My Mother, Kerri-Lee Larsen by Kyara Bashforth-Harmston

My Mother, Kerri-Lee Larsen

Kyara Bashforth-Harmston | Year 9

My mother, Kerri-Lee Larsen, is a proud Bunjalung and Kamilaroi woman. She graduated grade 12 to become a chef by trade. Later, she went on to work in the milk business with my dad and still does. My mum still cooks her delicious food for us. When my mum was younger, she didn’t have a lot of people around her growing up; she only had her mum, her dad, and her step mum. Her parents taught her how to respect her things and the others around her. When my mum was younger, her mum and nana taught her everything she knew, from being taught how to paint to being told stories of her Elders. My mum could remember going out to Winton every school holiday to help her pop at the shearing sheds. My mum wasn’t always a proud Indigenous person. During her schooling years, she was ashamed of who she was and sometimes it was due to the racist names Indigenous kids were called when she was younger. After my mum left school, she started to accept who she was and her culture. One of her proudest achievement was raising three healthy and happy girls in a safe environment. A key experience that has shaped my mum was when she was around 11 or 12 years old and went to Uluru with some other Indigenous kids around the same age. There she learnt the traditions of other tribes and learnt more about her culture along the way. My mum’s advice for young Indigenous people is to be proud of who you are and where you have come from and never let anyone tell you different.