biggest birthrate on record about 285,200 babies made their way into
Australian families. It makes sense that the market for baby products is
also expanding: Anna Gibson meets the growing band of women who
are raising their children alongside the million-dollar businesses
they inspired and asks them how on earth they do it...
natural step for mother-of-two (toddler
Lindy Klim. Klim is married to Olympic
swimmer Michael Klim, who began his own
skincare range Milk Skincare in 2008. With
the corporate infrastructure and expertise
already available to her, when she battled
to fi nd products delicate enough for her
daughter Stella's sensitive skin, the idea for
Milk Baby was born.
of the business, and as I have Stella in
crèche two days a week, those are the
days I spend in the offi ce working on my
range," Klim says.
from the most important people in her
life. "Rocco and Stella love them!"
decades," laughs Gillian Hund.
na Love established Sydney's Child, the
country's fi rst free parenting newspaper,
while raising six children between them
(three each). It was named Newspaper
of the Year in 2007 and their company
Copeland Publishing now presides over
six related monthly titles in Sydney,
Melbourne, Adelaide, Canberra, Bris-
bane and Perth and employs more than
50 people. That is a print run of about 5
million a year.
just 20,000 copies, every two months,
which they would distribute by hand on
Sydney's lower north shore. They com-
missioned the articles, designed and laid
out each issue on the offi ce computer, and
sold all the advertising.
children needs to be fl exible, so you have
to be prepared to work very odd hours.
In hindsight it was very stressful," Hund
says. They did the school runs, cooked
dinner and took their kids to soccer prac-
tice, but also hired a babysitter to mind
the youngest babies in the offi ce, and
worked deep into the night. "Whenever I
see a picture of a mother with a baby on
her lap while she works on her computer,
I think: `oh who are you kidding?'"
oped a sense of ownership of the paper.
"They did the photocopying for us, stuck
stamps on envelopes, they delivered pa-
pers and when they got a bit older they'd
help with the expos. What you show them
is, if you work hard enough and really be-
lieve in what you are doing if you are
lucky you can make a difference and do
something that can give you enormous
satisfaction."
tions in the United States, where she had
been living and working during the late
1980s. When she returned to Sydney
with children of her own, she decided a
you are going to give something new a
go, this [career hiatus] is a good time to
do it," she says. If it failed, she reasoned,
at least they could both go back to their
old jobs.
in cash and Hund's in the Mac2 compu-
ter she brought back from the US). With
the advent of desktop publishing, they
were able to undertake most of the proc-
esses themselves, and they remain very
hands-on: "We don't expect anyone to do
something we wouldn't be prepared to do
ourselves," she says.
was a proud moment: "You know you are
er
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