Fourth Generation

Creating Space Project

“I am the fourth generation of incredibly strong women.”

When Julia was four years old, she was run over by the family car and pronounced dead. Somehow, she was revived and recovered from the incident without lasting harm.

Julia Baird is the daughter of Nea Worrell, the amazing woman integral to the Drought Pantry at the Baradine Country Women’s Association, and previously interviewed on the podcast about the ways this drought, the worst in living memory, is impacting rural NSW, Australia.

Cut from the same cloth, Julia talks to the Creating Space Project about the strength of the women in her family, from her grandmother down to her own daughter.

She also talks about the faith that sustains her mother and sustains her, one that is linked to Mary MacKillop and the charism of the Josephite Sisters, also women of great strength.

“She [mum] just has this attitude – you just get on with life.. I think she got that from my nan.”

The intergenerational transmission of values is a process that I am very interested. Listening to Julia reflect on her family provides fascinating insight into the ways that families pass down an ethos of hard work, kindness, and never giving up.

“Mum always said “You just get on with it, you’re my daughter, you know what to do, get on with it.”

Family is one of the places where we shape a powerful sense of who we are, of our own identity, and this can be one of the forces that generates resilience in us.

“Through the telling of these stories and the acceptance of who we were as women, I really took on, “I’m Julia, I know who I am, I have this strength, I have this power.”