip cookies.
- Kiera asked me what I want to be when I grow up.
- There is no utter of Ukraine, taxes, health care reform, the 2014 mid-term elections, the Fed nor pine tar suspensions.
How do stores stay in business when there are places like playgrounds?
**One warning for dads- other moms will look at you funny if you have not changed your boy out of his pajamas by 3PM.
4) Children are superheroes as this relates to the danger they can get themselves into in under 2 seconds. This makes trading while responsibly watching your kid impossible. Except while they nap, which unfortunately for the trader is what you want to be doing after hawking them and not watching screens with fast moving numbers.
5) It is harder to take one trade, one bad day, one bad month too hard after you spend time away from work with your child.
Trading is a privilege but it is also just a silly game that helps us mostly learn more about ourselves so we can be more helpful to others, like our kids.
6) The greatest trade ever is: selling your focus on work for buying your focus to make your child laugh/smile. There is nothing more awesome than the laughter on your own child.
7) BREAKING NEWS……A majority of upper west side nannies are bullish on $AAPL. “All the kids have iPads and know how to use them,” said one well-placed source.
Live well!
You can be better tomorrow than you are today!
Mike Bellafiore is the Co-Founder of SMB Capital and SMBU, which provides trading education in stocks, options, forex and futures. Bella is the author of One Good Trade and The PlayBook.
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2 Comments on “Lessons from my Adventures as a Nanny Trader”
My son is slightly older than yours Mike and a lot of points you mention ring true for me as well. Since having my son, I’ve spent more and more time working on auto trading strategies, to free up more of my time.
I particularly liked this line:
Trading is a privilege but it is also just a silly game that helps us
mostly learn more about ourselves so we can be more helpful to others,
like our kids.
Keep trading well and righting these blogs for us. But life is so much more than the next trade tick in whatever name you’re watching that day.
I spend more time thinking about the best way to use my time now that Luke is here. I really like your idea about doing more auto trading for dads like us 🙂 Thxs for the contribution Ross.