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An extended family
“Sociologist of family tests own
theories” said colleagues when three nuclear families
sold up perfectly good nuclear family homes and moved to
a hillside in Eltham. Australia is very committed to the isolated
nuclear family, and I was in the middle of a study of
its effects in outer suburbia (the
project that led to Tom's writing the NUD*IST software). But the idea of the
Orchard wasn’t an extension of sociological theory,
rather a discovery through adversity (my extended
illnesses in 1979) of how family could work. The result –
25 years ago, we settled with my parents and my sister’s
family on a hillside where we built, planted or nurtured
three houses, my brother in law’s
vineyard, a rag-tag
orchard of old pears and new plantings and a precious
piece of Australian bush on which there are colonies of
the endangered
Eltham copper butterfly
and in a good spring, 300 tiny blue
Caladenia orchids; and later, several different
observatories and a
glasshouse.
The Orchard was staffed by four children who always had
a loving adult around and us adults who variously
pursued peace or career, debated politics or science,
cared for each other as needed – and still do. |
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