Dr. Cindy’s mother, Dolores Iannarelli, did help with the family’s dry-cleaning and real estate businesses — that is, when she wasn’t manning her own retail store in Carnegie that sold ladies’ ready-to-wear clothes. So when Dr. Cindy wasn’t sweeping floors at the dry cleaner’s or washing the company’s vehicles, she was helping her mother at the dress shop.
“I took her to the store and tried to teach her the basics,” says Dolores, who today helps her daughter with her Business Cents venture when she isn’t teaching college-level business courses. “I then would give her jobs according to her age and ability.”
Dolores says she always made a point to teach her kids about business, even if only was by example. She says Dr. Cindy’s favorite job was to count the money. But it wasn’t always easy.
“You have to spend a lot of time working with them,” she says of bringing up kids in the family business. “As my own parents taught me, your kids should never be idle. They shouldn’t have idle hands. If parents would only take the time.”
