I’m Julia, mum to three amazing sons and Children’s Guide is my “other baby” – my once passion project which has now become my job.
We have also had children of various family friends, sometimes up to 3 at a time, live with us at different stages for durations from 8 months to 5 ½ years as these kids moved from teens to early adulthood. We are that house that everyone drops in to and other parent friends regularly ask for child-minding or sleepover favours.
Like all families, life can get busy and chaotic, but we have a pretty good routine – I am a neat-freak, I love being organised, I love lists and everyone helps. We are an open dialogue family and we’re prepared to pick our battles and let some things slide. But above all, we have fun!
Mr Guide, whilst incredibly supportive, has very little to do with Children’s Guide and is busy with his own work plus being a completely hands-on dad. With two dogs, a library in our home (we love books), a once large and well used craft cupboard now downsized to make way for teen interests, experimental foodie-family kitchen and simple living to save every spare cent for travel (pre-covid, and hopefully again before too long), we have an eclectic and happy home in Sydney. We have a love and appreciation for our local community, as well as the communities and small towns we grew up in.
My corporate background ranges across government, private, environmental, media, charity and arts sectors, and I’ve served on a Board, In setting up Children’s Guide, I am certainly drawing from my past career as well as my love of lists, our busy-organised-happy family, and travel experiences to develop Children’s Guide into a comprehensive resource.
But I couldn’t do it without the incredible support of so many businesses and organisations wanting to get involved, and I especially coudn’t do it without the best team in the world to work with. Watch this space as I’ll be introducing you to CJ, Hally, Jaz, Lynne, Louie, Victoria and others shortly….