Finding belonging when home keeps changing: a Defence family’s story - Kate B.
Some families spend generations in one postcode. Paddocks and fence lines become the story of a life. Today’s guest, Kate B*, has lived a very different rhythm - one defined by movement. As a Defence Force wife, Kate has packed up her family nine times in just over twenty years, moving interstate and overseas, sometimes with months to plan… and sometimes with only six weeks’ notice, like the posting to Singapore when she was 30 weeks pregnant. Canberra. Sydney. Back again. New houses, new schools, new doctors, new everything - again and again.If you’re listening from the bush, where we often don’t move at all, this is a window into another world - and a reminder that the ache for belonging lives in all of us, whether we stay or go.What struck me most about Kate is her quiet courage. She’ll tell you she’s an introvert, yet every move required her to become the family’s front-runner for connection: standing at the school gate to chat, volunteering in classrooms, arranging those early playdates, phoning other parents she’d never met and saying, “Let’s grab dinner so our girls can feel at home.” She built village after village so her kids didn’t have to do it alone.And then there’s the way she makes “home” travel with them: the same furniture, the same candle scent lit on day one, the same beloved plants that the kids ask for when the boxes arrive. For Kate’s family, home isn’t a street; it’s the people and the rituals that move with you.When the constant relocating began to pinch most sharply - especially for high school - Kate and her husband offered their daughter something different: boarding. Not because home didn’t hold, but because friendships and learning needed a steady place to land. Their daughter chose it, after a try-out night in the boarding house and plenty of honest conversation. And while the first goodbye stung, what followed surprised Kate: deeper daily connection. Morning check-ins, an afternoon debrief, and then a sacred daily phone call, uninterrupted minutes that many families living under one roof never get.You’ll hear the nuance in Kate’s story: one child naturally resilient, another still building those muscles; a mother who’s had to put herself out there even when it felt unnatural; the professional sacrifices of moving every couple of years; and the unexpected gifts - confidence, cultural horizons, friendships forged in unlikely places. You’ll hear practical wisdom too: that there’s nearly always a way to get involved, even from far away - zooming into P&F meetings, turning up to the annual parent dinner, finding guardians you trust.This conversation is for anyone weighing big decisions about their child’s schooling and sense of belonging - especially our rural and remote mums who don’t move much at all but who know, deeply, what distance feels like. Kate reminds us that stability isn’t always about a fixed address; sometimes it’s the steady love and the brave phone call that make all the difference.*full name withheld
Australia