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My husband remembers it like it was yesterday (not the late 1970s). Saturdays from 10am, the doorbell at his house in Winter Street, Malvern, started ringing. Towels draped around necks and toting slabs and Reef tanning oil, a procession of the country’s then biggest TV stars trooped in.
Mike Walsh. Graham Kennedy. Mary Hardy. Daryl Somers. Plus a host of producers, cameramen, anyone who was anyone or just a hanger on. Crystal from Hey Hey It’s Saturday would fry by the pool all day. Elsa Davis did her act from The Mike Walsh Show, hammering the upright in the lounge room while bouncing a tennis ball.
Mick Jagger recently revealed he won’t be leaving his kids his $500 million fortune.Credit: AP
“There was creativity, singing, playing instruments,” says Chris. “It was like an improv night every night. That was the fun of it – everyone had a party trick.”
My future mother-in-law Jenny, a TV publicist and producer, threw the rolling parties every weekend, sometimes kicking off on Thursday nights. Chris, then aged six or seven and put in charge of changing albums on the stereo, threaded his way between the pool and sauna, nicking salami off platters.
“The amount of booze drunk and ciggies smoked in front of me – it was fantastic,” he said. “I’d be devastated when I was packed off to bed.”
Come morning, he’d grab $5 from his mum’s purse and buy breakfast up the street while everyone else slept in. There weren’t many school cut lunches – an aunt told me she’d sometimes see little Chris trawling Glenferrie Road at night, looking for dinner.
Once she took him in for a few days and he repaid her kindness by drawing reproductions of Sidney Nolan’s entire Ned Kelly series.
His mother’s focus was fun. “She loved having a great time with people, wanted to have a laugh and get on it. She wasn’t interested in anything else.”
In the 10 years Chris was communally raised until the house was sold, he never felt unsafe or not looked after. “I just felt loved. I was hunting around for a father figure and I wanted them all to be my family.”
I appreciate the non-helicopter, casually neglectful parenting approach, given we now know that while keeping tabs on your kids might stop you from worrying, it can lead to self-esteem issues and anxiety disorders.
Elton John says an excess of wealth messes people up.Credit: Getty
Various studies have found that children of hovering parents have poorer scores for psychological wellbeing and are more likely to use prescription medication for depression.
Still, some of Chris’ details hurt my heart. Thinking of a long-ago boy seeing shenanigans in dark corners, or eating Cheezels and watching cartoons on Saturday mornings while his mum slept off the Brandivinos.
His dad – who saw Chris on alternate Sundays – also had an unusual parenting style, taking his nine-year-old to The Boys From Brazil and giving him $20 at Luna Park to jump on rides solo for hours.
My own mothering style was more a melange of conventional – ironed uniforms, homemade cakes, enforced violin lessons, instructions to ignore my chardy binges – and tiger mum.
I’d take on school staff who gave my Felix detention for a non-conformist haircut and I’m still plotting revenge on a teacher who wouldn’t let Jack sit his VCE English exam until he’d had a shave with a blunt plastic razor.
What our children inherit from us – money, security, brains, fashion sense, politics, work ethic – has been on my mind since Mick Jagger told the The Wall Street Journal he won’t share his riches with his eight kids: “The children don’t need $500 million to live well.”
Plenty of celebrities pull the non-inheritance move like Jagger. Bill Gates said leaving kids mega money “distorts anything they might do”. Elton John says it “ruins their life”, Sting calls trust funds “albatrosses around necks” and Gordon Ramsay’s five kids get “a 25 per cent deposit on a flat. Not the whole flat”.
I like it. Or at least I kid myself my three will be thrilled with financial scraps (I’m spending the rest) because giving kids more than that takes away the most important inheritance. The ability to work. And do the Nutbush.
Kate Halfpenny is the founder of Bad Mother Media.
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