How billionaire mothers raise their children

There are women who do three difficult things at the same time: being a mother, getting rich and single-handedly building a career. What can we learn from them?

No matter how modern and advanced the world is, women are always surrounded by difficulties. Being a mother is difficult, getting rich is not easy for women, raising children while getting rich and maintaining the family business through generations is extremely difficult.

Yet according to Forbes, nearly 350 billion USD is in the hands of 79 such mothers, including 13 female billionaires who built their fortunes almost from scratch. One of their characteristics is that they give birth to children, make a lot of money and even contribute to the lives of young millionaires.

Billionaire mother, strong woman in business

The list of self-made billionaire mothers is not long, so it is easy to remember the names. Meg Whitman is the woman who heads the auction website Ebay, Mrs. Guiliana Benetton owns the famous fashion brand Benetton Group SpA, Rosalia Mera founded the clothing brand Zara or Doris Fisher, who founded the brand The Gap.

There are female billionaires with a lot of money and a lot of children. Diane Hendricks has a fortune of 2.2 billion USD with 6 children and the richest woman in Asia, Savitri Jindal, the boss of the steel and electricity corporation OP Jindal Group, has 9 children, the most of any mother on this list.

Why is it that the world has more than 3,000 dollar billionaires while the number of women mentioned above is only in the dozens? The reason is very easy to understand: Doing that is not... easy! It takes too much time, perseverance and enthusiasm to reach the goal. Among them, the responsibility of raising a family is still the heaviest because it is constantly prolonged and because of it, the initiative of women as mothers is always threatened to be broken.

Billionaire Diane Hendricks further explained this difficulty: "A business can go bankrupt but there is still hope of rebuilding it, but once a home is broken, there is not much chance of recovery; if it is lucky enough to save some of it, the scars on life are too great."

That scar has been the case for the world’s second-richest mother, billionaire Liliane Bettencourt, who runs the French cosmetics empire L’Oreal. She and her heiress daughter once sued each other over money. Although they eventually made up on Mother’s Day, Liliane’s enthusiasm for wealth has waned.

At 70, Diane still lives by a few simple rules: “work a lot, balance a lot, let the chaos come and find a way to adjust it.” She always prioritizes her family. Her 7 grown children, now aged 35 to 55, are helping her run the business, but every time she leaves the office, she still cooks a meal for the whole family and waits for all members to be present to eat together.

In Vietnam we also have strong women like that.

The recently deceased wealthy woman from Binh Dinh, Nguyen Thi Huong (Tu Huong), only finished 5th grade, grew up in hardship, worked as a maid, learned sewing, and sold goods. However, starting from trading seafood, agarwood, and wood, she single-handedly built a huge business with deals that earned millions of dollars, then expanded her business to many industries, from real estate, hotel tourism, banking and finance to advertising and media, and education.

Her sons, daughters, and sons-in-law are now all leaders in the family business network. “Emotional but strict and disciplined and with a strong personality,” people often say about her.

That is also the story of "Old Lady Bao Tin" Luong Thi Diem, a Hanoi woman who created the Bao Tin gold brand, and at an old age, still sticks with every step of the industry's development.

Her children are now all successful with a series of famous gold products such as Bao Tin Minh Chau, Bao Tin Hong Quan, Bao Tin Manh Hai, Bao Tin Thanh Van, Bao Tin Hoang Long. The secret of this nearly 80-year-old business mother is condensed into 4 T words: heart - trust - talent - money. When asked how her children are successful today, she only emphasizes one word: trust.

These are mothers who venture into the business world. There are also mothers who choose their home as their “business battlefield”, meaning they stay home to raise and care for their children and take care of the family, but money still flows in. These are the pioneers of the new mother model: getting rich right at home.

The peace of the family environment has helped them to spark creative ideas for their careers. They can come from the moments when they are doing their duty as mothers taking care of their children, from the needs of their own children in the house or from the dreams in the relaxing moments between the housework.

Sarah Blakely is now worth $1 billion thanks to launching Spanx, a shapewear line that she started because she felt uncomfortable wearing while doing housework.

Billionaire Debra Cohen, wanting to “get her hands dirty” and do something to fill the time while her children were sleeping, renovated everything in her house. Then her business took off, becoming the home improvement contractor Home Remedies® worth $3.5 billion before she knew it.

Noticing that her children often forgot their keys, mother Sandy Stein became a millionaire when she invented the Finders Key Purse, a smart keychain that can be hooked to a handbag and helps users get their keys quickly without having to rummage through their pockets.

While putting her children to sleep, Stephenie Meyer, a dreamy mother, spun the love story Twilight, a love story between a human and a vampire, into her head. The novel was turned into a movie that brought Meyer and her children $125 million.

Mother, the support that makes billionaires

When they are not wealthy women, mothers are the ones who “create” billionaires. Sometimes they are the inspiration, the motivating factor or actively understand and create conditions for their children to develop into super-rich people. 100% of self-made millionaires have a successful mentor while none of the poor have.

Harry Potter author JKRowling's $1 billion fortune comes largely from the characters in her books that mimic her mother Anne's 10-year battle with multiple sclerosis and multiple personalities. eBay mogul Meg Whitman uses her mother as a role model to raise her children and build her wealth.

"Since I was a child, my mother always encouraged me to be a doer," she told Forbes. "She said that anything worth doing is difficult, but if you don't try, you will never know what you are capable of."

Bill Gates

Bill Gates became the world's number 1 billionaire thanks to his mother's thriftiness in buying him a rudimentary "computer" and introducing him to writing software programs for Opel. Gates's spirit of volunteering was also "fed" by his mother from a young age. Larry Page, the founder of Google, was also taught programming by his mother at the age of 6. And Elon Musk, the father of future technology programs such as PayPal, SpaceX, Tesla Motors... became a billionaire thanks to his mother's "force" to read at least two science fiction books every month.

The list of future world dollar billionaires is expected to be even longer. Because ordinary mothers have contributed to the creation of billionaires, let alone those mothers who are female billionaires!

According to TNO