5 February

As anybody whose kids have left home has felt I’m sure, it’s a difficult transition. For them, and for parents. I think it goes beyond our usual ‘homesick’ type explanations. For most human history families didn’t fragment in this way, they didn’t disperse to all parts of the globe for the rest of their lives. ‘Home’ didn’t used to be restricted to just one couple’s block of land and house. It meant an ongoing connection to place, across generations. As some farming families still have, and of course Aboriginal Australians had for tens of thousands of years. But home has now become fragmented. When my kids leave home it’s not just that I obviously miss them, it’s the feeling of the home we shared together being pulled apart as well. They were part of that space, they helped to make it an ongoing experience. Now we just assume kids need to make their own way in the world, to make their own homes. Which when you zoom out *is* the fragmentation I’m talking about. And increasingly they can’t afford even the land and building anyway. I see a trend for kids to live with their parents for much longer now. That extended family model is the one we replaced with the fragmentation model. I wonder if reality is reasserting itself.