Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children, play is serious learning . . . Play is the real work of childhood.
—MISTER ROGERS
Leanne
Mister Rogers was from Pittsburgh. He was a big part of our youth and actually reminded me of my dad. His concept was simple—“I like you just the way you are”—and it rubbed off on our family. This was our family philosophy.
Many years of my childhood were spent playing school. This wasn’t just any old school; this was Michael R. Ford Elementary School. It was located where most childhood schools are located: in the basement.
My new best friend, Elisabeth Bartelsman, and I played Michael R. Ford Elementary School together for hours.
Not just hours. For years.
Michael R. Ford Elementary was named after my dad for one reason only: we used his personalized work stationery from his law practice. It was the thick kind, with his beautiful letterhead. So it made perfect sense to name the school after our stationery.
The school was for grades K–4. We had fifty make-believe students with fifty make-believe names. We had Samantha Rose and Robbie Bustoleum. Every student had a first name and a last name, and to us they all had unique personalities. “Oh, Samantha Rose is at it again! I really can’t get her to stop passing notes during class!” We would write out ten full spelling tests so we could correct ten spelling tests. We had a PTA that we may or may not have collected money from our real schoolteachers for. I think we collected nine dollars. We used my grandpa’s old chalkboard to teach lessons. (I still have that chalkboard. It made an appearance in Country Living magazine and in Steve’s house on season 2 of our show. Michael R. Ford Elementary lives on!)
We wanted an overhead projector badly. But when you’re in eighth grade, you can’t afford an overhead projector. So we made one. We used Mom’s makeup mirror, the glass from a picture frame, and a flashlight. And it worked! That was our projector; we called him “Ollie the Overhead.”
We shuttered the doors of the Michael R. Ford Elementary School at the end of high school because Mom wanted her laundry room back; she finally took the school down right before I went to college.
“You’re ruining my childhood, Mom!” I told her, only half joking. Somehow, she didn’t seem to care. Stone heart, I tell ya!
Steve
While Leanne was playing school, I was playing in the woods. The neighborhood we grew up in was around a lot of fairly new development. Homes were always being built on open lots and near wooded areas. So, between a group of houses, just across the street from mine, was a patch of woods.
I had a friend with a house right next to the woods, so we would be back there for hours. It was a perfect spot for a kid with an adventurous, imaginative spirit like me. It wasn’t too spacious, but it was just large enough for me to get a little lost in. I would go out there and get dirty and play in creeks and build dams. I’d built forts. I created a whole other world. Mom and Dad let me play out there for hours, totally unsupervised. They knew I was safe.
Unlike Leanne, who pretended to be at school even when she wasn’t at school, I didn’t like school; it just didn’t come natural to me. (Let’s just say that my English teachers from high school will be shocked when they find out that I helped write this book. But hey, here we are.) But—surprise, surprise—I loved shop class. I couldn’t be bothered with algebra or biology or academics in general, but I loved making things from nothing.
Shop class was a place in school where I excelled. And I really enjoyed home economics too. For some reason, I loved to sew, and I was good at it. I basically liked to do things with my hands.
In shop, I started out like everyone else, making a clock or a stool. But then we had the opportunity to make something that we wanted. I chose a skateboard. I ordered the trucks and the wheels, laminated five or six pieces of wood together, and painted the bottom. Threw some stickers on it. There it was: my own skateboard. It actually worked! That gave me a real sense of accomplishment.
In shop class, I could express myself in a way that felt natural. It’s the same today.
According to my mom, I never complained about going to school. I guess in elementary school I was the same person I am today. I had a job to do: get through each year all the way until I finished college. It’s funny because now, I basically live in a shop-class situation. I have an entire shop in my warehouse, and I love making things.
I wish I could go back and tell my fourteen-year-old self, “Hey, kid, don’t worry. You’re going to do what you love when you grow up.” My childhood prepared me for who I am now.
Leanne
By the way, Steve, when you weren’t around, I definitely went down and decorated the forts. And the tree house in the backyard. I was very stealthy about it. I’d sneak in, add a tablecloth and flowers, and pretend to put up curtains. We’d cut tree branches and place them in vases. When I was done playing, I would take everything down, removing all signs of ever being there.
Steve
That’s news to me! You made it a ladies’ clubhouse instead of a men’s clubhouse.
Leanne
I always related to Doris Day in Calamity Jane. The real Calamity Jane was a frontierswoman in the 1800s. She was a pioneer. In the movie, she was the only female character not wearing a dress. There’s a scene where Calamity Jane and her friend fix up her dingy cabin, all the while singing some chipper little tune. I related to this scene, knowing that any space, no matter how unfortunate, can be made into a home with the right touch. That’s my life: fixing up old places. And sometimes singing while doing it.
Steve
Look: I just liked being outside. I still do. I would be out in the woods until it was time to come in. My sisters would run down and call for me when it was dinnertime.
I’d pretend I was Indiana Jones. We would make trails. Get on our mountain bikes. Make jumps, bridges. I was always asking my parents for strong rope to make obstacle courses and to play with. I made a skateboarding ramp. Now, I don’t know that I built any good skateboarding ramps. I don’t even think I had tools, not even a hammer and a nail. But I would most certainly stack wood, logs, brick—any materials we could find—and my friends and I would try our hardest to skate on it.
I rode mountain bikes, and sometimes BMX bikes, a lot. Again, not well, but I loved it. My friends and I made dirt tracks for mountain bikes there in the woods too. There were no distractions out there. I was completely focused. I could have been miles away, yet I was just across the street. My favorite thing really was playing outside, creating and getting dirty.
Mountain biking stuck with me throughout my teenage years. When my friends were saving money for cars, I was saving money for a mountain bike. It was my gateway to other outdoor sports. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve just loved that thrill of racing down mountains as fast as you can. I have so many memories of my cousin Drew and me tossing our bikes in the back of my friend’s jeep and heading to a park or a mountain so we could ride down trails.
I guess your childhood does impact your future, because look at me now: I’m still playing in the dirt, still making stuff (with wood), and still biking.
Leanne
But as a rule, one thing we, the Ford kids, shouldn’t play is instruments. Man oh man. I can still remember when it was time for Steve to practice his saxophone. Ouch! I would run for the hills, covering my ears. Nooooo. And when I practiced the flute, same torture in the house. Michelle played her violin pretty well, but still, that’s not one of those instruments you only want to play “pretty well.” I don’t know how our parents survived three kids with zero musical ability trying their hands at every instrument they could get their hands on. They were saints; that’s the only explanation I can think of.
Dad’s best move was buying me a keyboard with preset songs on it. All you had to do was push a button and the keyboard played for you! I remember walking downstairs one Christmas morning to Dad sitting behind the keyboard, bopping up and down, pretending to play “House of the Rising Sun.” We may not have had any musical ability, but that wouldn’t stop us Fords from having stage presence!
I’m still playing for a living too—just not musical instruments. I’m still delegating, finding creative solutions, managing, problem-solving—just like I did at Michael R. Ford Elementary. Designing is my favorite creative outlet these days. And let me tell ya, designing is a lot of problem-solving. I’d say it’s at least 50 percent problem-solving, especially when you’re dealing with old houses. I’m not designing everything from scratch. I see situations and problems, and I’m always thinking: How do I adjust it? How do I fix it? What can I keep? What has to go? And yes, while problem-solving can absolutely be draining, some of my favorite designs were inspired by problems.
These creative problem-solving skills are skills I picked up along the way while playing. Acting out all of those roles in the Michael R. Ford Elementary School is probably what prepared me to become a CEO. Sound crazy?
Play—imaginary or with objects; or dirt and wood, in Steve’s case—helps kids develop problem-solving strategies at an early age; it allows kids to think about their toys, or their structures, or their imaginary friends and figure out how to solve problems. The more we give kids space to problem-solve on their own (with guidance if they need it, of course), the more they’ll be able to use their minds creatively.
In 2010, IBM interviewed more than fifteen hundred CEOs, asking them what makes a great leader. Sixty percent of participants said creativity.1
Creativity.
The word creative comes from the Latin word creare, which means “to bring forth.” There’s a lot of talk about how to be creative, about being creative as a career, as a lifestyle, as a brag-worthy attribute. But here’s the thing about it: creativity is not something you can buy or something you can workshop; you either have creativity in you or you don’t. And both are fine! But don’t fight it either way. If you’re a more analytical thinker, then great! We need you in this world. Don’t try to start making flower crowns ’cause it’s all the rage. If you’re naturally creative, then great! We need more of you too! Get creating. You won’t be satisfied sitting at a desk in a job that doesn’t thrill you.
Creativity doesn’t necessarily mean using a glue gun. (Though knowing how to use a glue gun is very useful, thank you very much.) Being creative in the workplace is about coming up with groundbreaking ideas. It’s about taking risks. It’s about originality.
In his book Originals, Adam Grant explains that limiting rules allows children to think for themselves.2 Additionally, he quotes Teresa Amabile, a Harvard psychologist, who stated in her extensive research on creativity that in one study, parents who limited rules tended to “place emphasis on moral values, rather than on specific rules.”3 Of course, when I read this, it reminded me of our parents. They were much less about rules than they were about focusing on what was right and what was wrong.
While Mom and Dad didn’t necessarily have a ton of specific rules, they were strict on the important stuff. When Mom was really upset about something, she’d send us letters on big yellow legal pad paper. She wanted to make sure she covered everything. All of it.
Why letters? She said it was because she didn’t want to forget anything. “Plus, you kids might talk back and not listen,” she said. You can’t talk back to a letter.
As Michelle mentioned in the foreword, one really important part of our time as kids was our summers at Deer Valley Family Camp. Those summers were among the most influential experiences of our lives. I’d say our order of life importance was faith, family, Deer Valley—it was that formative for us.
Every year, on the same week, the family would load up pretty much everything we owned and head to family camp. Bikes, fishing poles, bedding, towels, clothes for every weather condition—you name it. The only thing we didn’t pack was food. Every morning, afternoon, and evening, the dinner bell would ring, and the entire camp would join together to share a meal.
Deer Valley is about two hours south of Pittsburgh, and our family has been going there for nearly forty years. Unlike other families, we didn’t go away to summer camp to spend time away from each other—we went to camp to be together as a family.
Here’s how a typical day would go: We’d wake up in our cabin and head to the dining hall for breakfast as a family, and then everyone would go their own way. The kids went with their age group and camp counselor for a morning of friend time, and the adults would head to the waterfront to sail, or the craft shop to do ceramics or leather, or go relax with a book.
A couple of hours later, the lunch bell would ring, and the entire camp would meet back together to share a meal. We sat with our families for three meals a day, swapping stories of the adventures we had been on. After lunch it was a free-for-all; everyone would go wherever they wanted and do whatever activity they wanted. Sometimes you did this with your family; sometimes you were free to roam on your own or with your camp friends.
Deer Valley created an amazing sense of independence. There aren’t many places on the planet where an eight-year-old is allowed to run off and say, “See ya at the snack bar!” It was this amazing combination of quality family time mixed with independence for a child. And it really shaped who we are.
Steve, Michelle, and I all went on to be camp counselors there over our college summers. Now, that was fun. We still go there with our family to this day. We have started the tradition for the third generation of our family. And this summer we will take our newborn there, the same way I went for the first time when I was barely a year old.
Steve
At summer camp, Dad befriended all the camp counselors. They all loved him. He had a really boisterous personality, and he loved to connect with people. Being at camp was his time to shine and be a kid again. He participated in every activity he could. He was very funny. People really wanted to be around him. Even the counselors wanted to hang out with him!
It was nice to see him relaxed. Dad was such a hard worker, but he’d get there and wouldn’t think about work or responsibilities.
Dad would invent all sorts of ridiculous games that everyone wanted to play, like “cross-country bocce ball.” There was a bocce court—but that wasn’t enough for Dad. He took the bocce ball out of the court, and we’d play across the entire camp. He would chuck the ball as far as he could.
Deer Valley Family Camp was definitely a big part of our lives. Yes, we went there as a family, but it was one of my first introductions to freedom. Sure, I had the woods, but that was just across the street. Deer Valley was different—new people, new territory, and 742 acres to explore. And a lake!
The summer of my senior year was the first time I was going to be a camp counselor and be away from home for the entire summer. It would be my first taste of real independence without being under my parents’ watchful eyes.
I felt comfortable around the folks at Deer Valley, like I could be myself. People looked out for me there. Plus, Dad thought it was a good place for me to spread my wings a little bit before college. The job of camp counselor would give me some confidence, but it would force me to take on some responsibility in a safe space. “If Steve’s going to mess up, let’s let him mess up here,” Dad told the camp director, “not at school.” I thought it was pretty cool that he saw my being a camp counselor as a way to learn some life lessons before I got to college. It eased me into being independent and learning how to get by without Mom and Dad (though not entirely!). I highly recommend camp for any kid.
Leanne
Outside of playing like pioneer kids, we were pretty traditional. Mom always had dinner on the table at 6:00 on the dot every night. I was in charge of clearing off and setting the table. She wasn’t a culinary whiz, but we had food in pretty bowls on matching dishes. And we chatted for a half hour or so—no television. Family time every night—that’s not easy to do with three kids. Plus homework. Plus soccer practice. Plus whatever else was going on.
Dad would come home at 5:30 every day. We would hear the garage door open. Mom would put her lipstick on and brush her hair. (Two habits I did not inherit from her.) Dad would walk inside wearing his trench coat with his M. R. F.–initialed briefcase and say, every single day, “Isanybodyhooooome?” And Mom and Dad would give each other a big kiss and hug. We kids would all stop what we were doing to go greet him.
Mom was very traditional, yet she had no problem bending the rules. Sometimes she would say to me, “Do you want me to pick you up early from school tomorrow? Let’s go to Pizza Hut.” My answer was always yes.
But certain things were completely off-limits. Like most TV.
Steve
Mom and Dad weren’t really television fans overall. We were only allowed one hour a day of television, so we had to come up with other ways to entertain ourselves. This was a huge part of our upbringing—to create our own entertainment.
Leanne
There are plenty of kids who grew up in this kind of supportive environment, but not everyone is lucky enough to share the creative experiences with their brothers and sisters, let alone grow up to have a TV show together. What’s interesting to me is that both Steve and I spent time creating our own worlds. We were using items around the house or outside; we were using our imaginations.
The number one thing that was important to my parents was that we were happy and satisfied in what we were doing. Not what everyone else was doing—what we were doing.
All those hours Steve spent playing in the woods and all those hours I spent creating Michael R. Ford Elementary School were crucial to our development and growth, and now, our careers. Sometimes you can make a skateboarding ramp out of bricks. Sometimes you can make an overhead projector out of a car visor mirror.
Steve
Sometimes being raised in a family like ours and having the confidence to do things a bit differently means you don’t exactly fit in with the crowd; you’re often in the minority. It took me some time to realize that truly creative people and real innovators are pretty much always in the minority. And at the end of the day, that’s a pretty great place to be! After all, who wants to be just one of the crowd?
This perspective made things a little tough for me at school while I was growing up. I was a small kid. I know this might be hard to believe because I’m six foot five now. But I was smaller and had buck teeth. I was a late bloomer. I didn’t grow until I was a junior in high school. Then—boom. I was suddenly six foot five and super skinny.
I had my small group of close friends, but I wasn’t in the cool group of kids. At that age, you think being cool matters, but it doesn’t.
Apart from shop class, where I was in my element, school was always a bit of a struggle for me. I had a lot of tutors, which was the worst.
Throughout school, I was bullied a lot. My first memories of bullying were at elementary school, in first grade. I was on the parallel bars, and a kid punched me in the face. My nose bled. You don’t forget these kinds of things; these are the details that stay with you.
Bullying can be cyclical. Once you’re picked on and other kids see it, it’s more common for the abuse to happen again. It’s called a bullying cycle.4
The worst bullying incident by far was on the school bus. I was in second grade. I was sitting on the bus, minding my own business. A kid—let’s call him Jimmy—walked down the aisle of the bus, approached my seat, and spit on me.
I didn’t see it coming. I couldn’t ever anticipate anyone would do that unprovoked.
That night, Dad went over to Jimmy’s house to talk to his father, but Jimmy’s father wasn’t home. His mother answered the door.
“Jimmy spit on Steve,” Dad said.
“That’s not the truth,” Jimmy’s mother responded.
“That is the truth,” Dad said.
“Well,” Jimmy’s mother said, “there are many versions of the truth.”
Parents often find it difficult to accept that their child is guilty of bullying. But I had witnesses who backed me up. I had friends who were on the school bus that day, and they spoke to the principal. It helps to have a friend stick their neck out for you and tell an adult.
Jimmy got suspended for a day.
People today think that cyberbullying has taken the place of face-to-face bullying, but it hasn’t. In fact, 19 percent of kids in high school across the country were reported to have been bullied on school property in 2017.5 That’s almost one in five. And those are the kids who will admit to it. Being bullied is humiliating—not something that someone wants to admit to. In fact, I feel pretty uncomfortable talking about it in this book, but I’m doing it because I think it’s so important for kids and parents to talk to each other about it.
After the bus incident, Dad bought a punching bag and soft boxing gloves. He took me down to the basement and showed me how to hit the punching bag. The next thing I knew, I was training. Dad and I would fake fight each other often. I was small then—only in the second grade—so Dad would get on his knees to train me.
Sometimes we would play-fight, like a game. Dad would lie on his back and wiggle his knees. I would fall on top of him; then he’d chase me and my sisters around the house. He’d call himself “mad dog,” and he would crawl around barking, “Mad dog! Mad dog! Ruff, ruff, ruff!” It was the best.
One night, Mom was out of town and Dad was home with the three of us. He and I were boxing each other. He was down on his knees, and I swung at him with these giant gloves on and missed. But because he was at my level, and because I have pretty big teeth, my mouth went right into his cheek, and I accidentally bit him. He had to go to the hospital to get stitches. He never made me feel bad about it once. Dad was such a great guy.
We kept training. Dad never wanted me to start a fight, but he didn’t want me to get bullied either. “It’s okay to defend yourself,” he said.
More bullying went on in the seventh and eighth grades, but I was fighting back. For some reason, the school decided to punish me along with the bully—it didn’t matter who started the fight. I had to go to in-school suspension in the principal’s office. Our school had a little room with a desk and a window in the door, like a jail cell. I had to do my work there all day. Mom remembers me being indignant about it: I didn’t start the fight; why did I have to be punished like the aggressor? It wasn’t fair.
By high school, the teachers knew I wasn’t instigating these fights. So anytime a fight in school happened, the teachers had my back. The best part of being in a fight in school is that you know it’s only going to last for a few minutes. You’re always waiting for the teacher to show up. I would look over my shoulder, just waiting for the teacher to come over and stop things.
My parents really didn’t know about the bullying in high school because I kept it to myself. In a way, I guess I had resigned myself to it. I never really complained, and I never refused to go to school. I soldiered on.
Michelle knew about it, though, and she felt really bad for me. For a little while, she thought maybe if I tried to fit in a little more, the bullying would stop. But I needed to follow my own path. I wasn’t a follower; I acted how I wanted to act.
Michelle says now that she thinks I was brave then because I didn’t cave in to these kids. But I was just being myself. I was being goofy. I wasn’t worried about my hair or my clothes. Sometimes that’s what you get when you’re an individual. You can get picked on for that. The world wants you to be in one box—and I wasn’t going to go in that box.
Leanne
Some people do get nervous when they see someone being true to themselves. That happens with guys in a physical bullying way. And it can happen with girls in a mean-girl way. I had my own issues with some mean girls.
I had to find new friends in middle school because my old friends were being mean to everyone—including me. It was seventh grade, and these girls were insecure about themselves; they didn’t want to be made fun of. So they turned it around and made fun of everyone else. It was so messed up. I didn’t want to join in on that. I’m thankful I saw what was happening and had the guts and the confidence to get away from them. That’s not easy to do in seventh grade.
But my experience was nothing like what Steve went through.
Steve
During high school, there was a guy—let’s call him Joe—who hated my haircut. I mean, Joe was relentless. He picked on me for what felt like forever. Joe sat behind me in English class and constantly harassed me, called me names, because of my long hair. I don’t want to remember the names I was called. Trust me: whatever he said, it was mean.
Joe and I ended up going to the same college. I saw him at a party my freshman year. And—what do you know?—Joe had grown his hair out. He had the same haircut as me—the one I had in high school that he made fun of me for.
I didn’t want to make a big deal about it, because that’s not how I am. I’m not a spiteful guy. I’m not looking for revenge. But I had to say something after getting tormented over my hair for an entire year. Now this guy had the same haircut?
So I walked up to Joe and said, “Cool hair.”
Once I grew up and went to college, the bullying stopped. By then, I was as tall as I am now and knew how to fight. No one wanted to fight me anymore. But the bullying I went through as a kid was stressful. It was memorable—the kind of memories you want to erase. Kids who are bullied can feel depressed and experience anxiety. They can do poorly in school, stop eating, stop sleeping.
I didn’t understand it then, but now I do. Bullies bully because they’re unhappy and don’t like themselves, so they need to make other people feel bad in order to get through the day. This is the way I look at it now: I feel bad for those kids. That’s the truth.
Leanne
I hate it that both of us went through this—especially Steve, because it was so prolonged—but I’m grateful that both of us had the strength to stay true to who we are. Really, what impresses me about Steve’s reaction is his compassion. He has empathy for his bullies! It’s not an easy thing to do, to look at someone’s life, even as they’re hurting you, and feel empathy for them. But as with any challenge, going through those experiences gave us the very strength that has helped us get where we are now. It’s the hard times along the way that make us so grateful for who we have become.
WORKING ON PROGRESS
How can we encourage children to stay young and enjoy their youth?
How can we play more with our children? Laugh more? Create more?
How can we encourage children to use their imaginations more? To turn off the TV, turn off the video games? Can we lead by example?
Can we make a conscious effort to get off our phones and get outside and play?
As an adult, what do you still do that feels like playing? Does it create a better, happier life for you? Can you do that more often?