Adelaide private school mums hunt in packs. Very well-dressed packs.<\/p>\n
They send their offspring to top-tier schools: Saints, PAC, Pembroke, Pulteney, Wildy, Walford, Seymour, Loreto, Scotch and Saints Girls\u2019. We won\u2019t bother spelling out the full names. If you know, you know. If you don\u2019t, you probably don\u2019t belong here.<\/p>\n
Shh \u2013 don\u2019t tell anyone \u2013 but the poshest of all quietly ship their children to Geelong Grammar over the border, looking down their noses at Adelaide\u2019s most elite institutions with the serene confidence of people who have never once questioned their own taste. <\/p>\n
Geelong Grammar offers maximum bragging rights: a prestigious mystique that no local school can match, and \u2013 crucially \u2013 an excuse to fly to Victoria several times a year for exeat weekends at Timbertop.<\/p>\n
Adelaide\u2019s private school mums can be reliably found in the members\u2019 car park at Morphettville on cup day, deep into a bottle of Pol Roger, loudly shocked that half the pavilion is wearing the exact same $600 Sally Phillips dress. \u201cIs that a Sally?\u201d is the in-girls\u2019 greeting.<\/p>\n
Her husband is a surgeon, runs a family building company or is a partner in a law or accounting firm. They\u2019re all old boys called Matt, Dan, David and Josh, who married old girls called Jessica, Sarah, Emma and Rebecca. They are all descended from the Barr Smiths, the Bonythons and the Playfords. Nobody is entirely sure how, but ask them \u2013 they\u2019ll tell you. At length.<\/p>\n
The Adelaide private school mum met her husband on the verdant lawns of Adelaide University, where progress was lubricated by cheap beer and \u201890s grunge rock. The deal was sealed on a single bed at Saint Mark\u2019s College with two drunk mates passed out on the floor. Two decades, a Porsche Cayenne and three children later, they\u2019re still going strong.<\/p>\n
You can catch Jess, Sare, Em or Bec at the year six mums\u2019 coffee morning in Toorak Gardens, Burnside, Medindie, Unley or Stirling, holding a skinny cap and holding forth on the importance of rowing for an adolescent\u2019s self-esteem, the side-effects of Wegovy and the cost of snow tyres for the Cayenne. <\/p>\n
More importantly, whether the school is justified in hiking fees by seven per cent to fund a $15 million wellness and mindfulness centre that will be completed approximately a decade after Hazel and Theodore graduate.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t get us wrong. The Adelaide private mum deserves respect. She is an accomplished professional, juggling kids, husbands, work and a demanding 27-step beauty regimen. She\u2019ll rise at dawn to squeeze in a pilates class before doing double drop-off at two different schools and still make it making it to a speaking engagement at a UNHCR women\u2019s rights breakfast by 9am.<\/p>\n
She has a pool at home, a holiday house at Pt Willunga, a farm at Oakbank and still manages to enjoy not just a Euro Summer, but a northern one as well. <\/p>\n
Right now she and her gal pals are scattered across St Tropez, Puglia, Majorca and, if cash-strapped, Portugal <\/p>\n
As she will tell anyone who feigns interest: \u201cWe take a villa\u201d. She will also humble-brag about her travel mode: \u201cOh it\u2019s so embarrassing but Cordelia and Harry couldn\u2019t work out how to use the plastic cutlery as they\u2019d never flown economy before!\u201d<\/p>\n
During termtime weekends you\u2019ll find her at the village (Burnside Village, of course) picking up a little something from Scanlan and Theodore, Morrison or Zimmermann, and buying her husband a Ralph Lauren puffer \u2013 specifically one with the logo on the outside, so everyone at the Intercol barbecue knows it\u2019s RL. <\/p>\n
Or it\u2019s a few hours browsing on Rundle St, followed by a session at 2KW, EOS, Paloma Bar, or La Buvette on Gresham St for those who love a French bistro because they get to show off how fluent their kids are after the primary school language immersion program.<\/p>\n
The younger mum is also loving Kinney (ordered online), and no one is above popping into designer recycle shop on King William Rd, Better Together, for top labels from past seasons. Always a risk, though, that someone at the alumni drinks recognises that she\u2019s wearing their cast-offs.<\/p>\n
Although she will complain loudly about the private school coverage in The Advertiser, the Adelaide mum has read every word of it. Twice. And she is absolutely riveted by the latest alcohol-fuelled teen exploits at Intercols, not to mention the dramatic retelling of last year\u2019s Saints Year 12 parents\u2019 drinks \u2013 which, depending on who\u2019s telling it, was either a complete disgrace or the best night of the year.<\/p>\n
Probably both.<\/p>\n
Idols: Susie Nugent, Bec Morse, Kate Meade, Lucy Holmes, Kristi Centofanti, Rosanna Mangiarelli, Alice Monfries, Elspeth Hussey, Isobel Marshall, Amelia Mulcahy, Natasha Stott Despoja and Jane Lomax-Smith. And Poh Ling Yeow. Of course. Everyone loves Poh.<\/p>\n
Thanks to Zara Wong, who can be found at the Substack Screenshot This, for the field guide inspo, although we\u2019ve compiled our own version. <\/p>\n
As Wong puts it, \u201cThis is all fictionalised so if you recognise yourself, that\u2019s purely by coincidence\u201d. <\/p>\n
Have we nailed it or failed it? Leave a comment below or email us at education@news.com.au <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Adelaide private school mums hunt in packs. Very well-dressed packs. 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