Katey – Browns Bay
“I think it would have been just earlier this morning to my mum, who also happens to be my boss; letting her know that I wasn’t coming into work today, because I’m home with my little girl who’s not very well.
We’ve just done a quick trip to the library to stock up on some books to keep us going for the day.
It’s not a family business; we both work at an early childhood centre. She runs the centre and I’m the admin. It’s surprisingly good; wouldn’t work for everyone, but Mum and I do actually work very well together. I’m much tidier than her, so sharing an office can be hard sometimes, but yeah it’s great. We’ve both got our own strengths, which we bring to our jobs, and great communication. I’ve got, you know, lots of understanding. There’s no hesitation if I have to miss time because my kids are unwell, because obviously they’re her grandkids and she cares about them. So yeah, there’s lots of advantages. I do like seeing my mum every day. Got two daughters; one who’s nearly eight, and one who’s five, just started school.
Community has actually been quite relevant, in my life the last year or so, because I actually got unwell and got to the point where I wasn’t able to work for quite a long stretch of time. I needed a lot of help to take care of my family. So having a community around me of friends and family that were able to pick up my slack while I wasn’t well, and help me to have that time I needed to recover was invaluable; couldn’t have done it without my husband, my mum and my best friend. It is important to know that just because I’m a mum I’m not, you know, totally infallible, but I am human and I am going to get sick sometimes and need a bit of extra help, and also you know, showing that if I do the right thing like take time to rest when I need to, then I will get better. That is a nice message to be able to teach your children.
Not sure what the actual definition of humanity would be, but it conjures up images of probably, most importantly, relationships. It is one of the things that sets us apart; how we do form relationships and communicate in relationships. So that’s definitely very relevant. I like the idea of not being isolated, so taking the opportunity to make connections with people when you can; being part of your community – being involved in different groups that let you mix with different sorts of people, because we do have a huge variety of cultures and even languages and experiences that we can learn from by taking the time to be with other people and listen.
Every person has different strengths. I think equality’s a great word to be using to recognise that everyone should be given the same opportunities to bring to the table what they have to offer and develop, and it shouldn’t matter whether they’re male, female, or where they’re from or even how old they are; it should be based on the individual and what they have to offer.”
