Why PR queen Roxy Jacenko will make her wealthy kids get jobs and feel 'uncomfortable’

PR queen Roxy Jacenko’s seven-year-old daughter already has her own business but the entrepreneur says her kids won’t get any free rides.

At just seven years old Pixie Curtis can already call herself a successful business owner.

But come 14 she’ll still be expected to get her first job working for someone else, just like any other teenager, and just as her mum did.

After all, her entrepreneur mum Roxy Jacenko — who has a string of businesses to her name — started out in a McDonald’s drive-through and she wants Pixie and her brother Hunter to do the same, despite their wealthy upbringing.

The PR queen said there was no reason why Pixie would not follow in her footsteps because she already knew she had to work to afford the fancy things the Sydney family has.

Roxy Jacenko and daughter Pixie Curtis in the front row of the Myer Spring/Summer launch at their Sydney City store. Pixie’s Bows are now stocked at Myer stores. Picture: Toby Zerna

Roxy wants to instil the strong work ethic she expects from anyone she works with in her children. If her daughter has a commitment with Myer for her Pixie’s Bows business, she expects her to fulfil it.

But that’s because it’s strictly business — if Pixie doesn’t want to do a sponsored post on Instagram, she doesn’t have to.

“If she’s got a commitment, she has to do it, and she does understand that,” Roxy tells news.com.au.

Roxy said just this week she asked Pixie to do a video to promote her bows when her brother Hunter asked her to play ‘mums and dads’.

“She said, ‘Wait Hunter, I’ve got to do this video’,” Roxy said.

“If she doesn’t want to have an Instagram account at any point we’ll stop, but she’s been doing that since she was very young, so she gets it.

“If she wants to go to the toy shop, how does she do that? By working.

“Hunter said the other day he wanted to go to the toy shop and I told him I had to go to work first otherwise he doesn’t get nice things and he let go of me and said ‘Ok mum, see you soon’.”

Roxy with husband Oliver Curtis and kids Pixie and Hunter in Capri.

Asked if her children even needed anymore toys when they appear to receive new ones all the time on social media she quipped, “Every kid has too many toys to be honest with you”.

Roxy said she wasn’t brought up with a spoiled brat mentality and neither would her children.

“At 18 my friends were getting BMWs and Mercedes and I got a $4000 Volvo that was as old as me,” she said.

“I’m glad I didn’t have that and when I had money I bought my own car.”

She said her children would still have to create a CV and experience first interview nerves.

“There’s something to be said taking a job working for someone else, not having it handed to you on a platter,” she said.

“It puts you in good stead.

“Nothing is for free. Nothing. I’m certainly not a person giving anything for nothing.

“I’ve always been brought up to create opportunities for your kids.

“Our aim as parents is, if we have the opportunity to set them up with something, so be it.”

When it comes to parenting, Roxy said she and husband Oliver Curtis, who was jailed for 12 months for insider trading, were “chalk and cheese”. He’s more firm. She’s more lax.

On Tuesday night she let the kids have dessert scrolls before dinner — which they then decided they didn’t want and she didn’t make them — and the couple got into a “squabble” over it.

“Oli trying to be the perfect parent was chucking a wobbly at me, he wants things to be done in a very methodical fashion,” she said.

“They didn’t want their lamb chops and this is why I squabbled with Oli. Who can get the parenting thing right? I certainly can’t. They’re smiling and laughing, what does it matter if they haven’t had their meat and three veg?”

Roxy said she put an extra scroll in Pixie’s lunch box the next day to give to a friend when her daughter told her she couldn’t do that.

“There’s so many rules and regulations now, I find it bewildering to be honest with you.

“You have to do what’s right for you.”

Her most recent project with Pixie was creating a children’s book called Penelope’s Playground to help other kids deal with bullying on the playground.

Pixie was teased about her “dad breaking out of jail” when Curtis was behind bars even though she had no idea about it because Roxy told her Oli had been in China.

“I found when Oli went to jail I had no resources to communicate with Pixie the importance of being kind and not everyone is the same,” she said.

“Pixie was really struggling in the playground. I remember it (bullying) being a problem in school but it’s 10 times worse now.

“I didn’t want to tell Pixie until Oli came home and I’m glad I did it that way.”

The public figure, who insists she would prefer to be out of the spotlight, had a nervous breakdown as a single mum during that time and said she took her hat off to women in that boat.

“I don’t think I could do it, I’m better at work than being a full-time mum.”

Do you think kids should be encouraged to work at 14? Comment below or continue the conversation @stephanie_bedo | [e-mail]