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The Reality of Australian Boarding Schools
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Forget Harry Potter—the reality of boarding in Australia is far from the elite fantasy we see in movies. What most people don’t know: 76% of Australia’s 23,000 boarding students are from rural and remote areas, who simply don’t have access to a local high school. For these families, it’s not about privilege; it’s about…
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Should we send our children to boarding school?
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At what age? I asked around, and the answers couldn’t be more different. Some people still cry decades later about being sent away at 5 or 6. Others begged their parents to let them go at 10 and loved every minute. For rural families, it’s often not even a choice. No high school nearby…
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21 Ways the Empty Nest Shows Up
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Their song came on the radio yesterday. The one they played on repeat that entire summer. The one that meant they were home, they were happy, when we were all together. And then I lost it. Completely. This is the kind of stuff nobody tells you about when you’re in an empty house, your…
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Rural Families and Boarding Schools
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Living more than 250 kilometres from the nearest city, we sent our daughters to boarding school not because we wanted to, but because geography dictated opportunity. What followed was an over-decade-long education in distance, logistics, sacrifice, and the systemic inequity facing rural Australian families. Let’s be clear about what “choice” means for rural families.…
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Boarding School And The Empty Nest: A Mother’s Grief
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Nobody warned me that sending a child to boarding school would feel as though something had been ripped from my body, or that the grief could be so viscerally raw. We went from being a whole-family life to an empty nest in what felt like a single day. The day after we left our…
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A Beginner’s Guide to the Empty Nest
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We survived the terrible twos, the teenage years, AND got them successfully launched into adulthood. So why does this part feel harder? Generation X parents pulled off something remarkable: we took our free-range, latchkey childhoods and decided to do the opposite. We showed up. We were involved. We gave them the emotional support we…
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How The Empty Nest Creates an Existential Crisis
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A confession in an online support group late at night: before their child was born, a parent felt an emptiness they couldn’t identify or fill. Then the baby arrived, and everything shifted. For twenty years, they experienced a depth of joy and purpose they’d never encountered. Now the child is grown and gone, and…
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Why Your Adult Children Don’t Need You
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A mother said she needed to toughen up her tender heart. Such a small thing to say, but it meant something quite significant. For twenty or thirty years, Gen X parents were the main characters in their children’s lives. Every decision involved them. Every milestone included them. Every problem needs its solution. They were…
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A Refreshing Bali Experience: Nusa Lembongan Awaits
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When our daughter invited us to join her family of five on holiday, we knew we wanted somewhere relaxed and scenic. The bustle of Kuta and Seminyak held little appeal, but Nusa Lembongan, a quieter island just off Bali, was too tempting to resist. I’d been before, but this trip offered surprises I hadn’t expected,…
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A Visa Delay, a Detour to Thailand, and a Return to Vietnam
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We planned a 10-day tour from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City, departing early February. We flew out of Perth, Western Australia, on a direct flight and headed for Ho Chi Minh City as planned. Just the day before we didn’t realise we needed a visa to enter Vietnam. Our visa applications didn’t go…