How three months away from work helped my wife build her dream
After fifteen years in tech, I thought I knew what professional fulfilment looked like. Hitting targets, shipping projects, climbing the ladder. Then my wife Sara told me she was ready to chase a dream she had carried since long before we met, and everything I thought I knew changed. She wanted to open her own childcare setting. I wanted to help her do it. So I took a three-month career break, and it turned out to be the most rewarding professional experience of my life.
Sara's dream of working with young children stretches back years, but life had other plans. We had our children young, and with a young family to support, the timing was never right. Instead, she channelled that passion into a career as a primary school teacher in Tottenham, spending fifteen years shaping the earliest stages of children's education. Most of that time was spent in Reception and Year One, the years where foundations are laid for everything that follows. She became exceptional at it, developing an instinct for what small children need to thrive.
Once our youngest was old enough, the conversation shifted. Sara began talking seriously about what her setting would look like, the kind of environment she wanted to create, and the curriculum she would deliver for children aged nine months to five years. She had spent months researching, planning, and refining her ideas. When she walked me through her vision, the detail and thought behind it, I knew I had to be part of making it happen. I exited a role in June, arranged a career break, and we got to work.
We divided the workload along our strengths. Sara owned the educational vision, the safeguarding framework, and the day-to-day operational planning. My role sat on the business side. I set up the limited company, registered for the necessary accounts, built the website for Curious Cubs Day Care, and sorted the business banking. It was a steep learning curve in places, but the kind of challenge that keeps you energised because you believe completely in what you are building.
Then came the red tape, and there was plenty of it. Working with the local council on registrations, meeting environmental health requirements, ensuring every policy and procedure was watertight. And looming over all of it was Ofsted. From our initial start to the day the inspector walked through the door took twelve weeks of relentless preparation. Sara led every aspect of the inspection readiness, and when the day came, she smashed it with flying colours. We were registered. Curious Cubs Day Care was officially real.
With the setting approved, the next phase was about getting the word out. I leaned on my digital experience to build Sara's social media presence and run some targeted advertising to reach local parents. We worked together on recruiting the right staff, people who shared Sara's philosophy and brought the warmth and professionalism that parents deserve to see. Piece by piece, the nursery filled up. Today, Curious Cubs is at full capacity, and Sara runs it with the same energy and care she brought to every classroom she ever stepped into.
People sometimes ask whether it was difficult stepping away from my own career, even temporarily. The honest answer is that it never felt like a sacrifice. Watching Sara turn years of ideas into a living, breathing business gave me a perspective on work that I had been missing. There is something powerful about building something from nothing alongside someone you love, about solving problems together that genuinely matter. Every policy we wrote, every wall we painted, every late night spent preparing for Ofsted felt like it counted in a way that is hard to replicate in a corporate setting.
I have been fortunate in my career. I have worked on projects I am proud of, with people I respect. But I do not think anything has matched the fulfilment of those three months. Not because the work was glamorous, but because the purpose behind it was so clear. Sara had a dream. She had the talent, the qualifications, and the drive. All she needed was the time, the support, and someone to handle the spreadsheets while she focused on the children.
Sara is, without question, the hardest-working person I know. Watching her navigate the complexities of launching a business while never losing sight of why she was doing it has been genuinely inspiring. She is a superhero, and I admire watching her smash it every single day. If you are in the Enfield area and looking for outstanding early years care, take a look at curiouscubsdaycare.co.uk. You will see exactly what I mean.
Harry Charalambous Director Global Business Development at Connected IQ