After graduating high school, I started a small farm with my brother in Monroe. After having my first child, I started a building company, and I have spent the last 30 years raising a family and building a business—and building houses.

The only thing I really care about is boats. I grew up on boats. My grandfather was in the fruit importing business. He had a boat called The Banana Queen that brought him so much luck in business, he named his second boat the Banana Queen 2. My mother went into labor with me while on the Queen 2, so the family story is that I was on a boat when I decided to be born.

In 2008, my business partner and I opened up TL6 the Gallery for local artists and designers. Our gallery and other new local businesses have helped revitalize New Bedford.

I’ve been an independent family farmer for most of my life, raising crops, livestock and local foods in rural Iowa. I’m gravely concerned with Congress’ latest health care game-playing. We farmers are looking at, once again, being priced out of health insurance.

I started fighting for the ACA in 2009, when I was actually running my dad’s small businesses. We had been searching for insurance for years, and preexisting conditions were the biggest stumbling block. The failed system that was in place made it unaffordable for us to provide health insurance for our employees. The policies we were shown also denied health benefits for several of our employees due to pre-existing medical conditions.

Attacks on protections for people with pre-existing conditions are putting my business at risk and endangering my livelihood, that of my husband, as well as the livelihoods of the nine full-time, professional-level staff we employ at Lyon.

For my staff, caring for children is a labor of love, but it is also grueling work. In return for the work they do, I think it’s important to ensure that my employees can care for themselves and their families. That’s why they have paid sick days, vacation time and health insurance.

Owning a small business doesn’t exempt you from the realities of everyday life. If anything, it makes you keenly aware of them. People get sick or injured. They start families. Their family members – children, parents and partners – need to be cared for. Ignoring the inevitable only puts our businesses at risk, jeopardizing our livelihoods and those of our employees.

Before the very first bubble came through an airlock at our meadery, we had already written rules: “Your family comes first.” Providing paid family and medical leave to our employees was never a question for us. We wanted to create good jobs so people in our community could support their families. We are employers first, and our business just happens to be making a fermented honey beverage called mead.

When I left my corporate pharmaceutical job to become a small business owner in Lancaster, PA, I never thought of it as a family planning decision. But having run my art gallery for two years now, and given the state of our family leave crisis in this country, I don’t know how I could have another child and keep my business open.