Being a Country Kid

I’m from the country. Until I was 12 I grew up on a vineyard in a tiny satellite town off Mildura. Everything was Mallee bushland, red dirt and wide open spaces. We had chooks, citrus trees, and friendly kangaroos who would hang around the back yard in the morning. Dad had designed our garden to make it a wonderland of imagination with trees making little houses, fairy gardens and hidey holes.

At the end of primary school we sold our vineyard and moved on because of the drought. I went from very rural to semi-rural when we moved to Albury. We lived out on a property in the middle of a valley half way up a hill. Our neighbours were goat farmers and horse riders. The only way to get to our house was a long dusty dirt road. Suddenly bush fires were a worry every Summer and it was a half-an-hour bus trip to school.

When you live in the country going to university is a time of absolute change. Lots of the people who I graduated highschool with have taken a year off to be able to earn enough money so they can study, some go to the local universities in the area and some move away to the cities.

Going to university is a completely different world. I’ve had to move out of home. Meaning I am three and a half hours away from my family and my friends. I’m living in a college share house with people who, before the start of the year, I didn’t even know, lucky they are nice. It’s a whole new kettle of fish. The stereotype of a tough aussie battler from the bush is pretty outdated but in a lot of ways country kids grow up a lot faster.

My course is dominated by kids who have grown up in Melbourne and I’m always surprised by their preconceptions about what it means to come from the country. I had a girl once sympathising with me about how much of a culture shock it must be for me to be in the ‘big bad city’ in comparison to my old city life. My life is not a coming of age comedy. I am not the hopeless country girl trying to make her way in the city helped by a colourful crew of eccentric city dwellers. I think people overestimate how isolated the country is from the city. Melbourne’s like a second home to me.

There are ways in which country kids are disadvantaged especially people from more isolated communities. But I think it’s important to realise that in some ways city kids are disadvantaged too. Growing up in the country instills in you a value for physical labour and reaping what you sow. It also breeds a great connection with nature and you have so much freedom.

It’s hard being away from my family, but I’ve got a home away from home and I don’t think I’m so disadvantaged from where I’ve come from. I like being from the country. It’s a unique perspective.