The Inside Press

Magazines serving the communities of Northern Westchester

siblings

Sisterly Love for ‘Rent a Teenager’

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Let’s hope, given all that we have been through, we have a mild winter. But if we happen to have a storm this coming season, save your strength and let a teenager shovel your walk. I know just where you can find one…

Growing up, my twin brother, Mason, and I did many of the same activities. Whether running a race in the backyard, attempting the steepest ski trails, or memorizing multiplication tables, we were in a constant competition over who was faster, braver or smarter. In those rare instances when Mason would do better than me, I was definitely envious and admittedly, a bit of a sore loser. However, when he launched his entrepreneurial endeavor, Rent a Teenager, I easily felt pride over envy.

Here’s how Rent a Teenager came to be: When our older brother, Daniel, was in middle school, he would practice tennis by hitting with a local varsity tennis player. My mom paid the player $25 per hour back then. As Mason became more of a seasoned tennis player, he realized that he too could provide a similar service to younger kids at a fraction of the rate offered by professionals. As Mason started booking up, he realized that there was likely interest for lessons in other sports. He recruited some classmates and expanded his services to include soccer, lacrosse, basketball, you name it!

This led to RentATeenager.com, a website Mason founded as a resource that provides responsible and talented teenagers to perform various jobs. His range of services now extends way beyond just sports training. You can now hire a teenager as a tutor, babysitter, dog walker, errand runner, house worker, weed puller, couch mover, photographer, and more. As Mason likes to say, teens excel at just about everything. I guess with the exception of me since he never hires me for anything!

His website soon reached social media pages, like Instagram and Facebook, where he expanded both his slew of customers and his audience. From this, the business quickly gained momentum. Mason also started licensing his Rent a Teenager materials so teens in other towns can be their own boss and provide the same meaningful services in their community. And for a philanthropic effort, he donates 10% of his earnings to the Horace Greeley Scholarship Fund.

Rent a Teenager is at the cornerstone of discussion in my house. Ugh. And I apathetically anticipate the inevitable talk about his business at the upcoming holiday gatherings (I will shut my Zoom off if we just talk Rent A Teenager!) My extended family is so proud of his entrepreneurial skills. Hello? What about me? Of course, my mom and dad always use the opportunity to say that they already use some teenagers to help around the house–as they look skeptically at me and Mason.

Back in October, Mason creatively approached the problem of a lack of poll workers by advertising for teenage poll workers on Facebook. He boosted his posts so that they would reach parents and teens throughout the U.S. In some states you just need to be 17 to be a poll worker and now because of Rent a Teenager, teens not old enough to vote were able to meaningfully participate in politics. Mason got a lot of press coverage for this initiative.

And to prepare for the cold and snowy winter ahead, Mason plans to offer snow removal services. I bet my Dad, who is hounded by my mom to snow blow the driveway starting at 5 a.m. the day after a storm, will appreciate that. I keep trying to push Mason to start a hot chocolate business; that would be an endeavor I would support.              

As much as I’d like to rent a new brother at times, and as much as this pains me to admit, Mason has created quite a successful business for himself and I know he will do quite well studying business in college. But not as well as me, of course!

My School Days as a Twin

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(L-R): Rebecca and Julia Bialek on the first day of kindergarten
PHOTO COURTESY OF JULIA BIALEK

I have a twin sister, but we were born on different days. Throughout our lives, our parents worked hard to ensure that we were not grouped as a unit; in their minds, the fact that we shared a womb had no bearing on our ability to act and be treated as individual people. And it doesn’t. Whether it was pure luck or my mom’s greatest intentional gift to us (as she will claim), the fact that my sister was born before midnight and I was born after has profoundly impacted the course of our lives. Our separate birthdays have infused a sense of individuality into both of us from the very beginning, allowing us to retain our own identities. Yes, we are twins, but we aren’t “the twins.” We are Julia and Rebecca. It only made sense that when the first days of school approached, my parents continued this arrangement.

Parents of twins have a choice: place their twins in the same classes or separate them. Naturally, my parents elected to separate us, placing us in different classrooms in which to grow and learn independently of the other. Although one of the built-in perks of having a twin is never needing to face a new situation alone, our parents wanted to provide us with the space to become our own people. I am so grateful for that. As we enter our senior year and reflect on our time as students, people, and twin sisters, it has never been more apparent how much of a gift that decision has been. Thank you mom and dad.

Growing up as twins, Rebecca and I have experienced most of our milestones and achievements together, from first days of school and first days of camp, to becoming bat mitzvahs and getting our driver’s licenses. In many cases, the memories I lay claim to also belong to her, with our shared experiences outnumbering our individual ones. But when it comes to school, most of my memories belong solely to me, as our separate educational paths have rarely collided. We always had different teachers, we were always in different classes, and we were always happy that way. As twins, we have spent nearly 18 full years side-by-side, growing up in rooms next to each other, spending the summers in the same bunk at camp, coming home to the same house, and so on. Despite our love for each other, that is a lot of time to spend with one person. Going to school each day allowed us to spend healthy time apart, providing us with a place to be our own people (albeit in the same building). In fact, school is the only place where our individual memories, experiences, and stories outnumber our shared ones.

Spending our days separately and pursuing our educations independently of the other, my sister and I have been able to learn, grow, and prosper in our own unique ways. That time apart, that time to explore who we are without the influence of the other twin, has been essential in shaping the people we have become. For my sister and me, being twins has always meant going through life as our own people, just doing it next to each other. But as college approaches and my sister and I face being separated by a greater distance than just our bedroom wall, we are confronted with the reality that we must continue our lives as our own people, but not side-by-side. For the first time in our entire lives, not only will our educational careers be separate, but our entire lives will be separate.

For the first time in our entire lives, we will not be together.

As we tour colleges, write applications, and begin our last year of living together in the same home, I cannot help but wonder how different our lives are going to be without having the other twin a shouting distance away. Even though Rebecca and I have very different personalities and interests, even though we were happy to be in separate classes, even though we are both ready for this change, it is going to be a shock to live without her. I have never known life without my twin sister, and I know that I will have to cope with a Rebecca-shaped hole in my life. It feels like yesterday that we were walking off of the bus together after our first day of kindergarten, and now we are seniors in high school preparing to live our lives as independent people in college. While it feels surreal that time has passed so quickly, I am eased by the knowledge that my twin sister is experiencing these changes with me, even if she is not residing in the bedroom next door.

As we approach this new and exciting time in our lives, I realize that this is the first chapter of my story that will not feature my twin sister as a main character. But Rebecca, as we continue to write our narratives and live our lives, I want you to know that I am me because of you. You will always be an important part of my story, because you are an important part of me.