I attended a small private school for all my school years.  I am not sure what the education years were at the time, but have this thought that the first year was called something like “Bubs”.  Then the children went into Grade 1 etc.  These days, it is called “Prep” in Victoria, and Kindergarten in NSW (and ACT, I think).  But the school I attended did not actually have that first year.  So I went into Grade 1 when I started school, along with my young brother who was only 15 months younger (he was only four, and they did have him repeat the year, so effectively he had the extra year.

Against that background, I ended up with twelve years of primary and Secondary schooling.  (My brother had 13 years, starting at age four).  The school subsequently did add the extra year of school, so from a few years later, the children had the 13 years.

Starting school at five (with a September birthday), I was in year 12 at 16, turning 17 towards the end of the year.  My brother, being only four when he started school also finished year 12 at 16.

Where does the odd one out come from?  For those children who started at a different school system, and joined my school later in their schooling, they were all 6-12 years older.  There was only one other girl in my class who was younger than me.  A little bit the odd one out, I suppose.
But it was when I started university that I really became the odd one out.  All the others in first year at Uni were 18 years old, I was only 17 (maybe it was only most, but it felt like all the others).  That year did seem to make a bit of a difference.  For example, living in Victoria, I could not get my driver’s licence; all the others could.  My brother also had the same experience – the odd on out being around a year or younger than his peers.

It was a bit of a coincidence that our son, was also the odd one in the same way.  This was because of moving around the country a bit – and because he had started school in Adelaide.  Here they had their first years as half Prep and half Grade 1.  He also started university at 17, when most of his peers were already 18.  At least though he had the opportunity driving as we were then living in Canberra.

Joy Shirley, August 2017

It was listening to the stories about others who had been the odd one out, that I thought of a couple of more occasions when I had felt the odd one out.  When thinking about one of these, I began to wonder whether the concept of “odd one out” was a state of thought rather than a fact.

The occasion I had originally been thinking about was when I was around 3 years old.  I was the third of four children, with the eldest four years older, and the youngest only 17 months younger than me.  It was possibly the first time my mother decided that my young brother could get in the bath with the rest of us – yes, all four in the bath at the same time.  The older two of my siblings decided that I would not fit and so I was not allowed in the bath with them – Mum had headed off elsewhere by this time.  I was left out of the bath.

Apart from being unhappy about this, or maybe because of being unhappy, I started playing the fool.  I put a pillow case over my head and started moving towards my bed in sight of the bathroom door.  I fell and hit my chin on the metal frame of the bed – blood everywhere.  I cannot remember much else about the incident, apart from feeling left out as they would not let me in the bath.

My siblings soon learnt that I could be easily teased, with two or three picking on me at a time.  My parents kept telling me that they would stop if I stopped reacting.  This did not really help as I still felt I was left out – three against one.

The final thing I remember was because of my hair – my sister’s hair was curly, my mother’s hair was curly, and at least one of my brothers had a bit of a wave in his hair (and of course boys had straight hair anyway).  Mine was straight without a wave of any kind.  I always wanted curly hair.  Mum did the old rags for curling hair, but it would not stay curly for long.  Here was I, being picked on by my siblings, and looking different from them.  I firmly believed that I must have been adopted!  Of course, I was NOT!

I was not the odd one out in the family, I only thought I was different.  Today, when looking in the mirror, all I can see is my mother’s face.  My state of thought had made me feel different and the odd one out.

Joy Shirley
​July 2017

I was in the workforce over a period of forty years.  There were times when I felt the odd one out, but there are two situations I can think of specifically.

Most of my professional life I worked in Information Technology.  It was a relatively new profession at the time – 1970.  I had taken one of the first ever computing units offered at Monash University.  There was no computing degree offered at that time, the unit was offered as a tool for other mathematics and science subjects.  Because I had enjoyed the unit, I decided to follow the work in my career.  When I started work, there were seven of us starting as trainee computer programmers starting with the company – four females and three males.  After marriage, and around six years out of computing, I returned to full time work.  Th industry had changed in just six years.  No longer was it seen as a gender-neutral industry.  It appeared that those of us who had started in the industry just a few years earlier had taken time out for family, and so it was the males who were moving up the career ladder in Information Technology.  It led to the industry being perceived as male dominated.  for the last thirty years of my professional life, I was one of the few women – an odd one out.

At one time, early in my time working with the Public Service, I was selected to participate in a development program that lasted 15 months.  This comprised of three intensive two-week training sessions, with three placements outside our traditional working professions.  There were around 15-20 of us participating in the program.  Since the others on the program were career public servants, the idea was for them to find work in different private sector organisations.  I had only joined the Public Service twelve months earlier, so for me the idea was to work in other areas of the Public Service.  This would give me the opportunity to find out more about how the service operated.  My first two placements were within the same organisation; the third was with ATSIC (the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission).  I was working in the Office of Indigenous Women.  Here I was the only European person on the team – and one of few white people in the organisation.  During this development program, I was the odd one out in two ways – the only participant who had spent all their career previously working in the private sector, and the only non-aboriginal in the Office of Indigenous Women.

Joy Shirley,
​August 2017