Feature / Interview

Powerful memoir of a maternal bond that cannot be broken

Brunswick writer Thea Calzoni reflects on how her life was changed by bringing up an ‘unusual child’ 

Thea Calzoni at home in Brunswick West. The book was written over a seven year period.

Mark Phillips
Friday, March 4, 2022

LIKE all new mothers, Thea Calzoni’s first born child was the apple of her eye.

When he was born in Fremantle in 1987, Thea and her partner Ron had the usual hopes and dreams for Julian. An education. A fulfilling job. Love and children.

But by the early-1990s, as the family moved across the continent to Brunswick to support Ron’s career as a professional musician and Julian began preparing to begin school, they learnt that life was about to take a different course.

By that stage in his life, it was clear that Julian was developmentally delayed, and he was diagnosed with an intellectual disability.

Thanks to a lifelong habit of meticulous journal keeping, Thea has now published a memoir about her life with Julian which she hopes will help other parents of “unusual” children.

Published by Bad Apple Press, Dancing with the Maternal Bond: Life with an Unusual Child was originally slated for release during Carers Week in October last year but its launch was delayed by COVID-19. It is now available from the publisher and from selected bookstores, including Brunswick Bound in Sydney Road.

Writing the book was important to Thea in processing everything that had happened in her life since Julian’s birth, including personal compromises, altered ambitions, and strain on relationships.

It was written over a seven-year period during which Thea dealt with a leukemia and faced the prospect of how Julian and Ron would cope in her absence.

“The book covers this journey from really being free and easy then to being burdened with responsibility, and then not really knowing how to cope, feeling alienated from our community … And then, through struggle I suppose, finding strength and then finding community,” she said.

“So, for me, writing was my way of finding connectedness again, finding acknowledgement, and then finding strength through that. I saw that it could help other people too.”

The story begins before Julian’s birth as Thea and Ron enjoyed life in the creative and artistic community of Fremantle. Thea had a trouble-free pregnancy, but Julian was born two weeks overdue and immediately fell sick with a form of pneumonia. He was often unsettled as a baby and began to display developmental problems before the age of two.

At about the same time, the family moved to Melbourne in the middle of winter.

“It was when Julian was around five years old that it was determined that he had an intellectual disability which we found really shocking because up until then we thought that his difficulties were a phase through which he was going to pass as we learned more, and as we became better in ourselves as parents,” Thea said.

With unflinching honesty, Thea writes of the strains on her relationship with Ron, her feelings of inadequacy as a mother and as a person, and her frustrations and struggles with Julian. A second child, Memphis, arrives six years after Julian, while he starts school and develops a sense of independence.

Thea with Julian when he was a teenager.

Julian still lives with Thea and Ron today, attending a day program in Coburg three times a week, but he has problems with his co-ordination, with expressing himself and communicating with strangers.

“He loves being with people,” Thea said. “He loves being helpful and he has a very caring side.”

Thea, who also runs a website called Disability Care People, had always enjoyed writing and keeping a journal.

Clearing out a spare room in her house, she re-read 25 years of journals, reports about Julian’s development and progress, letters and other materials. The book grew from there.

Thea began writing it seven years ago, but the brush with death that she had fighting leukemia was the impetus to finish it. The writing process was ultimately both cathartic and self-affirming, she said.

“I felt it was important to put everything in this book as a sort of as a resource that people could use in supporting Julian and understanding Julian because a lot of the book, although it paints some of our worst moments and some of his worst moments, it’s like Julian show and tell,” she said.

“And it’s very important that people know about him and care about him. So, I hope and I think the book has succeeded in providing people with insight into him and some affection for him as the character that he is in the book, where you see his strengths as well as the challenges that he presents to others.”

Thea continues to work part-time in community development for the Melbourne City Mission at Hartnett House in Albion Street while the family prepares to move from Brunswick West to a new home at the Nightingale Village precinct near Anstey Station.

“I guess at one stage, I was looking for the village to raise the child. And now I think we have found the village that will see us all into our declining years, and will also provide a haven for Julian,” she said.

• Dancing with the Maternal Bond: Life with an Unusual Child is available now through Bad Apple Press. It is also available at independent booksellers, including Brunswick Bound and Readings.

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LIKE all new mothers, Thea Calzoni’s first born child was the apple of her eye.

When he was born in Fremantle in 1987, Thea and her partner Ron had the usual hopes and dreams for Julian. An education. A fulfilling job. Love and children.

But by the early-1990s, as the family moved across the continent to Brunswick to support Ron’s career as a professional musician and Julian began preparing to begin school, they learnt that life was about to take a different course.

By that stage in his life, it was clear that Julian was developmentally delayed, and he was diagnosed with an intellectual disability.

Thanks to a lifelong habit of meticulous journal keeping, Thea has now published a memoir about her life with Julian which she hopes will help other parents of “unusual” children.

Published by Bad Apple Press, Dancing with the Maternal Bond: Life with an Unusual Child was originally slated for release during Carers Week in October last year but its launch was delayed by COVID-19. It is now available from the publisher and from selected bookstores, including Brunswick Bound in Sydney Road.

Writing the book was important to Thea in processing everything that had happened in her life since Julian’s birth, including personal compromises, altered ambitions, and strain on relationships.

It was written over a seven-year period during which Thea dealt with a leukemia and faced the prospect of how Julian and Ron would cope in her absence.

“The book covers this journey from really being free and easy then to being burdened with responsibility, and then not really knowing how to cope, feeling alienated from our community … And then, through struggle I suppose, finding strength and then finding community,” she said.

“So, for me, writing was my way of finding connectedness again, finding acknowledgement, and then finding strength through that. I saw that it could help other people too.”

The story begins before Julian’s birth as Thea and Ron enjoyed life in the creative and artistic community of Fremantle. Thea had a trouble-free pregnancy, but Julian was born two weeks overdue and immediately fell sick with a form of pneumonia. He was often unsettled as a baby and began to display developmental problems before the age of two.

At about the same time, the family moved to Melbourne in the middle of winter.

“It was when Julian was around five years old that it was determined that he had an intellectual disability which we found really shocking because up until then we thought that his difficulties were a phase through which he was going to pass as we learned more, and as we became better in ourselves as parents,” Thea said.

With unflinching honesty, Thea writes of the strains on her relationship with Ron, her feelings of inadequacy as a mother and as a person, and her frustrations and struggles with Julian. A second child, Memphis, arrives six years after Julian, while he starts school and develops a sense of independence.

Thea with Julian when he was a teenager.

Julian still lives with Thea and Ron today, attending a day program in Coburg three times a week, but he has problems with his co-ordination, with expressing himself and communicating with strangers.

“He loves being with people,” Thea said. “He loves being helpful and he has a very caring side.”

Thea, who also runs a website called Disability Care People, had always enjoyed writing and keeping a journal.

Clearing out a spare room in her house, she re-read 25 years of journals, reports about Julian’s development and progress, letters and other materials. The book grew from there.

Thea began writing it seven years ago, but the brush with death that she had fighting leukemia was the impetus to finish it. The writing process was ultimately both cathartic and self-affirming, she said.

“I felt it was important to put everything in this book as a sort of as a resource that people could use in supporting Julian and understanding Julian because a lot of the book, although it paints some of our worst moments and some of his worst moments, it’s like Julian show and tell,” she said.

“And it’s very important that people know about him and care about him. So, I hope and I think the book has succeeded in providing people with insight into him and some affection for him as the character that he is in the book, where you see his strengths as well as the challenges that he presents to others.”

Thea continues to work part-time in community development for the Melbourne City Mission at Hartnett House in Albion Street while the family prepares to move from Brunswick West to a new home at the Nightingale Village precinct near Anstey Station.

“I guess at one stage, I was looking for the village to raise the child. And now I think we have found the village that will see us all into our declining years, and will also provide a haven for Julian,” she said.

• Dancing with the Maternal Bond: Life with an Unusual Child is available now through Bad Apple Press. It is also available at independent booksellers, including Brunswick Bound and Readings.

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