Paige, mother to 16-month-old Mali, has embraced not just motherhood but the rich traditions of a close-knit family that approaches parenting with warmth, spontaneity, and endless cups of tea.
When Paige married Indy Nutter, who grew up on Keoghs Road, she encountered a family where cousins, aunts, uncles and extended relatives genuinely enjoy spending time together – not just on special occasions, but regularly and willingly.
“What sort of shocked me the most was that they all kind of know each other, hang out with each other all the time willingly,” Paige reflects. “It was quite foreign to me. I was like, ‘What are these people doing?”
The family story stretches back to Pearl Towers, now approaching 95, who emigrated from Britain to Australia. Her daughter Teresa Keyzer (affectionately called “Mother Teresa”) married Gerard, a builder with a passion for astronomy. Teresa’s daughter Karen Harrison, a talented horse trainer, is mother to Indy.
In the early nineties, the family moved from Sydney to the Valley, establishing their property on Keoghs Road where three generations share the land in a village-style approach to family life.
Gerard built an incredible observatory on the property where the extended family sometimes gathers for star parties. “We’ll go up there and might have a bonfire and look through the telescope, and he gets his laser out,” Paige shares, describing these magical evenings under the stars that bring the generations together.
Family gatherings happen spontaneously at “Mother Teresa’s” house with its “fifty million chairs and fifty million beds” – the congregation place for all branches of the family, Paige explains. These get-togethers involve excessive tea drinking, with each family member having their assigned cup at each household – a designation that’s strictly honored.
“Mine has little cars on it,” Paige shares. “Indy’s has an L for loser,” she adds with the good humor we’ve come to expect from Paige. When asked what happens if someone uses another’s cup: “That’s illegal. That can’t happen.”
Unlike Paige’s family, where everyone watched TV in separate rooms, the Nutter-Harrison-Keyzer clan watches together, often pausing shows to discuss what’s happening, with everyone talking over each other in animated conversation.
As an enthusiastic horse person and devoted animal lover, Paige brings a unique perspective to her motherhood journey. Her animal family includes three horses, two cats, and a one-eyed lizard called Juan (whose predecessor, Peanut, was the ring bearer at Paige and Indy’s wedding).
Paige draws fascinating parallels between animal behaviour and parenting, explaining how consistency is key in both worlds. She shared a telling example about her horse Misha:
“If I go into my paddock and try to catch Misha, and she says ‘no’ and walks away, I’ll persist until I catch her,” Paige explains. “Time was that Indy would go in, she would say ‘no’ and walk away, and he’d go ‘whatever, I’m not doing this today.’ We don’t do that anymore because it means she can’t be caught by him. Needless to say, it didn’t take him long to start to persist until the desired outcome was achieved
This same principle of consistency applies to raising Mali. Rather than saying “no” when he attempts something dangerous, Paige and Indy redirect him – moving him to a specific spot when he tries to climb on the stove, just as they would redirect a horse.
What makes this particularly effective is how Paige and Indy established these consistent parenting approaches long before Mali was born.
“We’d already been co-parenting our animals for about six years when we had Mali,” Paige reveals. “So the training schedule was already kind of laid out.” This shared understanding of behaviour and boundaries gave them a solid foundation for human parenting.
Both Paige and Indy work full-time – she with horses as a barefoot trimmer and trainer, he as a landscaper serving many Valley properties – requiring them to share parenting (and mothering) equally.
“We work as a unit and discuss things to decide what our stance is as a joint company,” Paige explains, highlighting their unified approach to raising Mali.
Now in her second year of motherhood, Paige finds the toddler stage more challenging than those early months. “Now it means making sure he doesn’t die, at all times,” she laughs, as Mali explores his world by “climbing up on the stove, eating rocks, and jumping face-first off of high objects.”
As Mali grows under the watchful eyes of generations of strong women, the traditions of community, consistency, and care continue to flourish in this special Valley family – one teacup at a time.
From the Voice to all people mothering, we celebrate and thank you, wishing you a Happy Mothers Day.
