Editor's note: Few parents can claim to be child-rearing professionals. In this occasional series, we show what people have learned about parenting from their day jobs. If you have other ideas for professionals to interview, let us know.
Levi Benkert quickly and succinctly summarized what his profession has taught him about child- rearing.
"Patience."
Benkert is a developer – the founder, with the late Jason Presley, of LJ Urban.
"Everything I do is a multiyear process," Benkert said. "Some of our first projects are still going on five years later."
A single project may require land acquisition, zoning changes, design, permitting, financing and construction.
Sometimes developers wait decades for projects to reach fruition.
Kids always take that long.
"With kids, you have to slow down and take the long view," Benkert said. You can't just do whatever it is you want to do with your kids right now.
"It's a very long, slow process," Benkert said. He was talking by phone from the California State Railroad Museum, where he had taken his children.
"It's not that you don't enjoy the process along the way," he added.
Benkert's children are 8, 4 and 2 years old.
He didn't start his development career with the long view.
"It was always going to be an instant dream," he said.
He quickly woke up from the instant dream and learned it takes patience to build something like LJ's "Good project" of single-family units in West Sacramento.
Like other developers, he's also learned how the economic downturn can interfere with plans.
That has helped him realize – in developing buildings and kids – to "focus now on what's going on right now."
How you treat kids in their formative years is critical to what kind of adults they will become.
The same is true of development. Benkert wants his developments to provide positive social results, not just profits.
LJ Urban's development philosophy is based on a concept of building communities and protecting the environment.
Having kids reinforces the idea that Benkert wants to be sure "that we're not just destroying the Earth and leaving a mess (for them) to clean up," he said.
So LJ Urban has focused on infill, sustainable building materials, energy efficiency and developments that foster community.
Developing (kids and homes) in the present. Thinking about the future.
Call The Bee's Carlos Alcalá, (916) 321-1987.
About Comments
Reader comments on Sacbee.com are the opinions of the writer, not The Sacramento Bee. If you see an objectionable comment, click the "report abuse" button below it. We will delete comments containing inappropriate links, obscenities, hate speech, and personal attacks. Flagrant or repeat violators will be banned. See more about comments here.