Dan Smith met so many great families while interviewing for one of our July/August features, we couldn't fit them all in print. Here are 3 more families raising good kids and doing great things for our community.
(For our full feature on the families included, meet four great families included in print here.)
Dan Smith
Adam & Andrea Midkiff Family
For 36-year-old Adam and 34-year-old Andrea Midkiff, one of the more pronounced challenges in being a parent is time management. Their three children—Tomas, 10, Amalia, 11, and Sofia, 15—are heavily involved, especially in sports. Among them, they play hockey, lacrosse, soccer and gymnastics. Their practice and play schedules—sometimes out of town—often overlap. They’re all good students, so there’s homework to consider, as well.
“You won’t know what you’re getting into when you have kids,” says Andrea, a native of Chile. “There’s no manual.” And of course, there’s the “we didn’t plan any of our kids” aspect.
Life is family, though. Says a friend of Andrea’s, “She is the type of person who rises to the challenge of volunteering when she believes in a cause. When others bail out because it’s raining at the parade, she brings her kids and passes out festive swag to the other kids at the event so they have as much fun as her family.”
Sofia says her parents are “always there for sports, projects, whatever we’re doing.” Andrea says, “We like to spend time together and we have a rule about each of the siblings going to each other’s games when they can.”
Adam says Andrea brings the stability to the family. “I’m undisciplined,” he says. “Andrea is more … well … rigid. She never cuts corners, always gives her best.” They are more similar in their careers: both work at banks.
Electronic devices often separate the adults from the kids in the parent game. “We have a love-hate relationship with electronics,” says Andrea. “Sofia got a phone at 12 for field trips. It’s mainly a necessity; it lets us get in touch with the kids.” The rule is “that the phone is plugged up (shut down) at night,” says Amalia. And, of course, no phones at the table, where the family gathers for the evening meal, as seems so common among close families.
Communication is an emphasis for the Midkiffs. Her parents “are like an aunt and uncle: we can talk to them,” says Amalia. Andrea “didn’t have a great childhood” and understands the difficulty of being a child, she says. Adam “grew up in the Cleaver [1950s TV sitcom “Leave it to Beaver”] household and I found it hard to discuss things that were taboo because my parents were pretty traditional.”
The Midkiffs have one other vital, central rule, this one for emergencies. “Teens do what teens do,” says Adam. “We have an immunity rule. You won’t be in trouble if you call us for help.” That, of course, helps in the constant family battle for trust.
Paul & Lisa Workman Family
A good friend describes the Workmans as a “rare combination of throwback old-fashioned values and true progressive spirit—and the boys are just amazing.”
The boys are Cort and Reid, 8-year-old twins, and Pierce, 11. Paul, 43, and Lisa, 42, raise their children on a 70-acre farm near Boones Mill, where they’ve lived since 2000. They’ve been married since they were still in college in 1996. Lisa is a psychology teacher at ECPI and Paul is an accounting supervisor for the City of Roanoke.
Paul and Lisa didn’t jump immediately into parenthood, which they believe may have a lot to do with their success at it. “We didn’t think, ‘Maybe we should have a kid,’” says Lisa. “We had a lot of fun as a single couple, traveling, backpacking and so forth until we were about 30. Then, we were ready for the next chapter.”
The kids added a “bright, fun” element to the family, says Paul, who advocates controlled “danger” for the boys. “We allow them free range,” over the farm’s acreage, he says. “They partner up because there are bears and coyotes on the property.”
Paul and Lisa occasionally disagree, at least partly because, “She has worked in juvenile probation/mental health and has seen more of the bad that can happen” than he.
The rural setting is conducive to family, says Lisa. “The pace of the city and the commute are not what we want, but here there is a sense of community; we know the neighbors and there are always people who will help.”
They reject internet, cable and cell phones at home for “fresh air, a garden, horses,” says Lisa. And there’s no patrolling ATV, says Paul, because “we prefer exercise. I like teaching the boys to forage, identify a plant and pick it.”
The boys are not just farm kids; they’re involved in the chess club, steel drumming and Odyssey of the Mind in their elementary school. “We’re not in a bubble,” says Lisa, “and it is comfortable.”
Some argue against being your children’s friend, but Lisa says, “you can be both. We set boundaries and require respect.” And, of course, there’s always the adventure of it all.
The Godfrey-Segelke Family
Basically, what we have here is family by committee. Autonomous committee members, but committee nonetheless.
Kristin Way Segelke is the grandmother who leads the pack. Laura and Thomas Godfrey live in Roanoke with their two girls and Peer Segelke and his wife Jennifer Hwei-Chung Jen (originally from Taiwan) live in Blacksburg with their three daughters. The Godfrey girls are Harper, 8, and Avery, 5; and the Segelke children are Bella, 7, Ana, 9, and Abi, 12.
There are more siblings in the Segelke family, but they either don’t live in this area, or don’t have kids. David Way, a merchandiser at Home Depot in Roanoke, is a childless uncle who lives in Roanoke and dotes on the girls and Hank and Craig Segelke, who have three children, live in Texas.
This is a wildly accomplished family. Laura works for a Silicon Valley start-up and owned three businesses in Roanoke, while Peer is the CEO at Lawrence Transportation. Laura has been active internationally in working with land mine victims and here in hiring women recovering from addiction. Peer worked with Human Rights Watch in Cambodia and D.C. and has also been active in land mine dangers. Jen has been deeply involved in environmental issues.
Kristin sets the tone. “I respect my children,” she says. “They parent the same, but differently. David has always been helpful.” He “has the biggest heart of anybody I know,” says Laura and “he’s always there,” says Kristin.
Respect, insists, Kristin, “begins with respect for yourself.”
“Mom emphasized education,” says Laura, especially “experiential learning.” They are world travelers, Laura going to school in a small village in France when she was 11. The family shares a house in a French village of 80 people that is 700 years old. “It’s part of the education,” says Laura.
Laura has gone to culinary school in France and “Peer studied business in France, too,” she says.
Kristin admits that “I don’t believe my parents taught me about social responsibility,” but the strain is strong in her kids and likely will be with her grandchildren, as well. She is, however, from a family of entrepreneurs and that gene has passed strongly along.
Children, says Laura, “are born the way they are. We have some influence, but my two are very different. We like to let them choose their own paths.”
The family, says Peer, is “very international, multi-cultural, inquisitive and autodidactic.” That diversity is at the very core of the family’s success with kids.