Ukrainian-Jewish-Australian writer Maria Tumarkin, 45, and her singer daughter Billie, 25, share an intellectual curiosity and have long been involved in activist causes. When Billie became ill at 17, it rocked their world.
Maria: I’m proud of how Billie has always challenged authority. When she was five, she told the teacher, “Don’t treat me like a f…ing baby.” That caused quite a scandal. When she was 10, she and her school friends played a game where whoever said a rude word the loudest was the winner. Billie won for shouting “Penis!” As a punishment, the teacher made her write “penis” on the blackboard multiple times. When she got home, she was completely traumatised. When I finally got the story out of her, I nearly lost my mind. I wrote to the school comparing their behaviour to Stalin’s show trials.
I was a demanding parent. I wanted to instil in Billie a strong sense of ethics and to teach her about courage, particularly intellectual courage. When she was eight, we read Anne Frank’s diary and watched Holocaust documentaries together. Billie took that very seriously. She’s always had a strong ethical core and a keen sense of justice.
In her final year of school, Billie became very sick with chronic fatigue syndrome. She spent a lot of time in bed. She was about to play the lead role in the school musical – this was supposed to be her moment. It was very tough on her. I felt so angry and powerless to do anything other than to care for her. That became the centre of my life.
Read the article by Nicole Abadee in The Sydney Morning Herald.