298: Cailyn Muntelwit on Breaking Generational Cycles, Neurodivergence & 48 Hours in Paris

Cailyn Muntelwit grew up on cattle properties across Central Queensland in a loving but emotionally unstable home, navigating school, undiagnosed neurodivergence, and a brain that never switched off. At 19, she met her partner Frank in the stock camp, and by 27 they were starting a family of their own. But motherhood hit hard. With ADHD, a child navigating ADHD and autism, and a partner working away for months at a time, those early years became more about survival than balance. In this episode, Cailyn shares how she’s learning to break generational patterns, parent differently, and build a life that works for her family — including a business idea that unexpectedly took her all the way to Paris to represent regional Australia on the world stage. 

Motherland is proud to partner with Mums Matter, a bulk-billed psychology service, supporting women through pregnancy, postpartum, and the journey of motherhood. If you’re feeling anxious, overwhelmed, disconnected, or simply not like yourself, you don’t have to go through it alone. Visit mumsmatterpsychology.com to learn more or book a telehealth appointment with Mums Matter.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Motherland is proud to partner with Mums Matter, a bulk-built psychology service supporting women through pregnancy, postpartum, and the journey of motherhood. For many mums, especially in rural and regional Australia, accessing qualified mental health support isn't always easy. Mums Matter offers compassionate, evidence-based psychology via telehealth, so you can speak with a specialist from the comfort of your home. If you're feeling anxious, overwhelmed, disconnected, or simply not like yourself, you don't have to go through it alone. Visit mumsterpsychology.com to learn more or book a telehealth appointment. The link is in today's show notes. Hi, I'm Stephanie Trithewey, the founder of Motherland, a national charity that supports rural mums across Australia. Welcome to the Motherland Podcast, where each week I share with you real and raw stories of motherhood told by women on the land.

SPEAKER_00 1:09

I certainly didn't expect to be widowed twice by age 51. I was so scared when he was born. I felt so alone. And I remember sobbing to her as I just said, what have I done?

SPEAKER_01 1:22

It's a wild roller coaster we're all on. So no matter where you live or what you do, remember we're in this together and you're not alone. So what's it like to raise kids on the land? This is Motherland. Kaylin Muntelwit has been trying to make sense of motherhood long before she became a mum herself. She grew up on cattle properties across central Queensland in a loving but emotionally unstable home, with a mum navigating bipolar and a childhood that taught her how to read the room, manage big emotions, and keep going without ever really learning how to process her own. School never fit, her brain never switched off. And it was the farm, horses, cattle, the rhythm of the land that grounded her. At 19, she met her partner Frank in the stock camp, and by 27, they were trying for a baby. But early motherhood hit hard. Having little babies was not my forte as a mum. And those years became less about thriving and more about surviving. But slowly, through trial and error, Kaelin has rewritten what motherhood looks like for her family. Learning to parent differently from how she was raised, while also building a business that's taken her all the way to Paris to represent Regional Australia on the world stage. This is a conversation about generational patterns, neurodivergence, and the ongoing work of doing things differently. This is Kaelin's story. Well, Kaelin, welcome to Motherland. Hi Steph, thanks for having me. A good place to start. Can you introduce yourself to everyone? Tell us a bit about you, your family, where you're based.

SPEAKER_02 3:23

Yeah, so I'm Kaylin Muntelwit. We live on a small farm between the Bunya Mountains and McClagan in southeast Queensland. We run cattle, we do a little bit of cropping, but only to feed the cattle. Yeah, we moved down here the end of October in 2024. So we haven't actually been down here all that long. We've sort of spent our life north Queensland, Western Queensland. I have my partner Frank Wright, and we have two boys who are nine and six.

SPEAKER_01 3:57

Tell me a bit about your upbringing. Like where did you grow up? Where's home for you?

SPEAKER_02 4:02

Yeah, so um probably central Queensland is home. I was born on a place near Enickey, so that's just west of Emerald in central Queensland. We then moved to a place between Alpha and Tambo. So it's still in central Queensland, but on the western end of it. And then when I was 12, we moved down to a place near Henneford, which is just sort of between Surratt and Tara, or Sratt and Dolby, I suppose you would say. And then yeah, obviously I left home from there.

SPEAKER_01 4:37

And um, what did your parents do? Like, you know, you moved around a little bit, but what were they doing for work?

SPEAKER_02 4:43

Oh yeah, uh so cattle farmers. Um my yeah, dad bought his first place at Anarchy and then just sort of traded places, I suppose, um, all whilst having breeders as well as a few trade cattle. Basically, um my dad came from nothing and created everything himself. Yeah, so beef farmers, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 5:08

Yeah, and so tell me through your teenage years, you know, what was your childhood like? What were you feeling? What was your plans, you know, heading into high school and those sort of really influential years?

SPEAKER_02 5:19

Well, I basically survived school. I I'm diagnosed with ADHD and probably autistic as well. I haven't got that sorted yet. Um, so school was uh really, really hard for me. Um we had a mum who had some mental health issues. Um, she's diagnosed bipolar, and it was my mum, yep. Um, so we probably didn't have the most solid household emotionally speaking. Uh physically, we you know we had everything that we could have needed, and so that sort of all together um made it really, really tricky for me to get through my schooling years. Thankfully, I got the academic side enough, as in I didn't never I never failed unless I wanted to. Um but yeah, so look, to tell you the truth, I would get through day-to-day um at school. I didn't have any plans or aspirations to continue my schooling further than what I had to. Uh, my primary school years, I basically just lived to be at home on the farm. So I yeah, we we rode horses. My dad always made sure that we had good horses to ride, and that's that was our extra curricula. We rode horses, we competed, we did showing, camp drafting, gym carners, um, you know, schooling, like anything to do with the horses, my dad always made sure that we had that available to us. So, in a lot of ways, that saved me um through my schooling years because I could get home and get on my horse. That was my aim.

SPEAKER_01 7:05

And what was so hard for you at school? Um, ADHD affects people in so many different ways. My husband's got ADHD, one of my best friends does, and how they how it manifests is similar in some ways but very different in others. So, for you, what was it actually like for you at school and and how did it manifest for you?

SPEAKER_02 7:26

A lot of boredom. I've got a really, really, really busy brain. Um, I'm not the external ADHD, I'm the internal ADHD. So my brain just goes a million miles an hour. If I don't see the point in something, it's really, really hard for me to concentrate. So if they're, you know, delivering something about dinosaurs and the Jurassic period, my brain is like out of there, you know, because I'm like, that has absolutely no bearing on my life whatsoever. And so it was really difficult to stay in the classroom. Um, the years that I did well, I had the teachers who recognized how to engage me.

SPEAKER_03 8:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:13

Um, yeah, so that that was probably the hardest. I looking back now and me thinking I probably do, I am on the autistic spectrum to some degree, I really struggled with the lunch times and and working out, you know, how to interact with all the other children and um, you know, not having the best not overly emotionally stable household at home. I, you know, basically had to learn how to mimic other kids. And then obviously that's a massive trial and error to try and work out how to socialize. I was fine one-on-one. You know, if I had one friend that I could be really close with, I was okay. But yeah, just the whole schoolyard at lunchtime was extremely stressful for me.

SPEAKER_01 9:05

Oh, and I can imagine as a mum now, and we'll talk about that later, you know, you probably look back at yourself like little Kaelin and just empathise more with that little girl and what she had to go through at school now that you are a mum and we worry about our own kids at school, and I know you you've had your own journey um with your eldest as well, which we'll get to. But just to close that loop off, it really sounds like agriculture was well saved you in a lot of ways when it came to managing your ADHD. So leaving school, what was the plan? Obviously, ag being a big part of your life, school being really tough. What did you go on to do?

SPEAKER_02 9:37

It was the end of grade 10. I was sort of refusing to go back to school. Mum really, really pushed for me to go back to school, and dad supported her on that. I got to grade 11 and things was was it was really bad. And my dad just finally said to me, mate, if you get a job, you can leave. So I got a job. Uh it was at the obviously I didn't have a license or anything, and we were 150k from our nearest, biggest town. Anyway, so that was a little bit of a challenge. Um, but thankfully I sort of got lifts into Dolby to work at the Dolby sale yards, and there was some dad sort of, you know, looking back, fabricated it for me with his contacts in the sale yards. So I used to draft on Tuesday nights for elders, and then, you know, obviously weigh and process the cattle the next day. And then I actually wrote to the um Department of Main Roads and requested to get my license early, which they granted me thankfully.

SPEAKER_01 10:44

Oh wow, I didn't know you could do that.

SPEAKER_02 10:46

Well, you know, apparently you can. Uh it wasn't super early. Look, it was probably, you know, a few months earlier than I would have got it anyway. But considering it was, you know, 150k one way and I was catching lifts with yeah, there was like sort of three people that I could get a lift with. Um, it it was really helpful that I got it those few months earlier and saved all my money and bought a car and yeah, just went from there and went, I kept that for nearly three years. It was about two and a half years, and I started doing feedlot processing as well, sort of around Dolby and then out at Roma as well.

SPEAKER_01 11:23

So you found your feet um and you found something that didn't bore you, importantly. Um yeah, what was your what were your 20s like? Um, I guess leading up to before you met your partner and before kids, but that chapter, what was that like for you? Where did that take you?

SPEAKER_02 11:38

Well, I actually I got a job on a place near Comet, and that's actually where I met my partner Frank. I was 19 when I went there and I met him when I was 19. So I didn't have the typical 20s. How did you meet? Yeah, just just at work. We were in the stock camp together, and yeah, we weren't actually supposed to date anybody else in the stock camp, but you know, things happen.

SPEAKER_03 12:01

They do.

SPEAKER_02 12:02

Yeah, and then we went on to work on a place up near Marlborough together on a Brafford start up there. So we were there for about three and a half years, and um, and then we sort of yeah, worked at a couple of different places, um, all beef with maybe just a little bit of cultivation for hay or whatever. So, yeah, all in the beef. I went heavily into working dogs. So I travelled with Neil McDonald in 2009 and really went down that path, which was I'm really, really grateful to Neil. Um, he sort of provides a really good platform to focus on your mental health, and he's a really big advocate for that in the rural industry, and I'm yeah, really grateful to him to have to have had that access. Um, so that sort of really kicked me into I suppose heavily into mental health health, you know, really focusing on that for myself.

SPEAKER_01 13:00

Was it a big issue for you when you were working with him and and getting into that? To tell you the truth, I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 13:07

Because when you're in it, you don't know. You don't know how bad it is. Um, I like I I saw a counsellor uh on and off in in my teen years, and she is still amazing. I still have contact with her now. Um and I and I never got diagnosed with anything, so I can't say, you know, if I had depression or whatever. I don't I can't label it. I knew that I was struggling and I knew that I couldn't socialize very well, and I knew I couldn't process my emotions, which I'm pretty sure is the ADHD stuff, really not being able to understand what's going on in your body. So with that, um Neil really kicking it off, heading into the working dogs. I started doing wiener education with my dogs whilst Frank was sort of based on whatever place we were working at. And then eventually, long story short, we ended up at Tambo. My dad was caretaking a place between Tambo and Alpha. My parents had split in all of that time, and then we got into a position where we could buy our first little paddock. It was just this little clay plan on the side of the Tambo Township. Everyone was like, Why would you want to buy that? It doesn't grow any grass. And I'm like, Well, we can afford to buy it, and we need to have some sort of a little paddock to put all of our animals because obviously we've had horses, dogs, etc. You know, you can't just buy a house in town.

SPEAKER_01 14:37

Uh, so that brought us there. At that point, I imagine things are very serious. I mean, at 19, did you know that Frank was the one? Were you like early on, yep, this is it, or did it take a few years to kind of lock and load?

SPEAKER_02 14:51

Um, that's a really, really complicated answer because if you had asked me back then, well, yes, I I did feel like that. Um, but looking back now, I go, well, how much of that was the um I just can't remember the word for it, but it's the the love bombing. Yeah, it's very common with ADHD, and obviously I didn't know any of this. So I don't know. Am I grateful that we're together now? Absolutely. Would have I probably started our relationship differently? Yes, I think I would have. Well, I just think I would have been maybe a little less full on about it at 19. You know, I do kind of wish that I had an up to my mid-20s to work out who I am and what I want and what the world looks like to me, but in hindsight, I did that, and Frank did that. He was only 24, so he was still quite young. Uh, we did that together, and so basically, I look back now and I think we've actually had three different relationships. You know, we we've had a childhood relationship at the start, we've we've had children, and so that obviously changes things a lot, and then this last phase I feel like we've really only entered into in the last 12 to 18 months of going, what are we together and what are we on our own, and really creating a third entity, I suppose you would say, going, This is who we are, and then this is who we are together.

SPEAKER_01 16:40

That is so beautiful and how self-aware you are to talk about that and to have awareness of that. And in so many ways, you you grew up together, you know, you as a 19-year-old, like, gosh, I don't think many people know exactly who they are at 19, and you're certainly not the exact same, you know, at 39 or 29 at 19. So, you know, how beautiful that you grew together and stayed together. Because that's not always the case, people grow apart, and that's totally understandable. So, for you guys, huge chapter, you buy your own little block of land, parenthood on the horizon. Tell me about that. Was that a decision? Did you actively say, right, let's let's start trying? How did that evolve and what was that journey like for you?

SPEAKER_02 17:18

Yeah, yeah. I just reached a stage, so I was uh nearly 27. So I think I was 26, sort of, you know, when we decided that, yep, Radio, like we've bought our little spot, like it was 67 acres, and we we have that bit of stability. So no matter what happens anywhere, we have somewhere that is ours. And so I think we both felt comfortable enough to bring another person into the world because we actually both come from really big families. He has five brothers and sisters, and I have four sisters. Oh wow, and so we know the pressure that that puts on the family just by having that many people in the house to look after. So I think we were both really, really aware of the responsibilities of bringing another human into our lives and the world. So yeah, we we did decide. Um, it all happened really quickly. Uh fell pregnant straight away, thankfully, which I don't think I would have coped if it had been a difficult journey. I think I probably would have thrown my hands in the air and went, nope, can't do this emotionally, it's too much. Um, I absolutely take my hats off, you know, to women who go through these massive year-long journeys. I could not do that. And I'd say that the little spirit of my children knew that. They're like, Well, this is our window, we better get in there. Uh so anyway, that happened really quickly. Thankfully, where we were working at that time, I actually was the governess there then. I'd sort of had us enough of contracting and whatever. So they were family friends of ours, and Frank just sort of went there contracting and basically never left. And I said, Well, I'll um be a Govy. They, you know, their Govy was leaving, and I said, If you want to give me a go, I'll give it a go. And so I did that for a year. I fell pregnant, and then I stopped working to have Lockie. We were still on that, you know, same place. So, yeah, that was our foreign.

SPEAKER_01 19:21

And yeah, and what was that like for you becoming a mum for the first time? Um can I swear?

SPEAKER_02 19:26

Yeah, fucking stressful, so fucking stressful. You know, there's those mums who just seem to have answers to things. I am not. I was like, I read that stupid book, Save Our Sleep, and I I I took it literally. Don't do that. That book should be taken off the shelves. Sorry to anybody who loves the book. Sorry, but for me, it was terrible. Um, like just I had so much milk to start with, right? I mean, like, I would feed on one side and fill a bottle out of the other boob. And then by three months, because I was trying to schedule feed, I was having like an eight to ten hour break between each boob. So then my body goes, Oh, we must be weaning. Cut the milk supply and by I think Loki was about four months old and he was fully bottle fed. Just because I was looking back now, how stupid is that? Why didn't I just keep like here you go, just just get on the boob, just feed. You're crying, just feed. But silly me, and my literal brain goes, Oh well, the book said this is how it should be, so this is how it should be. So I was I'm really, really dirty about that, and I think it has affected him in himself. Um, you know, I don't know if it's you know his gut health or whatever. I did have antibiotics when he was born, so that probably didn't help. Yeah, but anyway, it's it it's incredibly stressful. Having little babies was not my forte as a mum.

SPEAKER_01 21:11

I have to ask you something, given what you said earlier about your ADHD and boredom. Did you ever feel bored by early motherhood? Well, no, because that's when I started my bag business. Oh, okay. But okay, of course you did. Of course you did. Of course I did. It's because you needed something like in addition, something to stimulate your brain in addition to little bub. Well, probably in hindsight. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:40

But to be honest, I thought I was fucking superwoman.

SPEAKER_01 21:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:43

I just created this little human, and even though I was so stressed out about getting it to live and to try and love it, and you know, and to break all of the trauma cycles that have come down through our female line and and Our malign, which my dad did super well to break what he did. Um I I guess it was like a um super super stressed out on this side, but then obviously you can't focus on that because it gets worse. So how my bag started is that there was no nappy bags that would survive my life because I'm so rough with everything and nothing gets looked after, and we're outside all of the time. And so I went, well, why don't we make a gear bag nappy bag? And so I did that when I was late pregnant with Lockie. Uh Frank, extremely frustrating process for him because my brain works pretty well most of the time when creating things. Apparently, when I'm pregnant, my brain does not work very well when I am creating things. So he's there going, well, Kaylin. Yeah, also super emotional. Well, what what maybe you could just put the zip on like this? And I'm like, oh, that works so much better. Anyway, so that's how my bag business started. I started making nappy bags out of the PVC vinyl that gear bags are made out of the biggest. Amazing idea. Well, I thought so. I I I don't know how many I sold, but I did sell quite a few.

SPEAKER_01 23:25

Incredible. And that bag business, you know, went took you to places you didn't think you'd go. So tell me, is this before baby number two, or take us through how that evolved before you had your second?

SPEAKER_02 23:36

Yeah, so this was all before I had my second. I knew I wouldn't be able to sustain parenting two children and having the business. And also, obviously, it's very monotonous sewing bags. You know, you have a little bit of a production line, you know, you you cut the pieces, put them together, and then you sew them all together. So very, very monotonous work. My brain did struggle with that. I I absolutely loved interacting with my customers, and they were all very, very supportive. And I and going to markets and and you know, field days and stuff like that. That's that's what I really, really loved. And I did all of this with my toddler in tow. Um, he once we got him to the sitting up stage and he could see everything going on, he turned into a real much easier little being. Yeah. Uh so anyway, the bag business, yes, I did that. Um, and then I don't know if you remember, I don't even know what year it was. It must have been like 2018. They brought in the plastic bag band.

SPEAKER_01 24:44

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:45

So anyway, I was like, well, of course, I can make shopping bags out of vinyl, they will last forever. So I did that, and whilst I sort of I made my first bag, and then in Long Reach, Outback Futures actually hosted a weekend called a Techstars Global Startup Weekend Women's Edition. So Techstars, I might get this wrong, so if anybody hears it and I'm not right, feel free to comment that it's not right. But I think it's Techstars is the company, and they are all about supporting startups and getting them out there. So they actually got 30 countries across, sorry, 30 cities across the world to host up this startup weekend on the same weekend, and then they chose a winner. Each city has a winner, so Australia had the Outback, which was Long Reach, where I went, Sydney and North Queensland, which I think was Townsville, and then yeah, like Hong Kong, Denver, Madagascar, Haiti, Paris, heaps of others that I could not remember to write down. Anyway, I took my shopping bag idea up and I actually won that weekend, which was pretty exciting because then we got to represent our cities in Paris.

SPEAKER_03 26:18

Yeah, so they oh my god.

SPEAKER_02 26:21

It yeah, it was really, really cool. I didn't even have a um passport. You need to get a passport, wow. I had to get a passport. So I then obviously had to rush that passport through because I think I don't know if I had two or three weeks or something to get it all sorted. But look, it it sounds way cooler than it was. I think I spent more time in the air flying there and back than I actually did in Paris. It was a real, really big whirlwind um adventure. On the way there, my flight actually got cancelled in Bangkok. I was supposed to fly, I flew from Brisbane to Bangkok and then Bangkok to Paris, and it actually got postponed, sorry. And I was like, well, hang on a second, I have to be there on this hour or else I'm gonna miss my presentation to deliver it. Anyway, so that the fella in Bangkok was so nice, he's like, Oh, well, how about I can get you on this flight to Milan and then you can fly into Paris from Milan? But something really funny, which an inexperienced traveller doesn't know, is that once you're in Milan, you're in the EU. So you don't actually need to go through customs when you get to Paris. So I've got off the plane, got my bag, and gone to walk out the door. And I went, oh, what? I hang on a second, don't I have to go through customs or something? So I I ran the French woman organizing the weekend. I was like, hey, so this has happened. What if they don't let me back on the plane? And she's like, oh, that's really weird. And she was really worried, and then she goes, Oh no, you would have got your passport stamped in Milan when you went through there. But you know, they don't stamp the front of your book, they just kind of pick a random page, yeah. Stamp it. I'm like, but there's no stamp. And she's like, Well, we'll have a good look through it. And I eventually obviously found it and it was fine. But oh, just just little things like that that you just don't even think to worry about, basically. And I'm a warrior. Um, and I was like, that did not enter my my worry list at all.

SPEAKER_01 28:42

What an experience. So you weren't there for very long. What did you do while you were in Paris just quickly with the bags?

SPEAKER_02 28:48

Yeah, so they we just got to deliver, you know, there were 30 women there representing their cities, and so everyone delivered their tech ideas, and then they chose they had a panel of judges, cannot remember who was on that. Sorry, everybody. But yeah, it basically just chose a winner from that. So I think that there was a um a woman from a maybe an Arabic country, I can't quite remember. I think she won it. Um, she had a it was some sort of tech to alert you to there being camels crossing the road. Because apparently they have camels as their wildlife and not like us with kangaroos. Yeah. So I imagine they would do a lot more damage.

SPEAKER_01 29:33

What an experience for you. Um, and so coming back home from that whirlwind, got your little boy, at what point did you start trying for baby number two? And how was that? Because you mentioned that you couldn't see yourself running the business with two babies. Take us through baby number two and what happened baby wise and bag wise.

SPEAKER_02 29:53

So, all whilst we were doing this Paris thing, we were actually buying a house in town because we didn't have a house on our block, and houses were pretty cheap in Tambo then, so it was way cheaper to buy a house in town than to build anything on our block. So we went, Radio, it's time to get a little bit more independent. Um, Frank wanted to sort of really commit to more contracting and maybe different sorts of contracting, um, just to bring in more money mainly. So we were buying that house whilst this whole Paris thing was happening. So that was a pretty hectic month. Um, anyway, so we moved into town and then sort of got settled in there, and we did come up. Basically, I went, I am turning 30 this year. I don't want to have any kids after 30. So now is our window. And thankfully fell pregnant straight away again with Huddy, our second. And I went, I can't do the bags and have two children. So I thought, well, it's a nice little entity for someone else to take on, maybe who has someone who has a bit older children. So I just advertised it, and uh Belle Hock from Alpha said she would like to buy it, so yeah, she bought the business and she carries it on. I think she's still doing it, she changed it to gnarly design. Yeah, and so she she took it over, and I still got to see it out at field days and whatnot.

SPEAKER_01 31:23

So that was that was really, really cool. Oh, that's amazing. That must have been rewarding to see that it didn't just you know die with you and that someone carried it on. And and so, right, you sold the business, baby number two comes along. What was that like being a mum of two?

SPEAKER_02 31:39

Well, I thought being a mum of one was really stressful. Being a mum of two under three was uh well, I mean, I did it. I want to say that everyone's still alive, and I don't think they have too many issues, but it was really hard. Uh Frank was away most of the time, so he really committed to what he was doing.

SPEAKER_01 32:10

Um yeah, I because take us through that because he um he he sorry he educates wieners and does stock handling, but he's away up to like eight months of the year or something, isn't he?

SPEAKER_02 32:20

Yeah, so not all at once, obviously, but yeah, accumulatively he is away for that long. He didn't start out doing that, he was actually doing some wieners and then just sort of filling in the time with fencing, yard building, shed building, all the sort of fabricating stuff that goes with farm work, I guess. Yeah, so that and I we hadn't actually been apart like that. So, you know, it was nearly well, it was 10 years of us working together. You know, people make jokes about husbands and wives fighting so much about how to handle stock or in the cattle yards, what stays in the cattle yards, what says in what's said in the cattle yards stays in the cattle yards, and all this sort of stuff. Honestly, there is no one else that I would rather work with than Frank. He is just one of those people who is really, really easy to work with, and we have a really great working relationship. So that was the first time that we had actually been apart for a long time, and I was struggling. Um, I didn't realize it, but I think maybe if I had gone to the doctor, I would have been diagnosed with postnatal depression. And I only sort of realized that probably five years after Huddy was born. Because when you're in it, I just kind of kept telling myself I needed to try harder, and that doesn't work if your brain's not working. So everyone was in survival mode. Um, yeah, anybody No. Anyway, for me it was just really hard.

SPEAKER_01 33:59

Yeah, and how did you cope with that hard? Did you just you obviously didn't get any help? And it's I I know I know what you mean about sometimes when you're in the hardest moments of your life, you you you're not thinking about supporting yourself, you're just trying to fix it yourself. So how did you try? Did you just was it just really, really bloody hard and you just got survived and you've come out the other end and things got easier as the boys got older? Is that what kind of happened?

SPEAKER_02 34:24

Um yes, but I I just think that it was our amazing Tambo community. So I'd never had a community like that before. And there was, you know, mothers' groups and stuff like that, and I used to run the um the challenge for the stock show. So, you know, I got to meet a lot of people in the community with those connections, and then with the mother group on top of that, and just and there was um look, I think there was probably six or eight mums who had children in my children's ages. So when you're in those trenches together, it's really, really easy to get together and feel supported. Like even though your personalities may not click, or you know, you might not get along in other areas of your life, if you have that common ground, everybody is going through the same thing at the same time, and so straight away you feel really, really heard. And so I could go and I could, you know, ring a friend and say, Hey, do you want a cupper? You know, do you do you want to go and have a coffee? Do you want to come over or I go over there? And without that, I would have been really buggered. Um, coincidentally, two of my sisters actually ended up moving into Tambo. It was just a really, really weird time in everybody's life. But, you know, I I had family for the first time. You know, previously I hadn't been close to, physically close to any of my family.

SPEAKER_01 36:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:09

Yeah, up until that point.

SPEAKER_01 36:11

Yeah. Well, that's beautiful that you had that village, particularly from mum friends, you know, during such a hard time for you. It just makes such a difference with that isolation. So that's so amazing. And, you know, for you with your eldest, there's been a lot of hiccups along the way, like you've struggled, but also your eldest, I understand, has ADHD and autism. Is that right?

SPEAKER_02 36:31

That's correct. We haven't fully gotten through the diagnosis process yet, because obviously that's a really long process. I didn't even bother when we were when we lived in Western Queensland trying to go down that route because honestly, I was completely overwhelmed and I didn't know where to start.

SPEAKER_01 36:49

To access support.

SPEAKER_02 36:51

Yeah, to f to to even bother trying to get a diagnosis. I knew that he needed extra help, and I educated myself the best that I can, and I still do to this day. Like it's a it's a genuine passion for me because I also learn a lot about myself and my brain and my childhood whilst learning how to support him the best that I can. So I sort of took it with a little bit of a grain of salt, as in, yeah, my kids' brain works differently to other kids. I had a little bit of an insight because I feel like my brain works similarly. So instead of being like, oh my god, why does every time we build something, he just has to smash it every single time. It goes, let's just make a game of it. If he wants to smash the things, let's find the things that he can smash. If he can't tolerate being somewhere for a long time, let's create something that he can do in that time. So basically, the floor of my car was always full of toys, books, shoes, you name it, because kids get in the car without their shoes a lot. And when when I'm not super organized, you do forget. So if we have shoes in the car already, that just shoes, jumpers, blankets, water bottles, snacks, toys, books, anything that could be used as a toy, uh, tools, uh broken things that he likes. Anything, anything that I knew he might be interested in lived in my car. So then whenever we drove somewhere, he had things that he could pull out, play with, chuck on the floor, and basically you would repeat that over and over and over and over.

SPEAKER_01 38:52

How how much has you having ADHD helped you support your own son?

SPEAKER_02 39:00

Well, I think a lot, because otherwise, you know, so so my my partner like Frank is amazing with his learning, but but sometimes he's just like, What? That's not okay. Like what he's doing is not okay, and you know, and because he's away so much, he comes home and he kind of wants to over-parent to take the load off me, and I'm like, woo. Just woo. You know, we we we actually got to a stage where I was like, you can't meet me where I'm at because I'm losing my mind emotionally, mentally, I'm done. I am totally done. So I'm probably like up here with everything. You can't come in and meet me because when you have near i divergent people in your household, you need to bring the energy right down. So when you have a four, five, six, seven, eight, he's nine now and just starting to be able to regulate his emotions. When you have a kid who is learning how to do these things, I'm like, you can't meet me. You have to come in and you have to be the anchor. So you need to take a deep breath, you need to bring your energy down, and then you can come in, and everyone around you will also do that. And so he's been really, really helpful on that front. Um, but because my brain works similarly, I think I could explain that to him that he's not doing those things to be bad, he's not doing them to be annoying, he's not consciously doing half of the stuff, he's just doing because that's what his body needs uh to do to get the energy out.

SPEAKER_01 40:50

Yeah. And you know, you mentioned how hard it has been for you, and then your husband trying to come in support in and in in and be calm and be an anchor if he can. This journey has been years, they're seven and nine now. Where are you at today with your mothering journey and your sons and your family unit versus where you were, you know, five, six years ago?

SPEAKER_02 41:14

Well, I've learned a hell of a lot. I've learned so, so much. I wish I could go back and probably support my babies a lot better than I did. And then especially Lockie being my first, I feel I I feel really bad about that, actually. Um, so that's something that I do wish that I I could do. Um, I'm at a a much better stage with my parenting. I'm actually really enjoying this stage because they sleep in their own beds most of the time. You know, they can actually get food themselves. Like Lockie actually cooks dinner often. Probably more than a nine-year-old should. But he enjoys food and he enjoys it. And I never ask him to do it. He, you know, I say this is what we're having for dinner, and he'll either do it or he he won't do it. And either way is fine, but um, it's certainly a lot, a lot easier. Um, and especially probably the last 12 months, Loki has really got to an emotional stage. Like they say, seven is the age where children usually start to realize how their emotions affect people externally. And I feel like, you know, they say there's that two-year lag with the emotional maturity of neurodivergent people, and I I feel like that's nearly spot on, you know, because he's turning 10, so he turned nine last year, and I feel like he really has reached that stage where he goes to maybe do something or you know, say something, or react really strongly about something, and I can see he will stop and he will take a breath because we've worked a lot. Like we have a calming corner that's you know, 10 pieces of paper with activities that you can do, you know, if you're feeling overwhelmed, or recognizing your emotions, or you know, whatever it is, and so we have spent a lot, many, many, many hours with him going, recognizing what's in his body, what's happening in his body, why it's happening in his body, because to tell a child that they're crying uncontrollably because they're tired, they kind of look at you like you're crazy, you're crazy, mum. That doesn't make any sense. I'm crying because I'm I've got all this shit inside me. I don't know how to deal with it. And you're like, mate, you just need to sleep. That's all you have to do is sleep and it'll feel better. Anyway, so just going through explaining why why that is happening. Um, it's it's yeah, it's it's brought us to a stage, I feel now, where everybody is. Getting more vocal about how they're feeling instead of more louder about how they're feeling. And that has brought me to a point where I'm really, really enjoying parenting my children.

SPEAKER_01 44:13

That is a beautiful place to be. And for you, you've had that village in the past up at Tambo. Like, how are you now with that support system? Do you feel well supported?

SPEAKER_02 44:23

Um well, it has been quite tricky coming into a new community. Just everyone's been really friendly. Like, we haven't had any negative things happen by any stretch. But being ADHD, I say a lot of stuff I don't actually mean. I say things like, I'm having a really shitty day, and I just don't think I can parent anymore. But I don't mean that literally. I'm just having one of those little outbursts. And so my community that I had knew me well enough to go, well, here's a cover. You know, tell me what's going on. And I could unload, say whatever, and they would be like, that's Kaylin. She's getting shit off her chest. Things aren't actually imploding in her life. She's just having a bad day. And so I didn't have that, obviously, because it takes time to build those relationships. I've had, you know, there's been a couple of women who have sort of reached out on a more deeper connection. And so I'm starting to get those connections here, which is really, really nice and a and a big relief. I was a bit, woo, you know, at the start, because you don't how long how long have you been there now?

SPEAKER_01 45:49

I think it's about 18 months, 16 months. That's right, that's right. You said, I mean, that's still so new, and it's hard. Um, moving to a new new community and a rural community, you know, I I've I've done that, and it's it's tough to make friends as a as a parent. Everyone's busy parenting, and it takes time to build trust and get to know people. Um, but it's lovely that that you're starting that journey. So you feel do you feel like where you are now because you you've again bought your own place, which is amazing. How does that feel? And do you feel like this is somewhere you could call home for a long time, or what's the plan?

SPEAKER_02 46:22

Absolutely. I I just I love it here. So we're actually in the mountains, so we're sort of we're only 20k from the Bunya Mountains themselves, and our place is really hilly. Uh so it was it was actually interesting coming from Western Queensland, where it's big and it's flat, not many hills. And so we came to look at the place in May 2024, and I was very skeptical because I'm like, oh my god, Frank, look how hilly it is. Like, I don't even know if I could ride my horse up half those hills. Anyway, so we we came and had a look at it, and we're driving around, and like it's basalt country, so it's quite rocky as well. And I just felt at home. I I I did, I I we got to the end of it. Um, there's like no, not really a livable dwelling here. There was kind of there's a donga with a bathroom and then one little tiny room with another room that leaked and was all mouldy and gross. And we were living in the caravan at that time anyway, so it didn't bother us too much. Uh but I just I went, it feels really nice. It feels warm and inviting and comfortable. And I th I said, I think, I think I really like it. And so obviously, you know, we went away and did figures and all of the things that you do when you're making a big purchase and looked at other places, like we didn't just pin ourselves in here, we did we like the location as in where it is in Queensland as well. Frank's family is all in the southeast, and he had sort of never lived within a thousand kilometres of his family since leaving home. So it was nice to sort of come back and maybe spend a little bit of time with his family, he could reconnect with them a little bit, and yeah, so basically we just made it happen, and it's I I don't have a lot of spiritual things happen in my life. I feel like I'm a pretty spiritual person, but I'm not overtly, you know. But when we were going through all of the stress of getting the loans and all of that sort of stuff, I had this dream, and it was there's sort of one big peak in our place, and it was me laying on the mountain and it wrapped its arm around me. It was, and I'm choking up saying it now, but it was just one of those, like we I think we just got turned down by one bank, and you know, you're at the stage where you're like, is it worth proceeding? This is taking so long, you know, like oh, all of these things. And then I had that dream, and I just went, Well, how can we not buy this place? So that was that was pretty cool.

SPEAKER_01 49:23

Must be a pretty, pretty special place to bring to bring tears to your eyes now. It's so beautiful.

SPEAKER_02 49:30

Yeah, it is, it is, it's very, very special, and I think we'll be here for a long time. We've actually we've come across so I was doing distance ed with the kids for the two years before coming here, and that was really, really good. That especially was really, really good for Lockheed. Uh mainstream school is not uh great for neurodivergent brains, especially ADHD ones. Um, so he would sort of struggle a lot at school. He wouldn't show it, of course. He was like a really good student, but he would get home and basically hurt me, hurt his brother, meltdown. Yeah, just total total dysregulation. So when we sold our little place at Tambo and we committed to traveling with Frank, um, it was it was really good. We did this instead through Long Reach. Having that yeah, almost two-year break away from mainstream school, I think was the best thing that we ever did for our kids. Um, Huddy actually had a really bad speech impediment, and so he did two years of kindy through Longreach. Um, and I'm really, really grateful for that as well because again, it was tricky accessing help for him. Um, but thankfully, I think maybe COVID actually made it a lot easier for those services to be accessible online. So he actually probably only did half of his speechy appointments in Long Reach, and the rest were all virtual online. Um, so that yeah, really helped him improve with his speech, and I'm really grateful we did the two years of Kindi. Emotionally, I think he probably was ready to go into prep, but he couldn't say half of his sounds. So, having done the 12 months um Govvying that I did, I knew what the curriculum entailed. So I did prep one and two, so I knew what he would have had to do in prep. Um, so yeah, we made the decision. We're like, no, if he can't say the sounds, he's not going to be able to learn them at school. Yeah. So we went, right up, two years of Kindi, and that was the best decision that we ever made because once he turned I don't know, was he five when he started PrEP turning six? He just with all of the speech therapy that we did helping him, he was able to say all of the sounds by the time he started prep. And honestly, it's been a really, really easy transition for him into mainstream schooling. Um, we we we lucked onto a really great school here at Quinelo. They are really, really good. Um, the the whole vibe and energy around the school is really positive as well. It's really supportive of the students, um, the teacher um energy, I suppose you'd say, is is is is really good. So I felt really nervous about going back to mainstream school. I've obviously had not a very good journey myself through mainstream school, so that makes me really, really cautious and questioning everything. But they've been there for 12 months now, so this is the start of their second year in there, and it's and it's going pretty good. Lockie still struggles. There's been quite a few things for him, like the noise in the classroom, stuff like that. But yeah, I've just had really, really open communication with his with his teachers, and they've been amazing in supporting him through all of those things.

SPEAKER_01 53:42

That's so critical, and and not every family has that support from local schools, you know, rural families in particular. That's you know a whole nother topic. So it's so wonderful that for now you feel like there is some support. And I know it's just the start of this chapter, you know, it's only 18 months into this beautiful block and your beautiful life, but you know, you're feeling good about this year, you're feeling settled, you feel like your family's in a in a good place, it seems, overall, given given the roller coaster it's been.

SPEAKER_02 54:12

Yeah, yeah. I I do feel like that. I I sort of feel like it is a dream come true, buying our own place. Uh, it's not big and it's not big enough to earn a full-time income off the cattle alone. So we've still got a little ways to go. But yeah, it's it it is an actual dream that has been realized. And some days, you know, everybody has those days where they're ugh, you know, this is annoying, whatever. And I just stop, and we've got a real we've got a really nice view, and I just stop and go, Whoa, just be grateful for what you've got and what you've achieved because it's really cool. It's really cool, and I I would I I would love to be more supportive of people in the position that we were in, um, but I don't know how to be, you know, there's only so many words that you can write in comments and stuff like that, but I just I just want people to know that it is achievable. You can do it, it's really hard, and there's some days where you go, I don't know if it's worth it, but you just have to sort of work out the why. Because once you get the why sorted, that's what keeps you going.

SPEAKER_01 55:44

I think that is a really beautiful way to finish such a beautiful conversation, Kaelin. I've loved hearing your journey from babies, bags, buying your blocks, everything. It's been, you should be so proud. So I wanted to say a huge thank you for sharing your story with us. Um, so important. I've just loved chatting with you.

SPEAKER_02 56:05

Thanks, Steph. Thanks so much for inviting me on. Um, to be honest, it was a little bit of a um uh leap, maybe to say yes, to talk about yourself, because it is a bit, it's a bit sort of weird because you've lived your life and it's not anything that you think needs to be spoken about because obviously you've done the things. But then I was like, no, well, there is I often see people, you know, on your Facebook group, on the motherland Facebook group, saying, How did you guys get from you know this to to buying your your own land? And I kind of feel like that's a podcast in itself to explain that process and the risks that you take. Like you've got to be willing to lose money. Yeah, that's all I have to say is that yeah, it's a gamble, and you have to be willing to lose the money that you put in.

SPEAKER_01 57:03

And everything's a gamble, you know, motherhood's a gamble, you know, buying a farm is a gamble. So um you've you've taken numerous punts and numerous gambles, and um, it's so great to see it's paying off. So thank you so much again. I hope that um yeah, I hope to see you meet you one day somehow. But in the meantime, thank you so much. Thanks, Steph. Really appreciate it. Thanks for listening. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. Motherland is produced and hosted by me, Def Trifewe, and edited by the wonderful Eliza Ratcliffe. Before I go, don't forget about Mums Matter, a bulk-build psychology service supporting women through pregnancy postpartum and the journey of motherhood. If you're feeling anxious, overwhelmed, disconnected, or simply not like yourself, you don't have to go through it alone. Visit Mums Matterpsychology.com to learn more or to book a telehealth appointment. The link is in today's show notes. That's it from me. Thank you as always for tuning in, and I'll catch you next week.