Yes. A spouse in this classification is employment-authorized incident to status and may take employment inside or outside the enterprise. Children may study but not work, and dependent eligibility ends at twenty-one.
Outside income during the first year is a common plan
Buying a practice usually means a period of reduced personal income while the business is stabilized, and the classification allows a household to plan around that. The spouse's authorization to work arises from the status itself rather than from a separate grant, so employment with an unrelated employer is available, subject to satisfying an employer's ordinary verification requirements. It is sensible to resolve what documentation the employer will want before a start date is agreed, because a hiring manager unfamiliar with the situation will ask. The principal is in a different position: because the requirement is to develop and direct the enterprise, a principal working full time elsewhere raises an obvious question about who is running the business.
Hypothetical example: Maren is establishing a Canadian-owned pet-grooming business in the United States and expects her spouse and sixteen-year-old child to accompany her. The first review should collect passports and relationship records, then distinguish the spouse’s work plans from the child’s school plans. Marriage and birth documents settle the family connection; they do not create an independent business role for either person. The household should decide whether a child nearing twenty-one needs another status before making long commitments. A frequent mistake is building the operating plan around a dependent child’s work when that work is not authorized by their dependent status.