L.M. Harwood

L.M. Harwood is an Australian author, educator, and the creator of Still the Parent. She spent more than twenty years in academia teaching and developing educational resources — work grounded in critical thinking, communication, and helping others learn.

In 2019, she moved from Australia to the Netherlands to study — intending it as a new chapter and an intellectual adventure. But alongside that, she was navigating something far more painful. It was in 2018 that she first understood her adult son had estranged her — a realisation that took almost a year to become clear. What followed were years of navigating a grief the world has no name for — the confusion, shame, longing, and silence that accompany parental estrangement. Over time, she moved from searching for answers toward acceptance, and from waiting for resolution toward rebuilding a meaningful life of her own. What changed her most was not the loss itself, but the process of surviving it.

She wrote her book — A Guide for Parents with Estranged Adult Children — because she could not find the support she needed. Too often, parents were left unseen, unheard, or quietly blamed. Still the Parent is the daily companion app she built alongside it — and you do not need the book to use it. Both exist to offer the same thing: understanding without judgement, and reassurance that even the strongest people can find their way back to themselves again.