Jesinta Franklin is running late, which is lucky because I am, too. As she texts to say she’s just leaving her daughter’s school concert, my phone buzzes with a summons from daycare – my own daughter is unwell and needs to be picked up. And so, Franklin and I start our conversation the way many parents do, with flustered apologies and a mutual understanding of the behind-the-scenes chaos known as “the juggle”.
To say Franklin has had a bit going on lately would be an understatement. Almost everything that can change in someone’s life has happened to the 34-year-old model and business owner in the past few years: a move from the city to the bush; the retirement of her husband, former AFL player Lance “Buddy” Franklin; investing in a business, Honey For Life; and, of course, the arrival of their third child, four-month-old son Bam.
So, I start our chat with the same question I’d ask any postpartum friend, settling into a new place or figuring out a new work-life dynamic with their partner. How are you?
“A little bit burnt out, to be honest,” Franklin replies.
Franklin’s first child, six-year-old daughter Tullulah, was a long time coming. After 2½ years of trying to conceive and several miscarriages, she and Buddy turned to IVF. Falling pregnant with her sons Rocky and Bam was a very different story.
Rocky’s arrival – just 13 months after Tullulah’s – was a surprise to the couple, who found themselves navigating COVID-19 lockdowns and AFL hubs with two under two. But the even bigger shock came four years later, after a family holiday in Bali where Franklin says she drank too many Aperols and came home pregnant with Bam.
“It took me a while to get my head around it,” she says, breastfeeding Bam while on the phone. “I’d never feel ungrateful, but it was a feeling of, ‘Oh, wow, we just got out of the trenches with the kids.’”
These days, Franklin is enjoying the age gap. It means Tullulah and Rocky can help out with their little brother, and Buddy can be the hands-on dad he wishes he’d been the first and second time around. “It’s been a healing postpartum experience with Bam,” she says. “I feel like it’s healed a little part of my heart that needed some love.”
Franklin and Buddy – or Bud, as she affectionately calls him – now spend their days horse-riding and collecting fresh eggs from their chooks, a lifestyle beautifully captured in a recent campaign for jewellery brand Saint Valentine. But life hasn’t always been like that. Living in Sydney (she’s originally from the Gold Coast), with no family nearby, and a partner who was often away, naturally took its toll. “I really struggled with his career when we had the children,” she says.
Since Buddy’s last game for the Sydney Swans in 2023, Franklin says the couple have found a perfect balance in co-parenting. “That first year of Bud’s retirement, I worked so much,” she says. “He was like, ‘I want you to do whatever you want, work-wise’ because I’d made so many sacrifices for him.”
Being able to travel for work while the other parent takes charge, and showing up as a family unit for the things that matter, like athletics carnivals and school concerts, is a reality that hasn’t always been possible, but is even more appreciated now as a result.
Beyond Buddy’s retirement, the other big part of the couple’s recent life shift has been their move to a 3.2-hectare hobby farm on the banks of the Coomera River in Queensland, complete with horse stables and vegetable garden. The decision to relocate from their Gold Coast home to the hinterland wasn’t made on a whim. While the search for the perfect property took two years, it was even longer in the making.
Rethinking their initial plans of buying 40 hectares, just after finding out Franklin was pregnant with Bam they came across a farm they initially thought was out of their price range. Still, the couple told themselves there was no harm in looking and promptly fell in love with what is now their forever home.
At that first inspection, Franklin says two things instantly confirmed the property had to be theirs. The first? The sight of three glossy black cockatoos flying over, an omen she felt was the universe telling her she was on the right track. The second was learning that the previous owners’ children had married on the property.
“Bud and I had both said we wanted this property to be the one our children come to with their future partners and – if they want to get married – get married here,” she says.
Though fans got to know the couple as a former Miss Universe contestant and one of the AFL’s biggest stars, stepping back from the fashion and sporting worlds always felt like a natural choice. Franklin says the parties, red carpets and restaurant openings the couple once regularly attended were always work and never where they truly felt themselves. For Buddy and Franklin, all the changes in the past five years are not so much a slowdown as a factory reset. “It’s like returning to ourselves,” she says.
While the couple are happy to share photos of their home and other parts of their lives on social media, they made the decision early to not share photos of their children’s faces. And while all three children appear in the campaign for Saint Valentine, they are only photographed from behind. Having drawn this hard boundary around privacy, I’m curious about how Franklin makes other decisions that shape the kind of mother she hopes to be.
“Honestly, there aren’t many nights I go to bed and think I’ve done it perfectly,” she says, echoing the sentiments of many mothers. “I always feel like I’ve fallen short in some way.”
But even in the uncertainty of parenthood, she says there are guiding principles she and Buddy share when it comes to their kids. “No matter what, they can always call us, they can always rely on us – that’s the biggest thing,” she says. “I want my kids to know that no matter where they are in the world or what’s happening in their lives, they can always come home, or we will always go to them.”
For now, the family are happy keeping things simple on the farm. On Mother’s Day, this means inviting family over for pancakes. And a sentimental gift – maybe one that can be worn at all times, or something handmade – will always be appreciated.
Like many parents, Franklin admits there are moments when she reflects on the ease of life before kids – a day that began at whatever time she felt like it and involved meeting a girlfriend for coffee, going to the gym, then heading to work.
After Rocky’s birth, Franklin felt herself racing to reclaim part of who she was before having two kids in close succession. This time, things feel different. Knowing how fast those early months with a newborn can speed past has gifted her a constant reminder to sit with each new phase of Bam’s life. Perspective, she says, has softened her. “It feels like everything we’ve worked towards for the last decade of our lives is coming to fruition. It’s just a really nice, settled, balanced spot to be in.”
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