Today’s the day to get in front of how your next decade might change
When you pass a young couple in the park pushing their toddlers on the swings, you’re very likely looking at people who until a few years ago didn’t even have kids on their radar. Some have family plans from a young age, but most of us travel through our 20s enjoying life, building careers that challenge and reward us, travelling and generally making memories.
That’s as it should be, but when your own parents start talking to you about making them grandparents, it’s not clucky nagging but rather a gentle warning that you’d be wise to heed. There may be no scientific proof for it, but for men and women alike, the biological clock is a thing. Out of the blue, that clock will strike and an until-then happily child-free person will suddenly start thinking about creating a brand new little person.
There’s no right time to have a baby – they’ll upside-down your world in the most delightful way. Kids open your heart and mind to a new world of love and happiness, and they’ll also shift your priorities. Just putting that fact in your mind will help you to take charge of decisions (before they arrive and start running the house). The earlier you think about the kind of home you want to make for your future, the better.
Cast your mind back to the best parts of your own childhood – or what you wish it had been. Dream big. You want a comfortable home, with enough room to get out of each other’s way as the kids grow into teenagers (which happens with alarming speed). If the backyard isn’t big enough for a proper run-up for your neighbourhood cricket games, you want a park nearby where you can set up your stumps. And if your kids get serious about their chosen sport, you want a local club they can join, making it easy for them to get to practice and games.
Great schools are a must – once you’re thinking about family, they’re often the first thing you’ll search for when you begin the journey of looking for the right property. Even better if you’ve placed yourself in the sweet spot for schools long before you are buying that impossibly tiny uniform and wide-brimmed sun hat that flops over their eyes and pretending you’re not crying at the gate on your child’s first day.
Once upon a time, a sense of community was something we almost took for granted. Neighbourhoods were made of people who from all walks of life but who shared the same values of wanting to do their bit to leave the world a better place, and who looked out for each other – all things we all want for our kids’ precious childhoods.
Today, it’s true you have to look a little harder to find these communities, but they’re out there. Places where neighbours are friends, their lives happily intertwining as their families grow. At Aura on the Sunshine Coast, just such a community is taking shape. The ability to to keep life, work and play close makes everything easier as your family grows. You spend less time commuting and more time deciding whether to head to the nearby beaches or a community fitness class or a summer movie night in the park.
Heading to Aura to look at the land, house and land packages and display homes might seem like over-planning right now, but that day you decide a family is your future, you will have already set yourself up for the next decade.
Make today the day you come and see what the future could look like in a Stockland community, your future - ENQUIRE NOW