Born and raised in a small town in South Waikato, I first moved to Dunedin to attend the University of Otago as a student.
Fast forward to 2023, and, now a PhD-qualified academic, I returned for a job in Te Tumu: School of Māori, Pacific and Indigenous studies, along with my partner and four tamariki.
We have great jobs, and Dunedin also provided better options for the children: options that weren’t limited by distance, traffic, zones or the stigma of not being a "good" school zone. For example, we have the privilege of choosing schools that fit each of the four children’s personalities and interests - a choice we didn’t have back home.
However, although the benefits and options when raising a whānau in Ōtepoti are great, I have found the cost of living here is also great - and here, I’m not talking about money.
Living some 1300km from home might not seem a great distance to some. But for me, a wahine Māori raising tamariki far from my whenua and whānau, the cost of that distance is more than just financial. It’s emotional. It’s cultural.
Don’t get me wrong, the financial costs are up there when we think of the raw numbers. Return flights home for six can cost more than $3000 each visit. Multiply that by events such as tangihanga (funerals), birthdays, graduations and reunions. These are not holidays. These are obligations, tikanga (customs), and part and parcel of being Māori.
Choosing which to attend becomes a cruel economic decision between tikanga and balancing the family finances. There’s a particular kind of grief in hearing about a tangi via a phone or video call, or seeing graduations and birthdays celebrated in photos days later. The mamae (pain) of not being able to stand beside your people in loss or joy remains long after those events have finished.
I carry that mamae for my kids too. I grew up being physically present at these kind of kaupapa, but the kids don’t know what they’re missing. Since moving to Ōtepoti, our whānau have had to choose whether to attend two tangihanga, an unveiling, a graduation, and multiple birthdays, or not attend. I now realise that these are things we hadn’t anticipated and factored into our decision to move south. Living far from our iwi means missing out on our marae hui, waiata practices, karakia learning, and our distinctive ways of being. The kids are growing up without the option to be at the pā and to consider it a second (or first) home.
To be distant from your ancestral land isn’t just a geographic separation, it’s a spiritual and cultural disconnection. Living on the lands of someone else you feel untethered, as if you don’t quite belong. The cost isn’t just an airfare or two. It isn’t just the long drives. It isn’t just a ferry ride across Cook Strait. The cost is the quiet ache of feeling disconnected, feeling removed and feeling like an outsider.
There is a whakataukī (proverb) that highlights the important role of mothers in a whānau and likens us to the hull of a waka: ko te whaea te takere o te waka, the mother is the hull of the waka. In my home, I am the sole bearer of all things Māori. The pressure is immense and sometimes overwhelming. If I take the foot off the gas, I catch myself feeling like I am failing generations, both past and future. Sustaining culture in isolation is exhausting. But necessary.
When raising tamariki in a place without the whānau connections, without the whenua connections, without kaumātua, aunties, cousins, or the pā to lean on, parenting becomes an isolating gig. No spontaneous sleepovers at Nana’s. No shared missions (and growlings) with the cuzzies. No intergenerational language bonds established in the home. Just silence where support should be and was before moving here.
We as a whānau we try to replicate what we are missing out on, but it’s not the same. I’m deeply thankful to mana whenua for welcoming us in Ōtepoti. While being away from home isn’t easy, forming real relationships with mana whenua and mātāwaka (Māori living in Ōtepoti who are not mana whenua) brings a sense of comfort and purpose to our journey and sacrifices.
Often when we do return home, there’s a bit of emotional labour in reintegrating. There’s sometimes a strange feeling of being both insider and outsider. There’s aroha, always, but also the gentle reminder that we’ve been living away. Despite it all, there’s a quiet determination to reconnect and to raise children who know who they are.
Because whakapapa doesn’t end with distancing. Culture doesn’t end with distancing. Knowing who you are and who you descend from doesn’t end with distancing. The cost of living in Dunedin is high. But for now I carry that, for my kids and for my tūpuna.
I am a māmā. I am Ngāti Korokī Kahukura. I am Ngāti Ranginui.
I am a decision-maker. I am a bearer of culture and language. I am a (re)connector.
I am all these things for my tūpuna, for my whānau, for me.
