As we celebrate our parents, we talk to local moms and dads about parenthood and life lessons.
Photographed by Carina Mask at The Boca Raton Museum of Art
Children’s clothing and accessories supplied by Elegant Child
Jesse Rack and Jagger, 3.5 and Ryder, 1.5
Second-generation owner of Rack Electric
BUSINESS LEGACY: Growing up, you don’t get to see the things that [your dad] had to deal with and the sacrifices that he’s made for your family, so once I got introduced into the family business, I can see how hard both of us really work to provide for our family. So I hope that the legacy is that my kids—if they want to work at Rack or they don’t want to work at Rack, the opportunity is there for them, but it’s also seeing that there’s no short cuts to success and there’s a lot of hard work that goes into it.
LESSONS FROM FATHERHOOD: Time is extremely valuable … Work was my first baby, and now that I have two little boys and a little girl on the way, I want to be able to spend as much time with them as possible. Those memories, those first-time memories, they only come ‘round so often.
UNFORGETTABLE MOMENTS: Jagger said to me…”You know, dad, you’re my best friend.” And I was like, “Thanks, man.” I walked out of the room with tears in my eyes.
UNDERSTANDING YOUR PARENTS: You live in this fantasy land of school, and you have no idea until you go into the real world what your parents were trying to accomplish and create for you. Now [that] I’m 38 years old, I think about all the fun memories that we have, whether it was my mom or my dad … they did everything they could. They did the best they could; they gave us our time and energy. That lives on forever. … It was the time spent together.
FAMILY MEMORIES: We do movie nights. [My wife Amanda and I] set up the movie chairs, the boys have little custom mini couch chairs. We set them up, we get them blankets … we get them treats. Ryder, being so little, he’s just looking up at the TV screen, [and] Jagger is a Chatty Cathy; he doesn’t stop talking until something catches his attention.
NEXT GENERATION RACK: Jagger loves everything about Rack, so we’ll build Magna-Tiles. He loves to build the Rack tower, and he loves to build the Rack garage, and he loves to build the mechanic shops and where the trucks are going to park … then Ryder will come down and knock it down and hysterically laugh.
WELCOMING A GIRL: Every time I open that door, Jagger is running to me, and now Ryder is running to me, and eventually Goldie will be running to me, too. That’s the part that makes it all worth it.
QUICK 5
1. Phrase you never thought you would actually say until you became a parent: “Stop using your brother as a weapon.”
2. Family-friendly activities in town: They love going to Sugar Sand Park. We’ve gone to the Pumpkin Patch every year since the boys were born. We love to go to the beach. The boys love the sand.
3. Go-to restaurant for the family: Pizza Fridays are always big for us. We go to Tucci’s or we’ll go to The Boca Raton because they have family pizza night.
4. Funny words: Ryder says “see sah” for pizza. Jagger, his ess’s sound like “ph” so he says “Phiderman.”
5. Date night for mom and dad: We’re foodies, we love good food. … We like to sit at the bar and have a few drinks and decompress and talk.
Cristina Lewis and Alessandra, 12; Lily, 10; and Isabella, 6
Board member of Sweet Dream Makers, outgoing Go Pink Challenge chairperson, Boca Raton Hospital Foundation volunteer
GETTING INVOLVED: Both my mom, who raised me, and [my husband] Tim’s parents were really involved in the community and giving back. … When we got together and started to build our life and our family together, we wanted to do the same, give back in an impactful way. We started thinking of how we could be of service, and as we started to have children, and being a woman, both things matter to me.
TEACHING PHILANTHROPY: The best thing that we’ve ever done, the four of us, is we went to visit a recipient of a bed [from Sweet Dream Makers] here in Boca. When I went to go put in the Google Maps directions, it was an apartment a little over 2 miles from my house, and so we were kind of surprised that right down the street from us, there was a family that needed our help, and we were able to give a bed to. So we visited. It was a little girl who received a bed. She was kind of in between my daughters’ ages, and we brought some sleep essentials like a book, a little stuffi e, games, and we spent time hanging out with them, playing and getting to know one another. After that visit I feel my kids’ lives were transformed.
LEARNING FROM MOTHERHOOD: If I drill it down to the simplest answer, motherhood is a mirror. It refl ects to me all of the love, energy, patience, values that I’m pouring into my children, and at the same time, mirrors are honest. It also refl ects some of the areas where I can continue to grow, and I feel like that’s something I’ll be doing for the rest of my life. It’s a journey of learning, and I’m trying to be the best student I can so I can be the best mother I can for my children.
It gives me incredible strength and purpose. Every mom I think can relate to the beginnings of when their children are born and the sleepless nights, and then the fact that you can still function and carry out and care for others and have your day-to-day responsibilities despite not sleeping over an hour or two night after night. … Now looking back at it, I am amazed of what mothers are capable of, and that gives you this confi dence, because you kind of think, OK, I’ve done that, I can do anything.
LESSONS FROM HER DAUGHTERS: How to deal with emotions—every emotion in the rainbow, the “good” ones and the “bad” ones. Just dealing with them honestly and naturally, just because kids naturally do that; they feel, they express. I’ve learned a lot from them based on that.
LESSONS FOR HER DAUGHTERS: I’ve taught them the importance of dealing with others with kindness and compassion, but it’s just as important to expect that grace inward to yourself. I know sometimes I’ve forgotten to do that, so I’ve been reminding them it’s OK to make mistakes.
QUICK 5
1. Favorite family activity: We love playing Uno together. It gets super competitive! We’re also an outdoorsy family and spend as many weekends as we can out four-wheeling in the Central Florida woods.
2. A word to describe your girls: Alessandra is joyful. Liliana is athletic. Isabella is a leader.
3. Your husband as a girl dad: Growing up with a strong single mother, I often wondered what an incredible dad would look like. Tim has exceeded every expectation. … He has even mastered the art of the perfect ponytail and braid!
4. Go-to family restaurant: Taverna Kyma is at the top of our list. My girls love the fries, lemon potatoes, and chicken, and the lively Greek family atmosphere makes it such a fun experience for all of us.
5. Weirdest Gen Alpha word: It has to be “6-7.”
Eddie Pozzuoli and Eddie, 8, and Vinny, 5
Principal of P Hospitality Management (Prezzo, Corvina, Eddie & Vinny’s, and more)
LESSON FOR YOUR SONS: The American Dream. Although it’s not easy, it’s still there, and you can still chase after it. But it takes a lot of hard work and a lot of perseverance and dealing with a lot of outside forces trying to force you off track. I want them to learn how to be able to maneuver around situations and be able to thin on their toes, because I think that’s become a lost art or just a lost ability, unfortunately, with this generation. I want them to kind of always be able to think independently and be able to make changes to their day-to-day.
LESSONS FROM FATHERHOOD: It’s important to be present. My family restaurant prior to us selling it, one of the things that [my wife] Christina and I learned while working there with my dad—and my dad is like a ridiculously hard worker, never stopped doing anything, he still keeps his brain going—but the one thing we recognized is we want to be as present as possible for our children, so we knew when it came to building our future businesses from when we bought Prezzo to when we opened the second Prezzo and took over Corvina … everything we do in our business is about making sure we can still have the time to coach baseball, do a family trip, spend as much time as we can with our kids so that they know that we’re present.
APPRECIATING YOUR PARENTS: I’m sure I was the reason my dad has as many gray hairs as he does. … It’s seeing what my dad and mom went through to do their best to raise me. They’ve given me the tools to be able to do what we’ve done, the ability to communicate well with anybody, know what’s right from wrong, all those little things that you just take for granted growing up.
PASSING DOWN HERITAGE: I think it’s mostly the family aspect of things. That’s probably the biggest part of Italian heritage. Everything is about making sure your family and those closest to you are always taken care of and that you have good support for everyone in your ecosystem or your bubble. That’s what we feel is most important.
MAKING MEMORIES: I’m coaching little Eddie’s baseball team, and Christina signed me up for it without me knowing. I’ve actually come to really enjoy that time, despite it being at 5 o’clock and 6 o’clock on a Friday night and then waking up at 8 in the morning Saturday to go to another practice. It’s fun to not even have the opportunity to look at my phone and to check out for that two hours or whatever it is for a practice or a game.
QUICK 5
1. Naming their sons: Christina’s dad is named Vinny, and my dad and my grandfather’s names are Ed.
2. Family-friendly activities: The boys like going to Gumbo Limbo, [and] they love going to Sugar Sand Park and going to the Science Explorium.
3. Describing Eddie and Vinny: Think of Sonic the Hedgehog with a lot of energy and just going 150 miles an hour all day until they fall asleep. But in the best way. They have that “go go go” mentality, and there’s never a dull moment.
4. Weirdest Gen Alpha word: Little Eddie says “sus.” I don’t know where he got it from. He says “Dad, that’s so sus.”
5. Your wife as a boy mom: I think she was nervous originally, because she grew up in a house of girls, but I think now she wouldn’t have it any other way.
Michelle Olson-Rogers and Avery, 13
Founder of modernbocamom.com and community consultant for Grandview Preparatory School
BUILDING MODERN BOCA MOM: I’ve always been that person that friends came to for recommendations. That’s just been my MO my entire life, and I love to share the scoop. So starting Modern Boca Mom, I really launched the website initially as a blogger and writer, because I wanted to be a resource not only for local parents but for myself, because I was a new mom at the time. My business is as old as my daughter; it really does follow her path growing up. When she was younger I was focusing my content more on the baby and toddler stuff, and while I still do focus my content on that, now I’m able to just kind of share content that aligns with my motherhood journey locally.
WATCHING YOUR CHILD GROW UP IN YOUR HOMETOWN: It’s been a bit surreal but super joyful and just satisfying, because I had a wonderful childhood growing up here in Boca. … It’s great, because there are just so many more things for kids to do here now. Everything has grown in terms of just the schools and extracurricular and opportunities, and really Boca has switched its focus from being that city that was really catering to retirees and snowbirds to families. I’m thrilled to have witnessed that growth fi rsthand, and I’m able to share the benefi ts with my daughter.
THE BLOG IS GROWING UP: I would say recently a lot more just Boca residents, not just parents, are recognizing me because of my Secret Boca and Spill the Tea series, because that is Boca content for the most part that’s not targeted just to being a parent. It’s reaching a new segment of our local residents, and that’s really exciting to me. … I hope to share great mom-oriented content, because I’ll never stop being a mom, but my day-to-day will be extremely different.
LESSONS FROM YOUR DAUGHTER: Above all, just a new part of my heart was unlocked when she was born. I think love, above all, but also patience as we enter these teen years. That is a big one. And the ability to communicate better [and] smarter. I really try to picture myself in her shoes at this age.
UNDERSTANDING YOUR PARENTS: I now have so much respect for my mom, mainly because I don’t know how she did it without things like social media and the internet. You were really just winging it or relying on your village, because you had to build a village back then in order to get through this. It can be lonely being a mother, and luckily we have the benefi t of social media and resources at our disposal.
QUICK 5
1. Family-friendly activity: High school theater! [My husband Andy], Avery, and I just saw West Boca High’s production of The Drowsy Chaperone because Avery’s school, Grandview Prep, is putting on the same show this spring. Tickets are always super affordable, and kids deserve an audience!
2. Go-to family restaurant: La Mesa Cafe Bistro in Sanborn Square.
3. Favorite mother-daughter memory: Going to London to see Taylor Swift at the Eras Tour in 2024.
4. Memories in the works: Visiting Paris in June for Avery’s 13th birthday and eighth grade graduation next year! I can’t believe high school is already on the horizon for our girl.
5: Weirdest Gen Alpha word: Gyat.
This story is from the May/June 2026 issue of Boca magazine. For more like this, click here to subscribe to the magazine.
