Overseas trips, diving adventures and tours of Australia. These women are saying “no thanks” to caretaking roles and making the most of their golden years.
Their voices are sometimes full of disbelief, other times outraged. “They said they won’t be helping out with the kids any more because they have their own lives too,” they say, seemingly shocked at the idea that their parents wouldn’t commit to hours of unpaid work each week. “I mean, it’s their own grandchildren so I just don’t understand where this is coming from.
Initially I did the ‘traditional’ grandmother thing after my daughter became a mother and moved in with me for assistance, but after my second daughter became pregnant I thought, ‘Well, Vicki, you’ve raised three beautiful children and loved every minute of it, but if you keep tending to everyone else’s needs you’re going to leave yourself behind.’I was 62 when I fell in love with scuba diving.
I’m currently diving in Indonesia, then moving on to the Philippines, Egypt and Mexico, where I’m hoping to see the oceanic whitetips [sharks]. Everywhere I go, particularly around South-East Asia, ocean pollution has become a huge problem. If anything makes me sad, it’s the knowledge that my grandchildren aren’t going to see half of what I’m seeing. It’s a shame.
I remarried when my first grandchild was 15, and my second husband and I began travelling the world together. Initially we cruised two or three times a year, but once I retired in 2015, we bought a motorhome to travel around Australia. At the same time, I took up lawn bowls and was selected to play in the NSW Bowling Arm team.
I was able to get out of my work commitments and fly back to meet my grandson a few weeks later. It was a little sad because he wasn’t a newborn any more, but these are the sacrifices you make when you move overseas. We expected we’d be over here for a stint before rejoining our families in Australia but we have fallen in love with the Indonesian lifestyle, our beautiful Lombok home and Nihi Sumba in particular and feel we’ll never leave.
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