Separation of parents from children in Australia cannot be mentioned without the subtext of coercion. This is not to place different kinds of family separation on a par;it is to connect us to our past,and we don’t need a history lesson to reaffirm how,since 1788,our houses are built on a bedrock of separated families. These all have their own singularities and if they can be mentioned in the same breath,it is because Australians all have some share in that primal heartbreak. In every community,whether separation is theft or resettlement or the search for opportunity,through every layer from dispossession to adventure,a parent’s tears are a parent’s tears.
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The story would be incomplete if we did not mention how many families are experiencing the exact opposite of separation:enforced togetherness. The latest HILDA (Household,Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia) survey tracks the “boomerang children” effect. Since 2000,the number of Australians aged 18 to 29 living in the parental home increased by around 10 per cent,a large quotient having left and moved back in. More than half of the respondents felt that anyone over the age of 26 should be living away from their parents. The increase was taken to be forced on twentysomethings by the housing market,increased participation in (expensive) graduate education programs,and the lingering results of the COVID pandemic. I’m not going to speculate on whether boomeranging children enhance or diminish family cohesion and happiness.
But our children have left and may not ever boomerang. If a child leaving their parents’ home is voluntary and propelled by high hopes,then everyone is meant to count their blessings. After they’ve finished crying.
As for last words,decades ago my dad’s had a chance to stay in my head without further elaboration. Phone calls were prohibitively expensive and unreliable mail took forever. Don’t trust anybody? You couldn’t trust 1980s communications. By the time I could ask him what he’d meant,he’d forgotten he’d said it.
Now,the technology we spend so much time distrusting – the social media platforms,the WhatsApp groups,the smartphone hegemony – is our salvation. Often,thanks to that same technology,separated families talk more than they do when they’re in the same home.
Our son might be gone forever. If his career plans go as he wishes,he won’t be back in Australia for a very long time. It hasn’t hit me yet. Humans have a great capacity to fend off realities and,when it comes to their complicated feelings,to mix pros into their cons. He might,like me when I was 22,come back earlier than expected,wrenched by the shocks of loneliness and homesickness. We can only hope.
I went for a last surf with him this week. It’s been our primary way of bonding since he was five. The waves didn’t look fabulous,and he said,“Hopefully I’ll have a bad session and I won’t get sad about how much I’ll miss it.” But he can make any waves good,and unfortunately,he had one last nice surf to regret.
I had to go away for another blubber before writing this next bit. My mother,his grandmother,went to pieces when she said goodbye because she’s not sure she’ll see him again. His sister,who’s spent years bickering with him,went to pieces because of how much she’s going to miss him. Family Jenga:pull one piece away,the rest crash down.
These experiences are meant to build our empathy for others who have suffered loss,and make us appreciate what we have. This weekend,while my son will be in the air on his way to becoming a foreign student – and trusting whoever he can trust himself to trust – we will be at a wedding. My mother’s eldest grandson,my son’s eldest cousin,starts a new stage of life.
I’m too gutted to say something convincingly philosophical about the turning of the wheel,but here it is,it’s upon us.
Malcolm Knox is an author and regular columnist.
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