High cost of childcare forces Bianca into business

By Jemimah Clegg

10 June 2014

By 10 o’clock on a Tuesday morning, Bianca Koklanos has already cleaned up several messes on behalf of her “client”, and had lengthy negotiations to convince them that yoghurt would be a good substitute for watermelon, as there is currently a watermelon shortage in the family fridge.

Her client today is her three-year-old daughter Alexia, but on other days her clients are either at her part-time job at the Commonwealth Bank, or visitors to her new on-line store, where she sells organic products for children.

Bianca is one of the increasing number of young mums who are starting their own businesses in order to have more time with their children.

“You start to think about what sort of parent you want to be. I started to reflect on my childhood, my parents worked a lot and were never around, I was in before and after school care and school holiday programs – they had no time,” she says.

Bianca is qualified as a financial planner and says before she had her daughter she thought she would continue working full-time in that role.

“I lost the aspiration. Before she was born it was all about having a career and making money and then when I had her, it just wasn’t that anymore.”

She says the other reason she started her own business is the ongoing cost of childcare.

“Childcare is expensive – I’ve got to do something I can do from home because we’ve started to think about having another baby and I’m not going to be able to put two children into childcare,” Bianca says.

The struggles of balancing work and parenting are a constant in her life, and although her current employer promotes a work/life balance, it doesn’t always work out.

“Alexia was sick all last week so I had to have the whole week off and my boss was not impressed, but there’s nothing I can do,” she says.

Bianca says she hopes to build a successful enough business so that she doesn’t have to work part-time to supplement her income anymore.

“I’ve been pushed to a point where I need to give it a go, because if I want to have another child and have an income, I’m really not left with any other option.”