Karen Sayer is married to David Sayer and has two children: Britt, 19 from her first marriage and a son, Haines, 4. David works in IT, Britt is in her second year of Uni and Karen owns a hair and beauty salon, Kaos Headquarters in Rose Bay.
They live in Maroubra, NSW and Haines goes to day care in Bondi Junction in Sydney's Eastern Suburbs.
Karen Sayer
"I work 5 days a week. Haines goes to day care on three of those days. One day per week I do wages and book-keeping. The other four days I work as a hairdresser at the salon. I drive Haines to and from day care. The mornings are a tight schedule. I wake at 6.15, get myself ready, together with Dave we dress and feed Haines and we are out the door by 7.35 sharp. We arrive at day care bang on 7.55am which gives me time to order a coffee, drop Haines at day care, pick up coffee and be at work by 8.25am for my first client!!
I finish work at around 3pm so I can do food shopping, banking, chores and even a weekly guitar lesson before I pick up Haines from child care. Haines begs me to pick him up later…..he loves day care and his friends there!
I worked at Joh Bailey Hairdresser for 10 years. Full time, before Britt was born, and then I returned to work part time, and eventually school hours and Saturdays. My first marriage broke down when Britt was 1.
In 1996 Britt and I lived in Watsons Bay where I had a small studio at the back of our house, which I converted to a hair studio. I gave up working at Joh Bailey and started my hair salon. I used to work school hours and after Britt was asleep at night I would return to work, usually from about 8pm till 11pm.
When I first set up the home salon, I had hoped that some of my former clients would follow me and would be happy to have their hair done at home. To my amazement, not only did my regulars follow me, but they brought all their families and friends. After two years of working like this I felt like I had no life. I needed to get out of my house so I looked around for a small salon.
I opened Kaos Headquarters (named after the villains in my favourite TV show, "Get Smart") in 1997. It was a tiny crack-in-the-wall shop and I employed a junior to help me. To cut a long story short, I extended the store and finally relocated to a salon that's about five times the size of the original one, with eight hairdressers and three beauticians.
I met my husband Dave in 2002. Dave and I have equality in everything in our lives. We are both responsible for keeping the home tidy (though he may argue that one as he is much neater than I); for Haines's care and welfare, financial needs, social and family responsibilities and home duties. I have never had to say "take the rubbish out" or anything like that… we just both seem to work together and all bases get covered.
Hairdressing has been very good to me. I have been able to vary my hours to suit my lifestyle and children's needs. In May 2005 I gave birth to our son Haines. I worked hairdressing up until I was eight months pregnant and then just reception until I gave birth. When Haines was two weeks old I used to pop into the salon on a daily basis, do some book work, ordering etc., and at two months I started working three days per week. By the time Haines was 1, I had returned to the salon to my full capacity.
I found day care by putting my name down at EVERY long day care facility in the Eastern Suburbs at conception but eventually found the one I wanted with a vacancy through the CareforKids.com.au website.
Comparing my childcare arrangements of both my children is interesting. For Britt, I employed nannies. While I was lucky in that I only had three in total over 13 years, I felt burdened by the arrangements. All were delightful, honest, caring, girls but I always felt that it was my responsibility to organize them and what they needed to do with my daughter. I would write down weekly schedules and ensure that Britt's needs and wants were met – museum, Tues; Gymbaroo, Mon, etc., but I always felt that it landed squarely on my shoulders as to stimulate, plan, organize and motivate the nanny as well as look after my daughter's needs.
So when Haines came along we also decided that long day care was what we wanted. He started in August 2005, at two months old. Initially I left him there only for four hours per day, but by end Sept 05 he was in day care two days per week for eight hours per day. Junction Juniors has been great for us. The centre was fully supportive of our every need. We were particularly worried about being able to stick to our routines and also to continue to breast feed. I used to drop Haines to day care with expressed breast milk and the staff just seemed to listen and care and slot into our schedule. In the early years we were given daily letters which stated the times of each feed, nappy change (including descriptions), sleep and notes on his progress and we got monthly progress reports which included photos of Haines' development. We were given CDs full of photos which had been taken at various times, and art works which were all dated and pasted into books.
When Haines was 2½ years old we were asked if we wanted the day care to start toilet training him as many of the parents had shown interest. I hadn't considered it yet. The next day we packed underpants and a few changes of clothes and within two weeks I was handed back a toilet trained child! It was amazing.
Haines is now 4. Day care has shown him many different experiences such as dancing classes, visual arts, Italian lessons, visits from police, firemen, pizza makers, friendships, all things that have been a great benefit in his upbringing. He has been very happy at the centre.
For me as a working mum, day care has given me peace of mind and been a great support. I have found day care vs. nannies to win hands down. It has been a great decision".
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