Carrie Bickmore: ‘My childhood wasn’t perfect. And that’s perfectly OK’
MY parents split up when I was three years old, writes Carrie Bickmore. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve realised that no childhood is perfect. A nuclear family doesn’t guarantee happiness.
Stellar
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AT my daughter’s third birthday a few weeks ago I watched my mum and my dad chatting in the kitchen. They were talking about their work and the grandkids, and my dad was trying to help mum get her heating fixed.
What might seem like an unremarkable scene for most people is a scene of such joy for me. You see, my parents split up when I was three and I know how lucky I am to have them chatting so amicably 35 years later.
I appreciate it can’t have been easy for my mum and dad to get to this point. A lot of water has to go under a bridge before the pain of a divorce can be washed away, if at all. There would have been times when they disliked each other, were angry at each other, and wanted to whinge about the other, but I can honestly say I never heard my parents bitch about each other. Even now as an adult they rarely utter a bad word about each other. I have always appreciated the length my parents and extended family went to, so they could make the transition from traditional family to non-traditional family easy for us.
Given I was so young when they separated, I only remember ever growing up in an unconventional set-up. I spent my formative years in Perth with my mum, my step-dad and my two step-sisters, but travelled back and forth to my birth town of Adelaide often to visit my dad, who was also a huge part of my life. I used to love getting the “unaccompanied minor” treatment on the plane. The “special treatment”, I would call it.
My childhood wasn’t perfect but I’ve realised the older I get, and now with a family of my own, that no childhood is perfect. A nuclear family doesn’t guarantee happiness.
I have friends who grew up with their mum and dad together, in the same house, but they slept in separate beds and never spoke a word to each other — surely that’s not ideal? And friends who dislike their blood siblings so much they didn’t invite them to their wedding — that’s not happiness. Despite the complicated set-up of my family, and all the challenges that presented, I grew up with a stack of love around me, more than some “traditional” families have. I have two beautiful sisters, extra grandparents to hug, step-cousins coming out of my eye-balls and, at last count, 24 nieces and nephews who I adore. And you know what? None of those wonderful humans share my blood.
As I watched my parents chatting in the kitchen, I reflected on the journey they have had parenting me. They have stood side by side at weddings, at funerals and at births. They have laughed with me, bawled with me, grieved with me and holidayed with me, sometimes individually but often together — 35 years after divorce.
Life isn’t perfect. Family isn’t perfect. It’s about celebrating the imperfect, the untraditional, the abnormal. Because, let’s be honest, is any family normal? Even the traditional ones?
Carrie co-hosts The Project, 6.30pm weeknights, on Network Ten.