Transcript for
Parenting in rural and remote Australia

Narrator (00:02): 

Welcome to the Emerging Minds Families Podcast. 

Nadia Rossi (Host) (00:06): 

Hi, I’m Nadia Rossi and you’re listening to an Emerging Minds Families podcast. Australia is a vast and diverse country, and families live in a range of environments, from bustling cities, to regional towns, to the more isolated and remote areas. Parenting is an adventure no matter where you are located, but it can bring unique challenges and opportunities when you are raising a family in the very remote areas of Outback Australia. The vast differences between towns and communities can mean limited access to resources such as healthcare, education and support networks, but it can also provide a unique and wonderful family life. Today we are talking to Petie. She is a mother to four children and lives with her family in a beautiful and unique part of the country. Welcome, Petie, it is great to speak with you today. Can you give our listeners an idea of where in Australia you’re joining us from and a bit of background on who makes up your family? 

Petie Moore (Guest) (01:07): 

Yeah, sure. Thanks for having me. So I’m from the Twin Station, which is a cattle station north of Port Augusta. So just to put into perspective for anyone listening, it’s about eight hours north of Adelaide, four and a half hours north of Port Augusta and smack bang in the middle of Coober Pedy and Glendambo, if anyone knows that area, which is about 150 from each, so right in the middle. So we’re on a cattle station there, called The Twins, and it’s me and my husband and our four children. We have, our daughter is 15, now she’s currently at boarding school down in Adelaide, she’s our eldest. And then we’ve got our second child, which is Ryder, he’s 13, then we’ve got Eli, who’s 10, and Lawson who’s eight 

Nadia Rossi (Host) (01:51): 

Petie, can you tell us what does family life look like for you? 

Petie Moore (Guest) (01:55): 

It’s fairly varied, but at the same time it’s pretty similar to probably what most people do on a day-to-day basis being a mum, you’re just doing what mums do. But I guess for us it’s a bit different insofar as the kids do School of the Air, so there’s no packing of a school bag and lunches and stuff because the schoolroom is literally three metres from the house. So the three boys do School of the Air. We have a governess who lives here with us, so she teaches two of the boys and I teach our eldest lad, so we’re both over in there. That takes up our normal five days of the week. But generally before and after school there’s sort of a lot to do, whether we’re mustering or doing cattle work, there’s plenty of animals here like pet animals, so there’s always busy doing that sort of stuff. 

(02:35): 

We’re fairly flexible when it comes to busy times. So twice a year we muster and that often means going into the room and saying, “Hey, guess what guys? Day off because we need to go out and help dad muster,” or whatever it might be. But they’re life skills, they’re things I wouldn’t swap anyway. So it’s all comparative, I think, when it comes to school and the teachers know this because they’re teaching all of these students the same and they know that and they’re like, “Yep, absolutely. They can catch up or they can come back and write a bit of a journal about what they’ve done when they were mustering.” There’s that. 

(03:01): 

I go out quite a lot to help my husband because it is only us two, currently we don’t have any workers here. So on a weekend it’s a matter of just running water, which is just going and checking the bores, checking cattle, feeding out if we need to. So fairly busy. And then on top of that, obviously it’s just normal housework, like it’s feeding everybody and washing and keeping it tidy and trying to keep a garden going in the middle of nowhere when it’s 49 degrees, things like that. 

Nadia Rossi (Host) (03:23): 

Just for our listeners and myself, what is mustering? 

Petie Moore (Guest) (03:26): 

We’re a cattle station and the cattle just roam, so they run with bulls. So we have got cows dropping calves all throughout the year. So twice a year we get out, we muster all of them in, we go around to separate yards and we muster them all in. And then we go and mark all our calves, be it little bulls or heifers, so we go and mark them, and then we either separate the bigger ones off their mums, ready to wean off so then they can grow out ready to sell. Generally twice a year we get cattle together to sell off, that’s our income, so we have to sell them. So yeah, literally it’s just getting a count on your cows and that takes about a month to do. 

Nadia Rossi (Host) (03:59): 

Right. Okay. And the kids get in on that will they? 

Petie Moore (Guest) (04:02): 

They certainly do. 

Nadia Rossi (Host) (04:04): 

When do they start coming out with you? 

Petie Moore (Guest) (04:05): 

Oh, birth, because I’m obviously out there anyway, so it’ll be either I’m in a Toyota with brand new baby in a capsule beside me. And then certainly when it comes to mustering, all four of my kids are on motorbikes and I’m on a motorbike and it’s great. I don’t have little babies, I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love little babies, but I don’t have the little ones anymore. So literally they’re all on motorbikes, we’ll leave here at six o’clock in the morning and I might not see them again till lunch or whenever because off they go and I know that they’re okay. But whilst it’s bittersweet because they’re not little anymore, they’re just so independent and they’ve grown up doing this, and so it’s just second nature for them to go out and off they go and they know what they’re doing. But it’s just really lovely because we can all be doing it together and it’s a real shared experience. 

Nadia Rossi (Host) (04:53): 

I am curious about those early days of motherhood. Being a mother myself and knowing and going through that, I had a lot of supports around me, I was very connected in a way. And I’m just interested in what that is for you out where you are in your community. Are there supports there for you? What’s it like having a baby, especially your first? 

Petie Moore (Guest) (05:13): 

Well, hard but also not. I think wherever you are, you make the best of that situation regardless. So whilst it was hard, because I am so far away from any support, you find support in other ways and you’re connected in other ways. Certainly when I first moved out here, our daughter, she was two and I had a newborn, so we’d had the two kids. So when we first came out here, I didn’t have, I know wifi was probably around, but we didn’t have it. We just weren’t that connected. So a lot of my early days was fairly, not solitary, but I was just learning as I went. And in a way it was good because there was no one to tell me I was doing it wrong or right, I just did it how I wanted to do it, and really it was lovely. But the support that I had from the community around here, because I think when I first moved out here, which is nearly 14 years ago, there was not a lot of younger, my age people with kids. 

(06:03): 

There was older generations that had already had their kids, but that was so fantastic for me because they’d been there, done that. And even though they were neighbours, they were say 200 Ks away, but if it wasn’t for them, it would’ve been a lot harder. They were so supportive and I might’ve only seen them two or three times a year, but those two or three times were so important. Or they’d just simply pick up the phone, even though we’re so spread in this little, we’re called the Northwest pastoral, this area, it is so close-knit, you just wouldn’t believe it. And I speak to people living in towns and stuff and I honestly feel I’m more connected to my community than what they are because we are so far apart I think we make most of the time that we are together. So we have meetings and that and I just make sure I go to all those things because that’s the times that means so much. 

(06:50): 

And then as I’ve had my other kids, a lot more younger people came to the area or other young people that were in the area started having babies. So then it just became a little bit more sociable, though then I had that support. And I’ve also got an amazing mother who lives in Victoria, but she would make so much effort for me and she’d come up four or five, six times of the year. So she’d come up and she’d stay for two and three weeks and just be there. She’d just do the washing or just do the things that mothers that might live close to their children do. Also, really lucky because if you’re in a town or in a city and you’re a husband and wife, often the husband’s up and gone because he’s gone to his job all day, whether he is a tradie or in the office or whatever. 

(07:25): 

For me, this is a family place, so we’re so lucky that if I was having a bit of a shit day or whatever, baby was being naughty, whatever the case was, I could jump in the car and go out with Ryan and I was with him all day. He might’ve been working in the shed and the shed was 10 metres away. So he was actually pretty much always there, or I could just go and be with him and we’d go out and do the things together because we have that flexibility out here. Especially being a family place, it’s absolutely all about the family and bringing the kids out and involving them. So he’s just been there like he was always there, so he was always around, which is just having his support, obviously I couldn’t have done it without him. 

Nadia Rossi (Host) (08:01): 

I’m thinking of how Having your four children over the time, the supports and the way you all stay connected to your family has changed and the community and friends, how that has changed over time and has technology affected that? 

Petie Moore (Guest) (08:14): 

When you’re talking technology, majorly, and I remember first coming out here and we didn’t have wifi, it was just the landline and you had your mobile phone, but they did only work when you were in service. And I remember first coming out here and we were on a BigPond plan and it was one gig for 60 bucks per month. That blows my mind. And we just had to manage on that. And I look at it now and I have my phone with me, obviously we don’t have service when we go out, we now have service here at our home because we’ve got an aerial on the roof that beams off one of the mines near us, which is so lucky that I could be sitting here and my mobile phone can ring. So I keep connected with my family through that channel. 

(08:51): 

So in that way I know technology can be the bane of our lives, but honestly living out here, it’s helped so much to remain connected, especially to my family who is so far away. And now I can’t even tell you how amazing FaceTime is, having a daughter down at boarding school and every day we FaceTime, every afternoon, every evening. And just seeing her face, considering if it was 10 years ago, it probably would’ve just been on a landline or a mobile phone or whatever, and to be able to see her, it just makes you feel like you’re there and be connected. So technology, the change in that has just been amazing. Schooling, all my kids do School of the Air, so they need to have that technology. And years ago it used to be that they couldn’t see their classmates, they couldn’t see their teacher. And over the course of 10 years, they now have to have their camera on so the teachers can see them because we all have reliable internet. 

(09:40): 

So that has just changed education for distance kids. And I think support wise, over the course of the time I’ve been here, so when I first came out here I had a little baby and I was so nervous and so scared. And I remember going to, it was a Christmas party and one lady that has been here for 25, 30 years, she came up to me and she’s like, “Hi, I know you’ve just recently moved up here, nice to meet you, Petie,” and all that sort of stuff, introductions. And then she literally said to me, “Right, so we’ve got the ICPA, which is the Isolated Children Parents Association and our race club, which is at Glendambo. So if you just want to join both of those, then that would be really good and maybe you could come on and be publicity officer and you could do the sponsorship for the race club.” 

(10:21): 

And I was like, “Whoa, hold on a second, I’m new and I don’t …” but I was too scared back then to say no, so I just said yes. And honestly, it was the best thing that ever happened to me because I then went to all these meetings, we have our races every year, and it’s gone from in 10 years, I’m now the president of that race club, I’m the secretary on the ICPA. But it just goes to show … and I think probably her experience was, I know that you need this and I know it’s scary, but I know it’s going to help you. And from there, I then met this group of people that live out here and just the support through having my babies and stuff, it’s been amazing. 

(10:55): 

And so now if there’s anyone new to the area, I’m a bit the same. I’m like, “Right, here’s what you need to do. Come and join these things.” Because I think you can get very lost and lonely being out here, and I think you think that there’s nothing, and I know everyone else would go, “Oh my God, there’s nothing for you to do.” But that is so not the case. But I think you need to be shown that being out here and you really need to make the effort to go to these things. So we travel to all the local Gymkhanas and that, you’ve got to make that effort because if you don’t, you can be very lonely. And it is very isolating, but it doesn’t have to be, there is so much support out here. And I think because most of us out here have been mums, we’ve all been in that position before. So I think that’s what keeps us so connected because we know what it’s like and we know how important it is. 

Nadia Rossi (Host) (11:39): 

I’m wondering about school transitions, how you go from spending so much time together and being so physically close, to then one starting another chapter of their life, how do you manage that transition? 

Petie Moore (Guest) (11:51): 

Honestly, it’s the hardest thing I have ever done and ever will do in my life. It’s just incredibly difficult. So our daughter, we were kind of reliant on a scholarship for her to go away to school, knowing that we’ve got four children that have to do this, they all have to go through it, so we have to bear that in mind. So her first year, she didn’t get a scholarship, so we decided that our daughter would go and spend 12 months down in Victoria with my family, which was so hard. It was the beginning of COVID and so we went numerous lockdowns without seeing her because she went into lockdown being in Victoria and they had lockdown after lockdown, and having flights have to be cancelled because she couldn’t come home because of lockdown. And look, it absolutely made her into the most independent resilient child ever, and her coping mechanisms are phenomenal. 

(12:49): 

So that was the hardest year of our life and of hers. But I look at her now, when she got into the school that she’s at, and she did get a scholarship in the end, she’d gone from being two days drive away from us to now being where I could jump in the car at six o’clock this morning and I could be down there just after lunch. And honestly, there’s barely been a day where she’s been upset because she had to go through such a hard time in Victoria, she just knows how to cope with it now. And there are still kids down there that get really homesick, and I totally understand and appreciate that because it’s so difficult, and she’s now this really good friend to these kids because she knows how hard that can be. And just honestly, I don’t know how she does it, she copes the way she does, but I think it’s because that 12 months absolutely made her so mature and she just became this amazing child, I can’t even put into words because it was just amazing. 

(13:45): 

For us out here, we have them so intensely and so closely for those primary school years because they’re all doing School of the Air out here and they’re literally at your house, so you are seeing them all the time. So we go from having them so tight and so close to us, to leaving home at 13, and the difference is so drastic. It’s not just transitioning from primary school to boarding school like most kids in a town or a city. It’s so drastic. It’s from having them constantly with you to not having them at all. That’s huge. So preparing them for that is something that I don’t even know if anyone could tell you how to prepare them for it because how do you know, how do you teach your child that. So do the best you can do, and that’s all anyone can do. 

(14:30): 

But it is really hard because it is going from having them all the time. And literally our kids are leaving home at 13. They are actually leaving home because whilst we have them for holidays and stuff, when we go down and see them, if they then go off to uni and that they’re not going to come back home and they’re so much more grown up, and for all I know, that’ll be it, they won’t come back home. But I do get to witness how much they grow and I see how independent they are and I know if they go to uni or go off and get jobs that they will be okay because from 13 they’ve had to be able to cope with being away from home, they’ve had to make their own beds, they’ve had to get up on time, they’ve got to go to bed without the devices, and all these things that the boarding schools have been instilling in them, they carry that through. 

(15:09): 

And so I think the transitional from after school to then the rest of their lives is probably … they’re just may be more prepared for it. So it is so hard, but I do get to watch them grow in a really … and I’m so proud of our daughter and I know that I’ll be proud of the boys because yeah, I see that. I see their growth. And to be able to say that I’m so proud of them for living independently so far away, it’s just bittersweet. 

Nadia Rossi (Host) (15:35): 

You do. You sound so proud. And it does sound like you are reassured by them and their resilience and your daughter’s resilience. But I am wondering about you and how you look after yourself when that transition comes. Are there any strategies or anything that you do for yourself personally that when your children are going through that transition, or even in that crazy time of COVID that you mentioned, that how you looked after yourself in that time, did you even have time to look after yourself? 

Petie Moore (Guest) (16:05): 

Certainly COVID, anyone that had kids, and you probably would’ve seen it on the news and people that had kids in boarding school, we were all going through the same thing. And it was so horrible that you might’ve been … the boarding school would be like, “We’re locking down for two weeks and you can’t see your kids.” That’s a pretty hard thing. How I cope, look, I just go into my room and cried for the first week. No, I think having our daughter deal with it so well has made it so much easier for me to cope. And honestly, I tell everyone she copes better than what I cope, and that is 100% true, she definitely does. But I would absolutely rather it that way than be it the other way and have her not cope and me cope because I know that I can cope. I’m nearly 40, I can manage, I’ll deal with it. It’s more important that they have the skills to cope. 

(16:48): 

So I keep busy, I think and I do anyway, obviously back here I’m teaching and I’ve got the boys and the house and household, like most mums do, to run. But that keeps me going by keeping busy and certainly the communication, staying in touch. We stay in touch all the time and we make sure we see her every three weeks, be it she comes home or we go down there, however we work it. But certainly just the communication, keeping in touch all the time. And she knows that I help her with homework, she’ll ring me, she’ll be like, “Mum, I just need a hand with homework.” I’m not there, but we can FaceTime and she can show me what she needs help with. Lots of cuddles from my boys when I’m missing her. 

(17:23): 

So I’ll be like, “Righteo boys, you need to sleep with mum tonight because I’m sad and I miss Hayden.” And I think it’s nice for the boys, not that I want to see me upset that I miss her, but it’s nice for them to see that we’re a close family and they know that whilst it’s hard and it can be sad, it’s also amazing and look at what she’s doing. And because of the positivity I try to let off so the boys can see that, they’re now all really excited to go to boarding school, which I didn’t think would ever be the case because most kids are pretty scared about it, rightly so. But the boys, I’ve got one who is absolutely adamant that he’s going to be an AFL player. Now he’s only 10, and if he could go now, I reckon he would because he is just like, “Right, I want to get down there and play sports,” because those are things that they don’t have access to. 

(18:08): 

So I try to talk it up as much as I can to be like, “Hey, you’re going to have so many opportunities when you get down there that I can’t give you up here. You can’t play your team sport and your footballs and your crickets and things like that. And socially you’re going to have so many friends down there and join clubs and things like that.” So by showing them how exciting it is and by having our daughter ring and when she’s on FaceTime say, “Oh, I went and played footy tonight, or I went and did this, or we went down the street,” they see that. And so that also makes it easier for me, knowing that our son goes off next year, so knowing that that transition’s coming up and knowing that she’ll be there with him. So yeah, it’s staying positive so they can all see that. 

(18:50): 

But also knowing they have to understand that it is going to be harder. There is going to be sad times, but it’s not forever. And you always get to come home and you’ve got the holidays. And I think my daughter, I make my daughter a calendar each year and I put all the things on it that are coming up and she puts little countdowns. So I’ll drop her off and then in three weeks she starts a countdown and every night she’ll message me, she’ll be like, “21 days to go, mum, and then I see you,” or it’ll be 15 days to go or whatever. And it just gives her something to look forward to, which I do with the boys too. And I’ll be like, “Oh, we’re going to go down and see her,” or whatever. So I think it’s communication and openness and just to keep that connectedness. 

Nadia Rossi (Host) (19:24): 

So what are the biggest challenges of raising your children remotely and how have you overcome these or managed these? 

Petie Moore (Guest) (19:33): 

Whilst they get so many opportunities out here just by living out here and learning to drive a car and ride a motorbike, 6, 7, 8 years old. But the opportunities that they don’t get, be it team sports and being able to see their mates every day, and there’s really not much I can do about that. And I wish I could, but there are some things I can fix and there’s some things I just can’t. So that’s hard. And the kids will be like, “Oh, can we go and stay with such and such, have a sleepover or whatever.” I’m like, “Yeah, mate. But they’re six hours away, we just can’t do it. It’s not that easy.” So my kids FaceTime their mates quite often after school, again, just keeps them connected, which is also why we make the effort to go to all the community events because I try to make up for the things that they can’t have. 

(20:13): 

So I think not having access to those opportunities can make it difficult. And I mean, you can do it’s just you can’t do it every weekend. The kids have to deal with a lot of adult things. Like a few years ago we went through a horrendous drought, which was all over the news. And so the kids were seeing death on a daily basis, seeing mum and dad really sad because it was very difficult, it was a really hard time. It’s got ripple effect in so many other areas of their life. They just then learn how to deal with so … about living out here, they understand that it’s not always easy, there’s really tough times. And the whole circle of life, like pets die and it’s really sad, but they learn how to cope with that in a really adult way. And whilst I don’t want them to grow up quickly, there are just things that they learn to deal with from a young age. 

(21:03): 

And I think they’re learning life skills and those things prepare them for life. So I think that is really a challenge, but at the same time, you can look at it with a bit of a positive spin. I think it’s just making them really independent and resilient because we go through these things as a family out here. We work where we live, so it’s a real family thing, which all of the places are around here. So they have to go through these challenges with us. So I’d say challenge wise is probably that, not being able to give them the things that they’d really like, team sports and things like that, but we try to make up for it by going to the things that we can manage to get to. 

Nadia Rossi (Host) (21:38): 

Petie, I wonder, what do you love about raising your children remotely? 

Petie Moore (Guest) (21:43): 

Everything. The freedom, the space, like I’ve said, the independence that I see in the kids, the life skills that they learn being out here, their work ethic. So we’ve just had the two-week holidays and we were mustering. And so those kids, for 14 days straight, were up having a 5:30 breakfast with everyone else, and we were not getting back until seven o’clock at night and they were out all day long on a motorbike, walking cattle, mustering cattle, whatever they were doing, chasing the aircraft. I just love seeing that. I love seeing my little eight-year-old, off he goes on a motorbike, 14 Ks away from me and I won’t see him for hours. And then he’ll come back in with a little mob of cattle that he’s got all himself, and it obviously makes me really, really proud. 

(22:31): 

They just know what they’re doing, they know how to be safe, they know how to look after themselves out here, we’ve all got radios on. So they know that if there’s a problem, they can just radio or we’ve taught them things that out here in the middle of nowhere, they get lost, that can obviously be massive. That can be life or death. Now they know if they get lost or there’s an aircraft in the air, they just have to do a bit of a donut on their motorbike and create some dust, and then the plane’s going to see them or turn off their motorbike and they’ll hear the other motorbikes. We’ve taught them these things and that’s obviously only relevant to this situation, that makes no sense to anybody else, but it’s just teaching them the life skills if any of them choose to stay on out here. But the life skills and as I said, learning to drive, things like that, they wouldn’t have the chances to do if they weren’t out here or in a country setting. 

(23:17): 

There is so much to love. Their communication skills, even though we live out here, their communication skills are crazy. We’ll go to a show and a lot of the time they socialise with mostly adults. There’s not a hell of a lot of kids. So we’ll go to somewhere and they’ll go up and they’ll shake someone’s hand because that’s what they’ve been taught to do. And they’ll say, Mr. or Mrs. And they talk to these adults like they’re a mini adult because I think they get so excited to see people and they’re just taught that that’s just what you do. You respect your elders, but you speak to them as you would at home. Obviously they’re so involved here anyway, so they’re very good at communicating with us, but it’s just so lovely to see that they’re just not shy. 

(23:55): 

Honestly, the list is endless, I think, with what I love out here, it can be really hard, but my gosh, it can be amazing. And it’s not for everybody, and I really do appreciate that because it’s hard, it’s dry, it’s hot, it’s arid, it’s everything. But at the same time, it is beautiful. When it rains, the country just comes alive. The sunsets, the sunrises, the space for these kids, and that I get to work with my husband every day and amazingly, we’re still together, we haven’t killed each other. So there is so much to love, but I guess only if you want to, because it isn’t for everybody and I get that. 

Nadia Rossi (Host) (24:30): 

I’m wondering as well, for new parents and new people that come out there, like you said, it’s not for everyone, but is there any advice you would give to new parents living remotely or something that you wish you had known before you moved out there? 

Petie Moore (Guest) (24:45): 

I honestly think being thrown in the deep end sometimes, you learn to swim, and I think that’s what happened with me. And I know it can be scary, but join the committees, that’s where you’ll find your support group because often that’s the only time that people all come together a few times a year for meetings and stuff. So join those groups because that is really where you will find the help. Stay connected, which everyone does these days anyway, regardless of where you live, we all have access to such good technology now, but just stay connected. Reach out if you’re not coping or you just need a hand or you need a bit of advice, pick up the phone. My neighbour might be 100 Ks away or whatever, but honestly, out here, distances just don’t really mean anything. So if you want to visit, just do it. 

(25:31): 

Just say, “Hey, just wouldn’t mind having a cup up,” because honestly, you’ll find that everyone out here will drop everything just to go and do that because it’s just what you do. And certainly when your kids start school, you’ll be amazed at how all of a sudden you’ll be like, “Oh my God, there’s so many other people out here in the same situation as me.” And I think you probably just don’t think about it because when you’re out here, you’d probably think you’re just in this bubble and you’re so alone. But as soon as you’re starting school, you go, “Wow, there is so many people.” And we all stay connected as well, but there’s so many other people in the same situation as me. 

(26:03): 

When we come together, because we don’t often, we don’t see each other so often, we actually speak, like we’re not sitting there on our phones or whatever. We really do, we chat, we catch up, because you might go six months without seeing those people, so you spend so much time actually talking. So advice, I’d just say, just jump in, just jump in. If someone says, “Hey, you’re new to the area, here’s my number. Did you want to join the committee?” Or hey, even just come along, as much as it’s probably nervous, just give it a shot, and it can be scary and it might be out of your comfort zone, but I think that is where you will find your people. 

Nadia Rossi (Host) (26:36): 

That sounds like some solid advice, Petie. Petie, thank you so much for today. 

Petie Moore (Guest) (26:41): 

Oh my pleasure. 

Narrator (26:44): 

Visit our website at www.emergingminds.com.au/families for a wide range of free information and resources to help support child and family mental health. Emerging Minds leads the National Workforce Centre for Child Mental Health. The Centre is funded by the Australian Government Department of Health under the National Support for Child and Youth Mental Health Program.